I may be growing my own food for the chickens after all, due to genetic editing

[Sally PB]

I'm thinking of going fishing for it locally.

I was just reading about fish caught from local streams in the book, What to Eat, by Marion Nestle. The focus of that chapter was about being aware of what toxins might be in the water, and therefore accumulate in the fish. Something you might want to check out...?

I've been told I have one of the best fishing spots in my county for fishing. I'm also in the watershed of the farm fields next to my property. I know he uses glyphosate.

 

[NanaK]

Paper napkin figuring.
Meaning, the first, very rough idea of how much space to allow for growing grain for the chickens.

4 hens x quarter pound of feed per day = 1 pound per day. 365 days per year.

Plus a generous margin and to make the math easier, 400 pounds of feed per year.

About 1/2 to 2/3 of that might be grain. If I figure all of it is grain, I'll have a very, very generous upper limit.

Yields per acre in my climate:
Corn: about 150 bushel, 56 pounds each
Wheat: about 80 bushel, 60 pounds each
Oats: about 60 bushel, 32 pounds each
Barley: about 50 bushel, 48 pounds each

And not a grain, but to save looking it up later when I get to other parts:
Soy: about 50 bushel, 60 pounds each

To get the square feet needed to grow one bushel:
There are 43,560 sq ft per acre.
43,560 divided by 150 is about 290
43,560 divided by 80 is about 545
43,560 divided by 60 is about 725
43,560 divided by 50 is about 870

If I figure up to half corn, up to half wheat, up to half oats, up to a quarter barley:
200 pounds of corn is 4 bushel
200 pounds of wheat is 4 bushel
200 pounds of oats is 6 bushel
100 pounds of barley is 2 bushel

If I have 100' rows, that is
12' of corn
22' of wheat
45' of oats
18' of barley

So, about 100' x 100' for all the grains.

Not that I will plant them all in the same plot. If I don't plant a whole field of one of them, I'll put a strip of it at the end of a field of something else. Or maybe do both ways to see how it goes.

And not that I won't have other grains, too - teff, rye, sorghum, etc... but added them means needing less of these. It should still be in the ball park. And, I'd plant only a little of them, at least the first year, because I haven't grown some of them before.

I've not done the math but following your thread to learn.

A little about my situation-
I supplement store bought feed with the things I grow. My flock does not get to free range although I have plenty of land, the predators are plentiful. I try to bring a bit of free range to my birds. They have an oversized run with deep litter so they find lots of bugs, little lizards and such. I have a large veggie garden that only has to feed 2 people. Of course I can, freeze and give to my MIL. I always plant extra for my chickens. We have a long growing season, almost year round.
I also believe it pays to know how to make do when you can't get what you need, so my interest in your studies.

Now my question- again I've not done the math.

By your estimation, you can grow the above listed bushels of grain on 100' x 100' ? That surprises me! Years ago, My veggie garden was 11-12 100' rows. I tended that by hand. No power tools other than my DH tilled it for me in spring. The rest of the year I used a stirrup hoe, rake and shovel and of course my back. lol Now my garden is a bit smaller and my back older but I still grow way more than he and I can eat.

Your figures give me hope I could maybe branch into some grain to supplement and learn more. I've grown sweet corn before but not the yellow feed types. I've never grown the others you mention. We have a few acres that's cleared of trees and only growing grass was previously crop land.

Thanks for sharing.

 

[U_Stormcrow]

Have you considered aquaculture/permaculture and a large pond of circulating water with a fish stock like tilapia?

 

[saysfaa]

I was just reading about fish caught from local streams...

I've looked a little, not enough to say much yet.

 

[saysfaa]

...

By your estimation, you can grow the above listed bushels of grain on 100' x 100' ? That surprises me! ...

Your figures give me hope I could maybe branch into some grain to supplement and learn more.

I don't trust any of my math!

But I think I got it pretty close this time. Edit to add, pretty close given that I don't have any shortage of space, don't care if there is extra, and don't have much experience.

I dug out my book "Small-Scale Grain Raising" by Gene Logsdon

He says the space to grow 1 bushel is:
Field corn, 10' x 50'
Sweet corn, 10' x 80'
Popcorn, 10' x 80' (regular ears; not necessarily strawberry type varieties)
Oats, 10' x 62'
Barley, 10' x 87'
Rye, 10' x 145'
Buckwheat, 10' x 130'
Grain sorghum, 10' x 60'
Wheat, 10' x 109'

He says these are just ballpark figures. Weather, variety, knowhow make a lot of difference. A really good wheat grower with a little luck can get a bushel from a plot half that size.

He also covers how much grain a family might use for cooking and sprouting in a year:
Wheat, 4 pecks (1 bushel)
Corn, 2 pecks
Popcorn, 2 pecks
Soybeans, 4 pecks
Grain sorghum, 2 pecks
Buckwheat, 1 peck
Oats, 1 peck
Triticale or rye or barley, 1 peck
Navy (or other soup bean), 2 pecks
Alfalfa (for sprouting), 1 or 2 quarts
Lentils, field peas, cane sorghum, ??

This can be expected to take 1/6 of an acre. For all of them. That is, all of the pecks a family could expect to eat (not the one bushel of each kind given before that).

Obviously, families vary in size and tastes. Mine is quite a lot different in the mix used, although probably not much different in total amount. A cup of grain makes about a cup of flour, if someone wanted to figure how much they use by how much whole grain, rolled or cracked grain, and flour they use.

Also, he gives how much grain various animals can be expected to eat in a year. He says one bushel per hen but doesn't give recipies or say anything about what they might be eating besides the grains.

Other parts of the book cover things like growing, harvesting, and processing (winnowing, hulling, and such).

It really is quite doable. My sister grows 10x10 or 10x20 plots of several kinds of grains in her garden. I might have the size wrong but quite small.

 

[saysfaa]

Have you considered aquaculture/permaculture and a large pond of circulating water with a fish stock like tilapia?

Sort of. Not tilapia; they wouldn't do well this far north. And I'd pick something native even if they did... probably bluegill or pumpkinseeds and bass.

It is a good idea; I don't have a well or electricity.

I do have a pond that is fed by a good spring. I've looked into stocking it. I still might but I'm not planning on fish from it.

It is distinctly not a fish pond. It very deep and has a good water flow. The biggest problem is it has too much organic matter from the forest all around it - that feeds the algae every summer that would kill the fish unless I aerated it. I played with the idea of wind powered aeration but the forest blocks most of the wind. I can try to pull the logs and leaf muck out to lower the organic matter to get closer to a healthy balance; that is an extreme lot of work for a temporary fix. The next biggest problem is it doesn't have a spawning area (all the sides are too steep).

Oh, and building a second pond or a tank for fish downstream from the pond is not practical because of the mature forest there too.

 

[raingarden]

I've looked a little, not enough to say much yet.

You are right in the middle of the invasive carp catastrophe. They're easy to catch or really cheap to buy. It will halp save the Great Lakes.

 

[saysfaa]

You are right in the middle of the invasive carp catastrophe. They're easy to catch or really cheap to buy. It will halp save the Great Lakes.

And the alewives. And the gobies now too (but it is illegal to transport the gobies).

I didn't know about the carp. A quick look shows all four species of carp that are invading were introduced to "assist with pest control". Even the supposedly sterile grass carp are spreading. I'm not sure whether to be more sad or more mad.

Carp have a big ewww factor for me since I saw a huge one in a ditch in flat farm country. I'd take them out if I saw them but I don't know if I can feed them to the chickens. I'd probably feed them to the soil instead.

Edit to add. Or I could just get over the ewww factor, if they looked healthy and came from cleaner water than that stagnant ditch was.

 

[U_Stormcrow]

Sort of. Not tilapia; they wouldn't do well this far north. And I'd pick something native even if they did... probably bluegill or pumpkinseeds and bass.

It is a good idea; I don't have a well or electricity.

I do have a pond that is fed by a good spring. I've looked into stocking it. I still might but I'm not planning on fish from it.

It is distinctly not a fish pond. It very deep and has a good water flow. The biggest problem is it has too much organic matter from the forest all around it - that feeds the algae every summer that would kill the fish unless I aerated it. I played with the idea of wind powered aeration but the forest blocks most of the wind. I can try to pull the logs and leaf muck out to lower the organic matter to get closer to a healthy balance; that is an extreme lot of work for a temporary fix. The next biggest problem is it doesn't have a spawning area (all the sides are too steep).

Oh, and building a second pond or a tank for fish downstream from the pond is not practical because of the mature forest there too.

I've looked at using solar power to aerate my little 16,000 gallon pond (estimated). Unfortunately, 16,000 gallon is not "little" for DC powered pump purposes. If you have a fast moving deep water source, it wouldn't be practical for you, either. Sorry I've no better idea.

 

[Cat Ballou]

Humans have been selectively breeding plants and animals for advantageous traits for thousands of years. We keep pushing for more product with less waste in less time. GMOs (or whatever we are calling them now) are just the next step in this. If we can force 1000 years of cross breeding by just modifying the genetics of a seed and result in a bigger, better and faster plant with no side effects from their consumption, why shouldn't we?

GMOs have been the big scary thing for some time as the enemy to "healthy eating", but the reality of the situation is that the alternative is starvation. With this absolutely ridiculous population we are trying to support on this rock, we NEED the ability to pump out even more food from our limited farms just to keep people fed.

The level of ignorance in this post is astounding

1) Selective breeding works WITHIN the genetic code of the species. Genetic engineering is something entirely different. It does not increase yield directly but injects pesticides at the cellular level.

How do you remove pesticides from your food when it’s contained inside the cells? You can’t. You’re forced to eat it with the food. God forbid the introduction of allergens that will kill someone.

2) No one is looking out for you. Resultant health care costs generate too much profit. All leading causes of death implicate the medical-pharmeceutical-agricultural industrial complex.

https://usrtk.org/the-fda-does-not-test-whether-gmos-are-safe/

3) It’s completely ridiculous to assert the only choices are gmos or starvation. There is a psychological term for this:

Emotional blackmail

Try growing edibles in your yards instead of poisoning everything and lying.

John 10:10