If feed stores closed and you can’t free range...

[PirateGirl]

Also urban foraging... what can you get from other local establishments that are still up and operating? Can you get food scraps from restaurants or school cafeterias, expired grocery products, spent grains from the brewery/distillery, etc.?

 

[CraftyHen]

For starters, any eggs laid would probably have to go right back to the flock. We have a very short growing season, even with my cold frames, so that would really only help part of the year, I do like to grow mixed greens in there and I like to just pick leaves off to use so that the main plant keeps growing and producing as long as possible before I harvest the entire head of romaine/lettuce/etc. Our forage isn't great due to the short growing season, but we do have a good variety of wild grasses including quite a bit of wild wheat. I would tap into this naturally abundant plant. The idea of wire frames is appealing and it must be able to go to seed at some point to self sustain. Another random thought, if times were really hard, would be live traps for rodents that could then be fed to the flock.

I like the idea of trapping rodents for the flock. Food thinking. Foraging is good too.

 

[21hens-incharge]

I would be growing extra swiss chard, broccoli, cabbage, squash, corn, buckwheat, alfalfa and preserving by freezing or drying whatever I could for winter months.

Dry or canned cat food along with fish and scraps from cooking for the humans for a protein boost.
Hmmmmmm pet food stores are still open.... they carry wild bird feed as well as parrot food so that is technically still an option.

 

[sylviethecochin]

What you would do for your geese I already do for my chickens. They eat weeds and grass clippings and kitchen scraps and garden failures. So why get rid of chickens?

Because they can't live off that indefinitely, and remain healthy. Chickens diets in the wild are mostly insect and seed, which I don't think is sustainable, in the situation you describe. If you can get oats, or other kinds of grain, to feed mealworms and such, why aren't you already feeding that to the chickens? If you can't get oats and other types of grain, then you're in a survival situation, and the chickens are not going to be a priority.

So what would you do?

Acorns. We get them by the bucketload. Also, Jerusalem artichokes. Plant and watch 'em explode.

But I would think of that as a stopgap, and if circumstances were indefinite.... Yep. Geese.

 

[centrarchid]

Be realistic and use common sense.

Ration feed immediately. Most lacking free-range area will also not have enough greens / garden refuse to feed birds more than a token amount.

Cull quickly to get flock number down to further stretch feed. Adult chickens in good weight can go a week without feed if provided water and not overly crowded.

I just went out and purchased about 3 weeks worth of feed is used at normal rate. It can be stretched to almost twice that if I sacrifice egg production. I also have free-range option. If you do not have sufficient resources, then you may loose flock.

 

[HenOnAJuneBug]

Now we’re thinking! Good ideas! Hmmmm. Could chickens be allowed to pick through compost at will? Maybe that’s where the compost pile needs to live?

I want to make the cold frame part of their run, so they can rummage around amongst the compost and greens at will, but also be able to close it off if they're not leaving me any greens.

 

[Abriana]

I’m panicking a little, but not much. Yet. I think we could free range and be okay. I’m just thankful that winter is turning to spring and not the other way around! I’m planning on stocking up on some when we go into town next, probably today or tomorrow.

 

[Shadrach]

I can't help thinking that's it's threads like this that have erupted on the Internet that are causing the panic buying. So far more people die each day in car accidents.
Sure the virus is dangerous, particularly if you're elderly and have respiratory, or cardiac problems. It has actually killed a very very small percentage of those who contracted it.
I think here in Spain it's killed around 50 people out of the estimated 2300 infected.
Lets try and keep some sense of proportion and rationality. It's the hysteria that's doing most of the damage currently, not the virus.

 

[TLCMidMichigan]

I can even now go to the larger grocery store and purchase a box of greens for about $4-5 dollars. I have asked before about the few day older that's thrown out, and was told they can't give it away. So I hold out for the reduced price greens. A reduction of 30-40%.
Plus I purchase mealworms as a treat and protein added food.

 

[HenOnAJuneBug]

I can't help thinking that's it's threads like this that have erupted on the Internet that are causing the panic buying. So far more people die each day in car accidents.
Sure the virus is dangerous, particularly if you're elderly and have respiratory, or cardiac problems. It has actually killed a very very small percentage of those who contracted it.
I think here in Spain it's killed around 50 people out of the estimated 2300 infected.
Lets try and keep some sense of proportion and rationality. It's the hysteria that's doing most of the damage currently, not the virus.

Agree, but if movement is restricted, then there might not be food available when needed. Thus it's rational to prepare for such an eventuality.