Our Chickies are doing great. The laying has dropped off as it is soo very hot right now. they seem to do that when it is so hot, or so cold. But they still love the feed. Nothing is left on the ground around the feeders. And what we have changed since March is this. There is currently 2 days a week we are gone from the Farm, and we have the home made 5 gallon bucket feeders (which we love) full of all the seeds and supplements we use when we sprout.except that they are dry, not sprouted. The chickens still love this. We use Pearl Barley, BOSS, hard red winter wheat, milo, millet, oats, plus now we have added a high protein non gmo laying pellet, we add kelp granules, flax seeds, nutritional yeast flakes, bentonite clay or D.E. I think that is it. They girls have access to a big electric fence run. They used to have total free range, until the local Fox family found our Chicken buffet. We had to put an end to that. So they remain in a large fenced in grass area. With plans to continually enlarge it as funds are available.
We have all these food grade 5 gallon buckets with the lids, we buy for $1 from Burger King. They smell horribly like pickles and the only thing I can find to get the pickle smell out is a light solution of bleach and water. I have tried EVERYTHING ELSE FIRST! Vinegar, baking soda, sitting full of water for weeks in the sun. None of these even touch the smell of pickles. haha But once I put the light bleach solution spray inside the bucket, let it sit for less than 10 minutes with the lid on, I wash them out really well, and they are perfect for our use.
We sit all these 5 gallon buckets on our wooden Pallet, (2 or 3 of each usually fits a #50 bag) Label the lids. Have a 2 cup container and we simply open each container, get 6 or 7 cups out of each one, put it our mixing buckets, pour it back and forth with another one, until all the grains and supplements are well mixed, then pour it in to all our home made 5 gallon feeders.
When we are at the Farm we either sprout the grains excluding Milo and millet,(they take so much less time than the other grains, they will start to ferment, in a bad way) and feed that to them on our "poopoo platters", or we make "poopoo Platters" with cooked organic brown Rice I buy in bulk through a buying club. (I highly recommend becoming part of wholesale bulk buying clubs in your local area), pastas, oat meals. then adding all the supplements before serving. Plus we cut up either tomatoes, or bananas on top and add either yogurt or cottage cheese. and occasionally raw garlic pods cut up. They are wild and crazy girls, and one fabulous handsome rooster, when they see all those platters coming. They absolutely love them. I love feeding them this way.
A side note: when we first had to keep the girls and rooster up due to a huge amount of fox attacks, we were unprepared for the whole situation. And after only about 5 days, we noticed the egg yolks were a light yellow all of a sudden. We thought it stress, but soon realized they were not getting the green vegetation they were used to, and found that 30% of their diet is greenery. We started using the little push mower with a bag and several times a day we would give them a huge pile of sweet grass and clover, plaintain and dandelion. They dove in. The yolks turned orangey again and everyone was temporarily happy. Course we had to wait for the electric poultry fence to arrive before we could let them out again. Now all is awesome.
Hope this long letter helps you in what ever you were wanting to know. I love our 45 chickens. We sell every egg they lay, because of the color and taste and knowing of their raisings. It is always a wonderful and sometimes but rarely sad adventure in chicken rearing. Cheers! Kelley
