Official BYC Poll: How Do You Keep Your Feed Costs Low?

[arwoon]

We give ours all the chicken scraps from the kitchen we have.

 

[Brooks_]

Bigger grasshoppers can kick you too and it can kind of hurt. The ones out here get pretty big, and you can't get up to them that easy, they will take off, so what I do is, I hit them with my laser in the head / eyes, blind them, then I can walk right up and grab them and feed to the chickies. I used to have dog fennel growing in the one side of the yard until i finally got off my lazy ass and mowed it down and it was pretty good on bugs, but the bugs would not stay there and would want to come over to my real garden so that just would not work.

One problem I do have which the chickens do not help with are fire ants. I would poison the nests some of them are HUGE and it'd take a few applications, and they'd bust up in to smaller nests and migrate etc, so what I do now is I get a shovel, scoop up one nest and plop it onto another nest. They think they are invading and kill each other off then leaving a lot less ant mess for me to have to deal with.

Aaron

1...2...3...4....I declare an ant war!

 

[Ascholten]

I am trying to eradicate Japanese Beetles in my area. The chickens love them, both as beetles and as the grub. I look for the grubs whenever I turn dirt in my garden. Free protein. Turn bugs into eggs. Magic!

I say the same thing when I feed mine beetles. It's a bit too early in the season but I usually put out several bug lamps that I modified with a jar on the bottom of them. The beetles hit the grid, get stunned and fall into the jar in the bottom, I then daily, or every other day if I forget, empty the jars into the beaks of 4 hungry mooches. If you got those beetles in an area of your yard, feed the chickens there, dig up a worm somewhat, then put a little bit of scratch food around it and.... let them scratch.... Sooner or later they'll discover the grubs and they will tear up the rest of the area and get the grubs you missed. Plus save you the back breaking work of having to turn the soil yourself!!

 

[MMPinVA]

Will they eat cicadas? We're supposed to have millions of them here in about a month!

 

[Kenzelton the 3rd]

The chickens will bang them into the ground, drag them smash and bust them up and eat them... oh and lets not forget the tug o war when another chicken sees one with it too... I found a rats nest in my compost heap, pinkies, fed them to the chickens, same thing, THAT was gruesome.

I did that with a field mouse I found in my garden... I almost felt bad for the thing. I should have killed it before tossing it in. I also tried feeding them a copperhead snake I found and chopped it’s head off, but the girls where too young to break through the scales.

 

[Solanacae]

No problem!
It just doesn't make sense to me. They survive in the wild, so why shouldn't they in captivity? I wonder if they were put in the fridge (just above freezing) would they hibernate like some insects do?

It’s a good question. I guess if you mimicked their preferred overwintering habitat you could do something like that. They’re not native to my area, as far as I can tell, because winters are too cold for them. The real question becomes, do you want to have a bunch of bugs hibernating in your refrigerator?

 

[BDutch]

PioneerChicks said:
No problem!
It just doesn't make sense to me. They survive in the wild, so why shouldn't they in captivity? I wonder if they were put in the fridge (just above freezing) would they hibernate like some insects do?

It’s a good question. I guess if you mimicked their preferred overwintering habitat you could do something like that. They’re not native to my area, as far as I can tell, because winters are too cold for them. The real question becomes, do you want to have a bunch of bugs hibernating in your refrigerator?

Yes. Chickens certainly need to be fed in winter in most climates and also when they have limited access to fertile and vegetated soil free ranging.

In the mild climate where I live temp is no problem to survive. There are some area’s where feral chickens live that have been dumped. But they wouldn’t or would barely survive if there were no good hearted people who feed these feral chickens.

 

[Ascholten]

Feral Chickens should have feral nests with feral eggs somewhere no? Seems to me time to find these nests and get a feral omlette for your efforts !

We got yardbirds that wander here as well, it's not too uncommon to have to hit the brakes because someones birds decided to wander into the road. Peacocks is another bird that runs wild here sometimes, and yes they are purty bla bla but can get just as annoying as any %$# rooster you can think of at times too ! Problem is, you go after a rooster with a garden rake and people just nod silently, they feel your pain, but try that with a peacock and you are this horrible mean ogre with no heart !! I also get that when I yell at the Rottentoo to STFU, people go, oh youre MEAN, and that little feathered turd head laughs, because he knows Ive been had again

Aaron

 

[PioneerChicks]

It’s a good question. I guess if you mimicked their preferred overwintering habitat you could do something like that. They’re not native to my area, as far as I can tell, because winters are too cold for them. The real question becomes, do you want to have a bunch of bugs hibernating in your refrigerator?

They aren't native here either. As for the fridge, well we've done it with ladybugs, aren't they practically the same thing?

 

[Solanacae]

They aren't native here either. As for the fridge, well we've done it with ladybugs, aren't they practically the same thing?

That’s awesome! I haven’t tried doing that sort of thing yet but it’s good to know you can. I keep bees, and I’ve heard of commercial bee keepers who rent refrigerated warehouses where they overwinter their hives. It’s cold enough that they stay in a cluster in the hive, but not so cold that they go through their honey stores too fast. Then they take them to CA for all of the spring pollinating work. Same basic idea, just a larger scale.