Pastoral Poultry, Traditional Farming For A Modern Era

[Bill Matthews]

To JDXX....There are many things you can do to scrounge sufficient feed for your flock at little or no cost....Try the throwout bins at your supermarket.....There are people here in USA and elsewhere(Australia for example) who actually live off discarded grocery store items.....Also, bread, milk, and meat that is marked down can be a feed bargain....Don't be too worried about hurting the chickens....They eat anything, and I mean anything, with few problems...Glad to see this site back in business.....Take care.

 

[SJ]

Rye and pea total failure rains rotted the seed.

 

[bayocum]

Hey Brice!

I should start collecting for your egg shipment early next week sometime......

Wendell… just wanted to let you know that I ended up with a great little hatch… 8 chicks in total. I marked them to identify #3's from #4's, but I need to look to see if the mark is still visible. Really excited to see these little ones grow out. I hatched 5 more from my birds about the same time, so it will be a good comparison of stock. Thanks for your graciousness and for all the information you've shared along the way. Let's keep this thread going!
Best,
Brice

 

[wsmith]

Wendell… just wanted to let you know that I ended up with a great little hatch… 8 chicks in total.  I marked them to identify #3's from #4's, but I need to look to see if the mark is still visible.  Really excited to see these little ones grow out.  I hatched 5 more from my birds about the same time, so it will be a good comparison of stock.  Thanks for your graciousness and for all the information you've shared along the way.  Let's keep this thread going!
Best,
Brice

Very cool!

 

[Rioux]

I know this thread is old but I thought it was worth reviving. I just got into chickens this spring. I quickly got hooked and now I have 13 Bresse chicks in the brooder. My layers haven't started laying yet (any day now) but they are turned out first thing in the morning and put them selves to bed at night I give them a ration of fermented food in the morning and evening. I plan on raising the Bresse the same way.

 

[Rioux]

I should add I have 11 hens covered by an Isbar rooster in my layer flock.

 

[lazy gardener]

Hi. Just stumbled on this thread. Yep, it's old, but the ideas are fresh. I'd like to suggest that you check out: the natural chicken keeping thread. Some discussion going on there regarding these concepts, also, an excellent article about a continuous loop of sustainable practice with poultry and gardening, with an Ag program in Guatemala. Could easily and I'm sure is being done already in US, with species adaptation for varied climates. Check out post # 37131. Haven't seen WSmith around in a long time.

 

[bayocum]

Hi there Rioux, thanks for trying to freshen things up around here. It has been awhile since we had some good conversation going on. It is a good thread and I'd be happy to see it come back to life. Are you currently running an Isbar over your Bresse hens, or did I misunderstand that? Tell us more
Welcome, and thanks for getting involved.
Best,
Brice

 

[Rioux]

No, the Isbar was over my layer flock. The Bresse are still in the brooder I just received my day old Bresse chicks last week. Unfortunately I was in the hospital Sunday into Monday and I had someone who was supposed to let my chickens out of the coop but didn't and I lost half my flock to the heat including my Isbar. I plan on raising the Bresse free range and housing them in a separate coop at night. I will feed them fermented food in the morning and evening like my layers. Right now they are on fermented feed made out of a local non gmo chick starter with 21.5 percent protein.

 

[bayocum]

That's a shame... we've experienced similar accidents here ourselves, unfortunately. I'd like to know more about your fermented feed. I was using mixture of peas, corn, oats and wheat. Fermented in water with raw apple cider vinegar. My birds loved it, but I saw some egg eating that coincided with the fermented feed. When I stopped, the egg eating stopped. We were feeding fermented one day, layer the next. Now that I feed the fermented only in addition to the layer, there's seems to be no issues with egg eating. I'm wondering if there was a calcium relationship that I wasn't aware of. Have you ever experienced anything like that with your flock?