Shadrach's Ex Battery and Rescued chickens thread.

[TropicalChickies]

Whew. Tax. Lucio becoming quite a handsome cockerel at 7 months!

I'm really feeling the loss of Cleo to the tribe however. Lucio had so much respect for her, and she really kept him on task. He's feeling his oats now for sure. Having a young flock is very different -- I can see now why people who dispose of their chickens after a year or two for new ones think they are flighty and disorganized animals. Sure they are -- like a bunch of unruly teenagers. I'm really hoping one of the broodies (they are both two years old, but that's the best I have) can step up to senior hen-ness once the kids are on their own.

 

[GregnLety]

Been busy at work lately so here's a few pics.

Silky crosses and a son of my late naked neck rooster

 

[MrsNorthie]

Hi folks, for those of you interested in the homemade/commercial feed discussion, here's the questions I had for Perris after reading his excellent article on the subject. (Well, the questions come after an impassioned soapbox rant about why I'm (finally) making the transition that Perris thought would resonate with others. I hope it does, or at least it's fun to read )

I posted Perris' response to my questions as the next post. @Perris -- one of the drawbacks about posting as a "Review" is that there's no way to take the discussion further -- I can't reply to your reply. And I do have a couple more questions, so I worked them in to your reply (in bold).

Here's my original review:

--Thanks for researching and writing this article, and including the references which I am reading with interest. It's very timely for me and I plan to put it in to practice starting now. I have a few questions below, but first, here is why I'm making the transition.

I've been thinking for a long time about making a homemade feed mix for my chickens. The biggest obstacle that's been stopping me is finding the time to research the different foods readily available here, their nutritional contents, and devising a formula – or formulas – based on my findings. It's just so darn easy to buy the bag of layer or chick crumble. And cheap – 40 cents per pound. We don't have enough help as it is running our farm and various projects as it is, and money is always an issue. But… I've received multiple signs that I need to find the time somewhere and stop buying this stuff.

The signs? Nothing from the ether, just the crappy fact that two out of the last three sacks of crumble I bought went moldy and I had to toss it. I only buy 20lb sacks, I keep the crumble in an airtight container, I and always use it within a month. So that means it's coming from the feed store already almost spoiled. I'd rather spend time than waste money on spoiled feed.

Where we live (rural Ecuador, rainforest climate) it's not like I have choices of feed brands, designer this or organic that. There's one or two big companies distributing animal feeds, one kind of feed for layers, one for chicks, and that's it. The layer and chick feed comes in unmarked plain sacks, no date, and the only way to find out what's in it is to ask the store proprietor if you can please look at the label on the enormous sack from the manufacturer in the warehouse. So I know the feed is a pretty typical commercial mix: wheat, soy, maize, sunflower oil, and a bunch of vitamin additives, 18% protein minimum. Maybe it's average as feeds go, but if I can't get it fresh enough to use without potentially poisoning my birds, that's the game changer right there.

Another reason: anytime I have a chicken who is feeling a little off, the first thing they do is reject the commercial feed. I'm not talking about dying birds. I've successfully treated some illnesses and when chickens are recovering, all they want is the scrambled egg, sardines, and wholesome carbs like quinoa or sweet potato that I give them. It's a chore to get them to go back to eating commercial feed again, and that tells me it's really not what they want or need.

My chickens free range all day every day in orchards, forest, and grassy areas. There's all sorts of wild berries, cultivated fruits, grasses, and native groundcover plants. They nibble at whatever looks good to them. They eat bugs, worms, frogs, lizards, moths etc. So I can assume they are supplementing their diet already with foraging.

Besides, I've wanted to make a change for personal reasons. I just don't feel good feeding them the commercial stuff. It feels like a convenient cop out, and that's not congruent with our lifestyle out here at all. Neither wheat nor soy are grown in Ecuador so what's in this feed is either GMO loaded crap from Empire USA or linked to Amazon deforestation in Brazil, or both. Lordy. And here I am talking about the importance of rainforests and food sovereignty and locally produced food and the evils of globalization and yadda yadda, but I've been buying this stuff for my chickens, whom I like better than most people. No wonder I feel like a total turd dishing it out to them.

I tossed the moldy feed today and have no plans to go into town for a few days, but the chickens needed to eat. So I just cooked up a pot of rice, quinoa, sweet potato, amaranth, flax seeds, lentils and added half a cup of yellow split pea flour to boost the protein. I added some fresh grated turmeric and ginger root from the garden. Maybe it's not perfect, but I felt good making it and the chickens loved it.

I've been giving them a big can of mackerel or sardines once a week, or making a stew with meaty beef bones, cassava and quinoa. And their reaction when I dish out something like that makes it obvious they are clamoring for something else than the crumble.

Ok, rant over. On to your article and my questions for you. I see that your personal studies led you to use wheat as a base ingredient. For reasons already mentioned, I don't want to use wheat. If I'm going to do this, I want to do it right, meaning I use what we grow on the farm and what's readily available from local sources.

I'd appreciate it if you could look at these lists of possible ingredients and advise me which ones would be your top picks for a homemade feed.

If I could devise a mix based on "free" ingredients (what we grow) from List 1 combined with ingredients from the second two lists, I could come up with something for the same cost as commercial feed.

We grow four excellent carbohydrate sources, each with different vitamin, mineral and fiber content.

List 1 (we grow it, just the sweat cost!)
Cassava (manioc). Big starchy tubers (not related to potato). Very low protein. High fiber. Some mineral content. The chickens love it. A lot of folks around here feed their chickens cassava, it grows so easily and is hugely productive. But is so low in protein, I wouldn't use it alone.
Camote. A tropical sweet potato. Less sugar than temperate sweet potatoes. Moderate protein. High fiber, vitamin and mineral content.
Taro. Small starchy roots. Not related to potato. Low protein. Good mineral content. Reportedly anti- inflammatory.
Plantains. Similar to bananas, but bigger with less sugar.* High in B vitamins and potassium. Can be consumed raw when yellow (ripe) or cooked when green.

All of these would require cooking to neutralize oxalates and make them more digestible. But I figure I could make a big batch every three days and by days two and three it would be lightly fermented. That's how Kichwa people get chicha (fermented drinks) started (and by adding their saliva, btw).

*Note: I'm careful with my flock eating bananas. I know they are excellent sources of nutrition, but occasionally they have gotten into an entire bunch that fell in the fruit orchard and ended up with a sour crop from eating dozens of rotting bananas, peels and all. So I'm more comfortable with using cooked green plantains because they are much lower in sugar or moderately ripe plantains raw.

List 2
Ingredients Locally available (at 50 - 60 cents per lb):
Barley
Cracked maize
Rolled oats
Rice*
Lentils
Black eyed peas (cowpeas)
Dried peas
Lupine
*I didn't think rice was very nutritious, but turns out it has a lot of benefits for chickens. My group prefers it cooked.
https://learnpoultry.com/chickens-eat-rice/

List 3
More Ingredients Locally available (at about $1 per lb):
These more costly ingredients I could add in smaller amounts to make the mix more nutritious.
Quinoa* (moderate protein, complete amino acid profile, )
Amaranth* (high protein, minerals)
Flax seed* (high protein, fat, minerals)
Chia seed* (similar to flax in composition)
Yellow split pea flour** (high protein)
Fava bean flour**(high protein)

*Regarding these ingredients, they are extremely high in some minerals. I see this might be a problem.
**These flours are easy to use by adding water to make a paste and mixing it in with a grain mix or mash to up the protein.

Question: I notice that you recommend using lentils sparingly because they have a lot of iron. Are there other minerals that chickens should not get in excess?

Question: How would I formulate the mix? I was thinking perhaps to research the nutritional contents of each food per 100g and try different combinations that would have a minimum protein and fat content and a broad array of vitamins and minerals. What's the easiest way to figure this out? Or is this calculation not even necessary?

Question: Seeing how some of these ingredients (especially the ones we grow) and the hard seeds (like quinoa and amaranth) require cooking, while others only need soaking and fermenting, I figure I could devise two "formulas" –
A cooked mash of cassava, camote, plantain etc with peas or lentils and seeds added. The tubers, quinoa, and amaranth all have equal cooking times so could be easily prepared.
A soaked fermented mix of oats, barley, and maize with peas and seeds added.

Does this sound like a good plan? To provide variety without going overboard?

I would still plan on giving them some sardines and/or meat weekly as a "real treat."

I really appreciate any of your expertise with this. I'm done with this commercially manufactured stuff. My birds deserve better.

Thank you very much!

I appreciate your questions! I read that article with great interest too, in wanting to be able to grow things myself, for the chickens to supplement their bug hunting, not only to improve the quality of feed they are getting, but also, in case things get as bad as predicted and we can't find safe food for them.

Getting it right is so very important, so I will be following this very closely. Thank you for reviving this topic!

 

[MrsNorthie]

Whew. Tax. Lucio becoming quite a handsome cockerel at 7 months!

I'm really feeling the loss of Cleo to the tribe however. Lucio had so much respect for her, and she really kept him on task. He's feeling his oats now for sure. Having a young flock is very different -- I can see now why people who dispose of their chickens after a year or two for new ones think they are flighty and disorganized animals. Sure they are -- like a bunch of unruly teenagers. I'm really hoping one of the broodies (they are both two years old, but that's the best I have) can step up to senior hen-ness once the kids are on their own.

View attachment 3537458

It has to be an adjustment after losing such a strong personality and rooster puberty is rough. I don't want my boys to get old, but a little maturity would not go amiss.

 

[MrsNorthie]

If you cut trees to build somethings that will last for a longer period than it needs to grow. Then using wood it not bad for the environment at all. This way it can diminish the greenhouse gasses if you plant new trees. .

Making new plastic is always bad for the environment, because its also a byproduct for the gasoline fuels. Using the waste for building things that last a long time, is good thing though.

There is a lot of greenwashing going on in recycling plastic. Especially the ones that claim they are made with ocean plastic. The trendy ocean plastic handbags are 100 % marketing strategy and 0 % ocean plastic. It just partly recycled plastic from recycling stations. In an interview with a critical reporter they claimed that they prevent it to becoming ocean plastic and they label it as ocean plastic because of that. Recycling ocean plastic is way more costly than recycling plastic from waste stations.

Source: broadcasted on our national TV: Keuringsdienst van waarde: Plastic, dinsdag 16 mei om 20.35 uur bij KRO-NCRV op NPO 1.

The simple solution to dealing with plastic waste in landfills and the ocean is to ban the manufacture of all plastic and go back to glass, aluminum/aluminium, paper and cardboard (true recyclables.). For every tree you cut down, plant 10 more, but like with most other problems on the planet, most people are too lazy and want instant gratification. I also believe that there is a lot of faulty 'science' being used to manipulate people to push society towards ESG and more elitist control, so the more self-sufficient we become the better off we are.

 

[no fly zone]

The simple solution to dealing with plastic waste in landfills and the ocean is to ban the manufacture of all plastic and go back to glass, aluminum/aluminium, paper and cardboard (true recyclables.). For every tree you cut down, plant 10 more, but like with most other problems on the planet, most people are too lazy and want instant gratification. I also believe that there is a lot of faulty 'science' being used to manipulate people to push society towards ESG and more elitist control, so the more self-sufficient we become the better off we are.

gov't cannot tax self-sufficiency, so....

 

[BDutch]

This is a completely false notion: "you can diminish greenhouse gasses if you plant new trees" naively believed by many people. This is an area where I am extremely well-informed from over seven years of both academic study and direct experience of living in a highly degraded forest. So please regard what I relate here as supported by ample evidence and simply what "I choose to believe "

Newly planted saplings cannot even begin to compare to a fully grown tree in regards to carbon capture, temperature and humidity regulation, evapotranspiration, soil formation, fungi interaction, and wildlife habitat -- to name only a handful of ecological functions performed by a full grown tree.

For just one example, a mature tree transpires about 10,000 liters of water per day. This means the tree draws water up from the ground through its roots, pumps the water upward via organs in the trunk, uses a small portion of it to perform photosynthesis, and "exhales" the rest through its leaves as vapor. This is why there is a cloud of mist overhanging a forest. This vapor rises to form clouds (along with important bacterias the tree also releases that allow the vapor to nucleate) which eventually fall as rain. Some of these clouds travel thousands of kilometers before falling as rain. Forests in one part of the globe feed rain to places in others. Droughts and wildfires in the Canadian plains are therefore a result of A.mazon destruction. Scorching heat and lack of rain in Europe is linked to deforestation in the Congo. See this excellent Foresight Brief for more:
https://www.unep.org/resources/emer...s-and-water-cool-climate-and-rehydrate-earths

How much carbon a tree stores is a direct relationship to its maturity and size. Cutting down a mature tree doesn't only mean the tree is no longer a carbon storehouse. The very act of cutting down the tree releases that carbon into the atmosphere. A tree is biomass. Biomass is carbon. When the biomass is cut and dies, the carbon is released. A forest felled for lumber isn't just a devastated ecosystem; it's a pollution and global warming source.

https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2214462120

Perhaps you don't know just how bad the global deforestation situation is, particularly in the tropics. It's really really bad.



To get to this point where they become full grown rainmakers and carbon stores, it takes at least thirty years for trees to mature. Right now, deforestation is occurring at a rate of about two soccer fields PER MINUTE. Billions of mature trees will be felled at this rate before even a tiny fraction of them can be "replaced"
https://ourworldindata.org/deforestation

Speaking of greenwash, this notion you put forward is precisely the justification large multinational corporations like Nestle, Cargill, etc use to justify the deforestation they cause: the claim that they "support" tree planting elsewhere. But the tree planting they support is done on monoculture tree farms, not diverse forests.

https://logic-bespoke.com/secondary_growth_timber_vs_old_growth_timber/

Wood for lumber and pulp mostly comes from these monoculture tree farms. A tree farm -- with identical trees evenly spaced does not form soil, fungal networks, or shelter biodiversity in any way comparable to a real forest.

I could go on and on with this. My point is, the idea is not true and is a greenwashing in itself.

You've stated a preference for wood. That plastic is not your thing. That's fine. Everyone has preferences. But let's not justify an aesthetic or personal preference by helping corporations responsible for ecocide to commit their crimes.

And in no way do I support making new plastic. At the rate we're going, humans will drown in plastic on treeless wastelands. There is more than enough existing plastic in the so called waste stream to build a deluxe coops for the billions of chickens on the planet already.

A tree at the end of his lifespan will fal down and rot. If you let a forest grow and do nothing you have a status quo (over 100’s of years).

Growing trees for wood is not taking 10 years but often over 100 years. Depending on the type of tree.

Harvesting trees before the end of its growth and using the wood as building material and furniture is not wrong by itself. It will contribute to storage of carbon dioxide. But harvesting trees is often done in an impropriate (wrong) way.
We also need to renovate houses and furniture to last > 100 years to let the world profit.

Good
A forest will regrow/grow on and on, if the foresters do a good job. Taking out the big trees and harvest part of young trees that get too dense (for poles) is a wonderful way to grow and harvest materials for our benefit.

Wrong
What is happening in many rainforests nowadays and the recent past is that greedy people harvest the whole forest and plant palm trees for oil or fields for corn and soy, or let cattle in to clear the ground. For even more profit. I agree: the big multinationals you mention are a problem. They are NOT good foresters.

In the past (in Europe) the landowners harvested whole forests for wood (for fuel and building ships) . After harvesting they often let the land become a desert. This is even more stupid and certainly not the way either.

 

[MrsNorthie]

gov't cannot tax self-sufficiency, so....

That is why we need less government. ;-)

 

[TropicalChickies]

The simple solution to dealing with plastic waste in landfills and the ocean is to ban the manufacture of all plastic and go back to glass, aluminum/aluminium, paper and cardboard (true recyclables.). For every tree you cut down, plant 10 more, but like with most other problems on the planet, most people are too lazy and want instant gratification. I also believe that there is a lot of faulty 'science' being used to manipulate people to push society towards ESG and more elitist control, so the more self-sufficient we become the better off we are.

Indeed. My partner and I have planted thousands of trees on deforested land (originally rainforest) here in Ecuador, and live completely off grid. We harvest rainwater, grow food, and have a very small solar system. Most of the trees we've planted are in agroforestry systems -- the trees also produce food, fertilizer, building materials, and crops for income. We don't have everything we want, but we have many things we need. At the end of the day, we've gotta understand that our choices and preferences and wants and desires are different from needs. And this world built on wants and preferences isn't going all that great. Yes, the big corporations are doing most of the actual damage, but also they are fulfilling consumer demand. It all starts there.

All of this seems off-topic, but what I'm saying here is quite related to what Shadrach is trying to show people about chickens. Chickens, like all natural creatures, and like the Earth's ecosystems, operate according to very complex and internally ordered systems that we humans don't really understand. To quote a popular novel, "Ecology is the understanding of consequences." Everything we have done to chickens in the name of production and utility (the logical outcome of wants and preferences) has consequences. Everything we have done to the earth for the same ends has consequences. Now we are seeing those consequences, but not seeing -- or unwilling to see -- the connection to our own wants and preferences.

Unfortunately, those exerting the most pressure on the Earth and the resources -- including the chickens -- are also in considerably more sheltered places from the consequences. They live in countries where governments will build walls to keep out climate refugees and use all sorts of World Economic Forum/Davos/IMF chicanery to keep the rest of the world as their colonies. The East India Company has simply been reincarnated into these institutions.

Only a dozen countries -- the US, Canada, Japan, most of Western Europe -- are responsible for 85% of all natural resource extraction every year. 58 countries (58!), all in the Global South, share zero responsibility for this overshoot. But it's the people in those places who will suffer the gravest consequences for the wants and preferences of those more comfortably couched in the first world.

Until it all goes to hell. Until then, I'm going to plant as many forests as I can.

^These are shots of our land in 2016

Here's some recent shots^

 

[TropicalChickies]

Thank you and you're welcome. I started making my notes yesterday and will keep the thread updated as the transition progresses

I appreciate your questions! I read that article with great interest too, in wanting to be able to grow things myself, for the chickens to supplement their bug hunting, not only to improve the quality of feed they are getting, but also, in case things get as bad as predicted and we can't find safe food for them.

Getting it right is so very important, so I will be following this very closely. Thank you for reviving this topic!