surviving the cold?!?

[MissChick@dee]

I know some of my chickens peck and eat the straw usually tiny broken down size. I see it in the poop. I’ve been giving sardines packed in oil just to make sure things keep moving. They LOVE them (good for them too) my worst offender will even drink the oil left in the tin. So far no crop issues.

 

[lcwmt]

Well I think that's part of the problem! For sure. The farmers/ranchers are using those big round balers mostly now. My Dad had a people sized baler growing up as a kid. In the last years on the farm he was hiring out the guy with the round baler who offered services to the farmers. It was just easier to get them up and out to the cattle in one move I guess. Not easy for us chicken farmers looking for two managable sized bales!

Precisely. Big round bales here... hay and straw. Sometimes the Ag store in town will have the 60 pound hay bales but it's alfalfa and not great for chicken bedding. We don't have bagged leaves in the Fall .
Compressed straw is available at the Ag store 40 miles away, where I buy feed. Pine shavings are obtainable at both places. When the garden beds get cleaned out I sometimes put the flower stalks in the run but that's not a good cold weather solution.

 

[Bogtown Chick]

The smell from the straw bales are so sweet. It's really lovely to put it in there. And the birds investigate those oat hulls pretty good too. Love it.

 

[Bogtown Chick]

Have Rancher friends in Molt and they'd leaf off the 70 pounders (I think they said...?) for their winter cattle feeding. I helped one time. Absolutely loved it.
I just looked it up. the one size can vary 60-70 lbs.