Tips and Tricks of the Chicken trade- post em if you got em

[ji]

Hello,
I have read books on chickens and there are some good ones but I have read things here that I have never seen in any books.
People here have extensive experience and wisdom on the subject of raisiing chickens. I would like to ask people to share something they have learned or experienced that maybe they have not seen in a book. Something that is maybe unusual or even too obvious to talk about. I'll start by sharing a trick that I use with my chickens.

They have a large free range area. Of course the part near the house they have stripped bare. I like to let them out of the fenced area into the yard but they tend to go to far and end up out in the woods. My trick is to let them out an hour before their usual bed time. They stay close to home and spend the time feeding on grass etc untill they go into their coop and then I close the fence again.

This doesn't sound like much but it greatly helps me to get them to eat extra greens.

So, I'd love to hear what others are doing.

 

[saddina]

Teach your kids that chickens love dandilions. Then sit back while your kids weed the lawn and feed the chickens. Same for hornworms on your tomato plants.

Now sit in hammock with a glass of "juice" while the kiddies finally do some chores.

I have been known to give the birds a big steamy bag of spent grains from homebrewing, they love the hot cereal it makes, and I get to see them scarf down happily, instead of tossing out the grain. Raw barley is hard for them to take, but the hour long boils make it into mushy oatmeal consistency. The Crushed grapes and fruits from winemaking they also appericiate.

 

[ji]

saddina thanks for the reply.

That is interesting about giving them the spent grains and grapes.
I will think about making wine now. I just planted a grape this year so I think I have some time.

You are so right about the dandilions. I have the electronet movable fence and I put the chickens on a terrible part of my yard last year. It didn't grow grass well and was FULL of dandilions. This year it looks like something out of a magazine - Mother Earth News maybe but still impressive. The chickens LOVE those weeds and feed the grass. I read somewhere that dandilions are roughly equivilant to alphalpha in nutrional value, so it is good feed for chickens.

 

[cw]

hard wood ashes is a way to keep mites and the other ebby jebbys to a minamal, just pour some where they dust, but i bet that one is in the book