What do we feed them when commercial massproduced petro-feeds go away?

[Portalguy]

WOW, thank you all for your great words and excellent information and links. I will be a while digesting this.

My wife is from eastern Europe and although she left a long time ago, she remembers several interesting things that her grandparents used to feed their chickens. For example, hard boiled egg in the morning. Stale bread cut up and soaked with milk. If I can get some more reliable 'old country' info, I'll post it here.

Another, related item would be, which breeds are more dependent on high-energy feeds, and which can get by on less. I don't know anything yet, but my working theory is that many of today's chickens are over-bred and some, if left to eat as much as they wanted, could break their legs from being too heavy. Which breeds are more hardy, which can live with constant power outages when the 250w heat bulb goes dark... do I get an oil lamp, burn tallow? Seperate thread of course...

Cheers!
Rob in Vermont

 

[lildinkem]

Great time to reconsider OLD SCHOOL ways of chickeneering. I am lucky ( that depends who you are) to have a friend who learned from his grandfather. This person has been in poultry in some shape or form for over 25 years. Their grandpa learned from his grandpa back before 1900. He said, and I have faith in his ideas, that in the NEANDERTHAL days, before injections, before booties, before BIOSECURITY was a word, the old farmers would occasionally take their sick birds, that had a respitory problem and put that bird in the brooder room to allow young chicks to build up immunites to all that plagues chickens today. There were no Tractor Supplies to sell stuff to inject. He said his grandpa's family NEVER had the large outbreaks of disease that killed off a number of birds. There were those who croaked. But, those who lived passed on the genetics to survive.
Nowadays, we do things A$$ backwards, and kill any birds that shows a hint of sickness, before it can show it can survive from that sickness. It is no wonder that people sell booties, needles to inject all types of crap into their birds. And it is now an insult to ask to see a breeders stock.
OLD SCHOOL RULZ!!

 

[lildinkem]

OLD SCHOOL chicken remedies

Cod liver oil (for vitamin D deficiency)
- Oyster shell grit (for digestion)
- Dried crushed pumpkin seeds (Worms)
- Garlic (Worms, chest infection)
- Apple Cider vinegar (Worm and tonic, better calcium and Vit.D absorption)
- Cat food (protein)
- Tuna (protein)
- Egg yolk (protein)
- Honey (energy)
- Yoghurt (digestive tract)
- Grated apple (mineral and vitamin; coccidiosis)
- Baby rice/oats (Bulking in food mix)
- Back rescue remedy (Trauma)
- Orange, Rosemary, clove oils (fleas)
- Wormwood, tansy (immune booster)
- Olive oil (Sour crop, crop binding)
- Probiotics (harmful microbes)
- Baking soda (Crop flush - mix 1/2 cup in a pint of water and syringe it 3 x)
- Nettle (tonic)
- Vaseline (Scaly legs, frostbite, cut)
- Cayenne pepper (worm, coccidiosis)
- Colloidal silver (Anti fungal/viral/microbial)
- Sulphur dust (lice)
- Whey powder (Coccidiosis)
- Chickweed (Immune booster)
- Oregano oil (Immune booster)
- Peppermint, catnip, marigold oil (mite repellent)
- Diatamacious Earth or DE (Calcium, wormer, mite, prevent fly from hatching)
- Vitamin E oil (Molting stress, fertility problems)
- Hypericum (pain relief, nerve damage, stress and Marek)
- Cornstarch (cut)
- Pine tar (cannibalism)
- Black sunflower seeds (Worm)

Or per ailments, this gives us:
TONIC
*Vit. D deficiency: Cod liver oil, ACV
*Tonic: ACV, grated apple, nettle
* Calcium defi ciency: AVC, Oyster shel l, DE, Crushed eggshell
* Protein deficiency: Cat food, tuna, egg yolk
* Energy boost: honey
*Immune boost: Wormwood, Tansy, probiotics, colloidal silver, chickweed, oregano oil
DIGESTIVE TRACT
*Digestion problem: Oyster grit, yoghurt
*Bulk for medicine: Baby rice, baby oat
*Sour crop: Olive oil
*Crop binding: Olive oil
*Crop flush: Baking soda
PARASITES
*Worm: Pumpkin Seeds, garlic, ACV, cayenne pepper, DE, Black sunflower seeds
*Fleas: Orange/Rosemary/Clove oils
*Lice: Sulphur powder
*Mites: Peppermint, catnip, marigold oil, DE as repellent
*Fly: DE
ILLNESS
*Chest infection: garlic water
*Coccidiosis: Grated apple, cayenne pepper, whey powder
* Marek: Hypericum (I think it is the same as St John's wort)
OTHER
*Trauma: Bach Flower Rescue Remedy
*Cut: Vaseline, cornstarch, pine tar
*Frostbite: Vaseline
*Scaly leg: Vaseline
*Molting stress: All protein stuff, Vit. E
*Fertility: Vitamin E
*Pain relief: Hypericum
*Nerve damage: Hypericum
*Stress: Hypericum

hope this opens some eyes to the way things have been done for centuries

 

[fzouk]

WOW lildenkim- I am definitely saving that to refer to often. Thanks for posting it! I'm happy to see some of the things I give my chickens are on here and will happily incorporate others. Thanks!

 

[lildinkem]

fzouk, that is why we are here to share great info, birds and eggs.
I appreciate a place to go and research topics like this.
My parent live in loudon TN, gorgeous country you have there. Lot of great people and birds too. I just had a bird given to me from a friend in Newton. Truelly great people
enjoy!!

 

[CityChook]

Portalguy, I really like this thread. It certainly gives us a bit to think/talk about. I'm not exactly sure where I'd find food/ingredients if commercial feed became unavailable.

I have a friend who lived in Puerto Rico for a number of years. He said that the chickens there were all free range, slept in the trees and ate whatever they could find. Kind of different from our backyard flocks in America.

 

[kycklingmamma]

Lildinkem,

Thank you, thank you thank you fpr that Old School chicken remedies list, awesome. It is now saved under my favorites..

 

[Scoop]

Wow. Great info everyone! I just wanted to add that I purposefully bought Dominique hens due to the fact that they were so hearty. They have more than proven to be survivors! I will probably get more of them.

 

[lildinkem]

kycklingmamma,
I had a chicken friend here send me this info, I was really impressed in how well these ideas worked. And I do use a few. I really am getting started and thought I'd share.

 

[cindyanne1]

This is all wonderful info!

But my question is, if what's concerning you is the fact that it takes petrol to ship commercial chicken feed, doesn't it take petrol to ship everything else too? I mean, I think it's great to feed the chickens fruits, veggies, seeds, and leftover bread, etc. because I do that myself... but for most of us, don't a lot of our bread products, our grains, seeds such as millet and quinoa, and lots of times even our fruits and vegetables get shipped to the stores where we buy them? Some of us might be able to grow enough sunflower seeds, corn, and oats to feed our chickens as well as ourselves, but certainly not a majority of us.

My husband and I farm for a living, commercially growing corn, soybeans, and wheat. I'd like us as a country to lose our dependency on foreign oil as much as the next person, but I don't think shutting down the shipping industry is the way to go about it. I'm a big supporter of biofuels, and we in fact run soy diesel in our trucks we use to ship our products to market and we support fuels mixed with ethanol. It's not 100% biofuel yet, but it's a start, and every little bit helps.

Just something to think about.