What would you feed if you couldn't buy feed?

[Tala]

I was thinking on this subject while I was at work today, so I apologize if it's already been covered.

Perhaps the "reason" that the hens rely on the light to lay is that their body shuts down the egglaying during the winter when there is less forage. Their body goes into conservation/survival mode during the time that there isn't much grass or bugs to eat. Think of how deer and other animals put on fat in the fall and then practically hibernate during deep winter.

We supplement our birds "unnaturally" with feed, so they can be stimulated "unnaturally" with light to continue laying for our benefit.

I'm not sure how to feed a flock in order to keep up the egg production for consumption, but I imagine that the birds would be able to squeak by if they had to - especially in my climate where it's not TOO cold and there is dead grass and such. The trick, in a bad situation, would be making it worth keeping them around until they start to lay again

Just my .02 for the day

 

[IggiMom]

Quote:
Oh, I think that is a very interesting post! I never thought of it that way! Thanks.

Catherine

 

[messianicmom]

I think this varies from climate to climate and even among different breeds. True, we do unnaturally sustain egg laying through the Winter nowadays, which leads to higher hen burnout. To me, the answer goes along with eating seasonally. We can't grow tomatoes in the Fall and Winter, so we grow enough in the summer to eat fresh and preserve in a variety of ways. But to eat seasonally, as G-d intended IMO, means we don't eat fresh tomatoes (maybe unless you're in Florida or lower Cali) in January, going without, being frugal with your preserved resources. When you're out, you're out.
The same rule can apply to egg production; produce enough during the laying season, which is longer in some areas than others, and preserve them, only using them in cooked recipes; however knowing that it will be a rare treat to have a fresh egg during the Winter season. To me, that's the purist's view of eating seasonally. So each family has to decide how strict they are going to be in this area. Being in Ga., I can grow many greens all Winter long to give to them and even now, more bugs are coming out seemingly everyday so they don't have to skimp as much here as they would in other areas perhaps.

We've gotten used to having what we want when we want it.

I hope I communicated the idea I was trying to get across; it's late!

 

[IggiMom]

You communicated it very well. Even late!

You are right, in many cases things are supposed to be seasonal. I do several things to get my hens to lay all winter, and I have always been proud of them.

But if we HAD to do without, the best thing would be to give the little hens a minimum of feed and NOT expect them to lay--eat all the roos except those intended for breeding--got to have a few! And also check the hens and cull sternly; not keep any who were not good layers, and butcher those culled for stewing hens. Or canning.

I think this is basically what my grandmother did, and we did get a few eggs all winter.

The eggs in my incubator now are Heritage RIR's from Taterschickens, and even with a 20 hour power outage, although I lost a few, it appears to me that many are doing just fine! Of course, I am counting my chickens before they are hatched. Bad, bad...but I am so excited about these wonderful eggs.

Catherine

 

[Akane]

During the warmer months everything free ranges. Even now I don't feed my horses anything from about April to November. They eat only grass. My chickens have gone months without eating hardly any feed because they were getting plenty of bugs and greens. They wouldn't miss their layer feed in the summer and fall and would keep laying just as well. Then you hatch out a lot of chicks in spring, sell the extra pullets for money, get as many eggs as possible to put in to storage, and butcher nearly everything you don't need come winter so there are as few of chickens to feed as possible. Keep just enough hens and roos to hatch again next spring and a couple extra to butcher as your food supply runs out or the meat goes bad. The butchered chickens are food not only for you but the surviving chickens all winter. Here we stay solidly frozen and all you need is a building to put the meat in to keep the animals from getting it. Instant freezer with no electricity. It will rarely thaw from Dec to Feb. Also a good idea to get some other meat animals that are cheap to raise. Most anything will do from rabbits to hogs, goats, or cattle. It depends on your situation. Again butcher at the end of the year when they run out of forage or scrape up enough cheap grains and hay to keep them alive for another month so in the coldest months you can use them as food for yourself and the other animals that eat meat.

Oats are dirt cheap here and one of the better balanced grains which is why they have often been used as a supplement for livestock and the grain we most associate with feeding horses. Having such a sensitive digestive tract they get sick easily on many other common grains especially corn. Oats or wheat depending on your location and a bit of corn for extra kcals. I hate feeding lots of corn but when you need the cheapest source of calories possible corn would keep something alive. Oats and sunflower seeds are also very easy to grow through the year and then collect for the animals. Sunflower seeds would be even better than corn and mine would happily survive on them. They kind of are since they keep visiting the neighbor to eat bird seed and not eating their layer feed. The goal in really cold climates is just to keep everything alive until spring. Eggs are often still edible 6months later if kept cool and can be frozen as well as other storage methods so you can get enough during the rest of the year to not have to worry about getting eggs in winter. You just don't get fresh eggs for a few months. Also if you have milk animals and can get enough grain and hay to keep them producing you have another source of animal proteins, fats, and sugars. Whole raw milk can be digested even by lactose intolerant people and animals. Anything you buy in the store cannot be.


I think it would take a whole hell of a lot of mealworms to impact a chicken's diet. I bet mine eat pounds of bugs a day when foraging. There are also pounds of animal products in poultry feed. How many mealworms make a pound? I'm not sure it would be efficient. Heck it would probably be a better supplement to your diet if you were truly in trouble than feeding to the animals.

 

[gsim]

Seems to me that today if we order layers, we get an improved chicken as opposed to a barnyard mutt that our grandparents may have had. That said, I would expect that for 3 years or so, we could expect a regular output of eggs that would diminish with winter and it's shorter days, but would still continue, excepting for when they molt. I am guessing that we could get good to decent results year-round even just scrounging and helping the chooks to make it through the winter. That may be wishful thinking on my part, but it is what I think at this time. I hope I never have to put it to a test. I am happy to just buy their feed and supplement it as best I can and keep learning and adding to the supplemental foods/treats. I just tossed them a gallon of their favorite weeds today and they gobbled them up pronto! I am really hoping that I am wrong about needing livestock to survive or to eat regularly in the years to come. I would be happy if it turns out that I got into chickens for a perceived emergency that never happened and I just discovered a wonderful and delightful hobby.

Gerry

 

[Akane]

I don't think most breeds are that improved today if we are talking about survival and egg laying under such conditions. Most of our breeds today were bred either to maximize egg production while being fed unlimited layer feed or as ornamentals. Not to maximize egg laying while foraging and eating whatever they can get. You'll occasionally find information on breeds that are good foragers but it usually doesn't come up. I would bet if this hypothetical situation happened you'd first see an increase in the hardy breeds that were used before everyone could buy all the layer feed they need and then you would see the popularity of mutts actually go up as the more efficient birds survived and mixed. My mutts are my best foragers and I advertise them that way which makes them quite desireable to some people in the area. They will just keep laying daily while the poultry feed isn't actually going down in the summer. My purebreds are great layers but they are only great layers with poultry feed to at least supplement their foraging. There are some breeds that still have that characteristic but most have not been selecting for it and the birds have not had to survive that way so natural selection has not been a factor either. I don't see how in recent years of poultry breeding we have done anything to improve foraging abilities or laying ability on forage alone.

 

[mistyfeather]

when times are tuogh ....... those free ranging breasts/thighs and legs wout last long anyway

homemade bbq sauce is very cheap to make

like my friends on the rez always say ...... if you cant feed it........eat it.

 

[prairiepearls]

Verrrry interesting, Akane. I'm still deciding what breed(s) to get for my 3-4 bird flock, and I would love them to be great foragers. What kind of "mutts" do you have? I don't s'pose you're anywhere near Kansas, are you?

 

[Akane]

I'm in Iowa. The original birds I got were 50% welsummer-known to be good foragers, penedesenca-get even greater mention as good foragers and free ranging birds but have their downsides, and maran-also reported to be ok to good foragers. The person had already mixed the penedesenca and maran for several generations until the % of either is unknown and then put the hens with a welsummer roo and I bought some of those eggs. The result are some large birds that lay large dark brown speckled eggs, forage great, and aren't bad for dual purpose aside from the fact they mature very slowly. I don't get eggs until they are 8months but after that they have laid great until this winter. This summer a bunch of my original hens got killed leaving me with 2, I added 1 from the next generation to that flock, and then I have 5 pullets from the 3rd generation as a late hatch last year in my bantam coop. So I only have 3 mutt hens of age to lay right now and my neighbor keeps feeding them on all they can eat bird seed so they haven't touched the layer feed. They are perfectly healthy looking on this diet but are not laying many eggs so my hens are living out the eat whatever cheap grains/seeds you can get and don't expect eggs all winter despite my attempts to feed them poultry feed.

Luckily I don't care too much. I can't ship out eggs right now without them turning in to popsicles, I don't want to hatch standard chicks this time of year, and I don't bake so bantam eggs work fine over winter while in the meantime I'm still not paying the feed bill on my standard flock. I've probably fed more poultry feed to mice than the standard chickens in the large coop since about July.