Feeding chickens

Neil,
I buy organic grains in bulk.
Right now we have wheat, rye, barley, oats and sunflower seeds.
I soak these...at least overnight... and sometimes I put old yogurt or kefir in the soak water.

I also sprout the grain so that they get greens.

When I am not around, some of the other community members will grind the grains.

We also give them our household and community kitchen food wastes, including meat. Recently, I have given the chickens old beef soup (they love it), old milk (they love it) and the clean outs from my refrigerator.

I understand from talking to old timers that 100 years ago...the milk from the family cow was split into 4 portions:
1 for the family table
1 to sell
1 to make family foods
1 for the farm animals including poultry

Mother Earth News had an awesome article last year comparing the quality of the egg to the food the chickens were fed. Soy fed chicken eggs have pale yellow yolks with very runny whites and nutrient dense fed chickens produce bright orange yolks that stand up high above 2 layers of whites that are thick.

Mollison talks about growing chicken feed around the chicken coop as a perennial polyculture. Here is Scott Pittman's version:


Partial Chicken pasture plant list:

Nanking cherry
Sand Cherry
Siberian Pea Shrub
Day Lily
Apple
Plum
Raspberry
Mulberry
Black Locust
Sea Buckthorn
Pasture Grass
Alfalfa
Apricot
Strawberry clover
Brassicas
Hairy Vetch
Comfrey

Harvey Ussery who is a permaculturist and writes for Organic Gardening has a website
www.themodernhomestead.us/ Harvey is doing great work researching poultry feed, as part of reducing our addiction to "fast feed" -store bought poultry feed made with manufacturing byproducts. Even organic chicken feed has soy as a major ingredient...which causes chicken health problems.
Harvey's webpage on poultry.
www.themodernhomestead.us/article/Poultry.html

Here is what Harvey says on

Feeding the Homestead Flock
*Table of Contents for Feeding Section is at bottom of this page.*
My advice on feeding the homestead flock can be boiled down to:

Take the feeding of your flock into your own hands. Don't be "buffaloed" by the "experts" and their feeding solutions based on highly flawed paradigms.

Try to feed your birds the way a chicken on her own in the wild would feed herself. The key to homesteading success is imitation of natural systems. That should be the key when we think about feeding as well.

I suggest that you read the articles in this section in the order in which they appear.

"Feeding the Homestead Flock: It Ain't Rocket Science!" poses the fundamental question: Do we blindly trust the dictates of ag college scientists and agribusiness, or seek more natural, wholesome (and more independent) ways to feed our flocks?

"Making Your Own Poultry Feeds" is a guide to how I have made my own prepared feeds in the past, as a direct substitution for the feeds of commerce. It is a bit dated now, but there is a lot of information about ingredients and principles you should consider if making your own mixes.

"Feeding the Flock from the Homestead's Own Resources" is about finding ways to offer our flocks a more natural diet, in the process gaining greater independence by reducing purchased inputs.

"Current Feeding Practice" is here because feeding is always for me a moving target. I am always striving for more natural feeding, and for greater resource independence, and this article explains where those efforts have led me.

www.themodernhomestead.us/article/Feeding.html

Table of Contents for Feeding Section
"Feeding the Homestead Flock: It Ain't Rocket Science!"
"Making Your Own Poultry Feeds"
"Feeding the Flock from the Homestead's Own Resources"
"Alternatives to Soy"
"Sprouting to Enhance Poultry Feeds"
"Raising Earthworms to Feed the Flock"
"Protein from Thin Air: Breeding fly maggots for poultry feed"
"Current Feeding Practice"
Cathe'

On Tue, Mar 4, 2008 at 9:57 AM, Neil Bertrando wrote:

Thanks for the input Cathe,
can you tell the group what you feed your chickens, so we can get an idea of what we're looking at? In particular, how can we ensure full nutrition during the winter months when bugs and greens are scarce?
thanks again,
Neil

On Tue, Mar 4, 2008 at 9:39 AM, Cathe' at Practical Permaculture wrote:

Neil,

about the feed...

Purina uses GMO corn and soy as their main ingredients.

To me, that makes for "unhealthy" chickens.

I guess it is a judgment call.

Cathe'


On Mon, Mar 3, 2008 at 2:15 PM, Neil Bertrando wrote:

Hi all,
i found a source for chicken manure that will be consistent at least through this growing season and winter. some details for clarification before the go ahead just to make sure it's what we want.

1. the lady who's giving it away lives in cold springs
2. she cleans out the coop once every 4-6 weeks
3. each cleaning provides 1.5-2 wheelbarrows of chicken manure
4. the chickens are fed a diet of table scraps, Purina egg layer, and a generic scratch egg layer

she was really nice on the phone and this sounds like a good resource especially for anyone who lives near cold springs. my only concern is with the feed.

Can any of the experienced chicken people in the guild share their opinions on whether the feed would compromise the manure?

My initial feeling is that as long as it's run through a compost pile first (i.e. used to heat up a mix of chicken manure, leaves and straw) it will be great. if it's not run through a compost pile it might still be great if let sit to age and cool before application to beds or if mixed in with carbon rich mulch like wood chips. Any experience and knowledgeable advice would be great. If it's a green light, I'll go ahead and pick up the manure or pass on the number to anyone who really needs some manure now.

cheers,
Neil




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