Our chickens like to forage into the woods find their greens. We feed our chickens a lot of seeds and grains, but in hot weather we pull back on the corn because of the sugar content, but there are a still lot of calories in grains, and also grains rank pretty acid on the food pH.charts.
High calorie, acid producing foods like grains meat or dairy tend to "anger the blood" and make it harder to deal with heat in summer, the chickens also tend to get irritable and short tempered when they are eating too much acid producing foods.
Leafy greens tend to be more alkaline in the food pH. charts (greens are chock full of minerals). The chickens need some leafy greens to balance out their pH. levels while feeding on grains
However with the hotter drier weather they have been going deeper into the forest as things dry out to find their greens. At the same time the raccoons have been coming closer to the house in search of food, and finding eggs and chickens occasionally.
Alfalfa is full of dried green leaf, and the chickens will eat it straight off the bail. By watching the chickens we can see that they like alfalfa more than they like hay. As it turns out, alfalfa has a pH. value of ten meaning that is quite alkaline. We noticed that the chickens all mellowed out today after snacking on alfalfa for awhile.
While the chickens loose interest in the straw and even the hay, the alfalfa bale is like a magnet attracting chickens to it's self, all day long we see a rotation of chickens scratching and pecking the top of the bale. Other chickens walk around the bale browsing around the edges of the bale, and eating the alfalfa flakes that get scratched off onto the ground by the upper chickens.
Alfalfa is a very nutritious food crop. Alfalfa sends it's roots deep into the soil. One of the reasons that farmers use it in their crop rotation is because the shorter rooted crops can use up the surface nutrients, but alfalfa's long roots will pull nutrients to the surface from the deeper soil.
Alfalfa Contains:
18% Protein
Vitamin A (beta carotene), Calcium (More than Milk or Eggs by weight)
phosphorus, Vitamin E, Potassium, Chlorine, Vitmain B1, Vitmain B2, Vitmain B6, Vitmain B12, Vitamin K, Niacin, Folic Acid, S-Methylmethionine, Magnesium, Copper, Biotin, Sulfur, Cobalt, Boron, Panthothanic acid, Inocitole, Molybdenum, and trace amounts of: Nickel, Strontium, and Palladium
We used to use alfalfa pellets to supplement the chickens diets, by soaking the pellets overnight and feeding it to the chickens in bowls. They would eat up the soft dark green alfalfa mash all at once during feeding times, but we wanted to provide a source for them to nibble on throughout the day, so the hens could digest it better along with the other foods they eat. Putting alfalfa bales in the yard allows the chickens to feed themselves.
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| Here is the same bale after a few days of chicken pecking. |
Our next plan is to get a few more bails to put in the coops. We hope that having alfalfa bales within the coops might keep the chickens occupied in the mornings, instead of squawking at us to hurry up, wake up, and let them out.
Chickies like Alfalfa Too!:
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| chickie casserole |
We are giving our new chickies free choice alfalfa
in a baking dish, the alfalfa dish is very popular and the chicks seem
to spend more time in it than in their food dish! Sometimes they even
sleep there.
Winter Update:
It
is now wet and rainy, so leaving a bale of alfalfa out in the weather
is not a great idea, but the chickens really enjoy eating nice dry
alfalfa powder when everything else is wet.
We
serve alfalfa to the goats, in a box. but we only give them the chunky
leaf and stems, because the powdery alfalfa leaf tickles the goats
noses making them sneeze. We collect the finer alfalfa that is left in
the bin after picking out what we feed to the goats, and distribute it
to bowls in the yard and in the coops for the chickens to eat. It
works very well for the chickens because the stems are too big for them
to swallow and just get in the way of the leafy alfalfa powder, which
is what they prefer.
Alfalfa Pendulums
We wanted to give the chickens some alfalfa in the coops, since it is still raining out, and they are having a lot of indoor time during rain showers. We decided to hang a block in each coop by wrapping it in a net and hanging it from the ceiling with some old t.v. cable we had laying around.
Hanging the alfalfa up off the ground keeps it dry, and they can clean around under the block.
Eating off a moving pendulum keeps the chickens exercised, and it is entertaining for us to watch.
It feels good to know they can get their greens even when it is nasty out, we will keep these alfalfa pendulums available as a free choice option for the hens, they will use it on nice days too, and in the mornings while they are in the coops, segregated from the raccoons and hawks.
Summer pool fun, with alfalfa!
The cement pond is a nice way to contain loose alfalfa in the summer, the alfalfa stays in the bowl and gets scratched finer and finer until it is all eaten.
Everybody has a nice time
and then . . .
Rue Dee and Happee pitch in and help.
and then rest.
We always put out plenty of water, because eating all that alfalfa has got to make them really thirsty.
