Stumpdirt Playpen for Baby Chickies

 

Flying Chickens !

They fly through the air with the greatest of effort!

Kelp Meal is good for chickens and goats

By FASTILY (I created this work entirely by myself.) [CC-BY-SA-3.0 (www.creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0) or GFDL (www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html)], via Wikimedia Commons

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d0/KelpforestI2500ppx.JPG

Kelp contains as many as 72 Trace Minerals. Sea water is full of minerals, because the Ocean covers around two thirds of the earths surface and rubs against a lot of rocks.  That being the case it would seem reasonable that kelp would contain a nice mix of many the minerals available on the planet.  Our chickens and goats will get their trace minerals from the kelp we feed them, and we will get our trace minerals from their eggs and milk, also, our garden will benefit from kelp enhanced chicken and Goat manures in the compost that we use to augment our soil.

We noticed a 50 lb. bag of Kelp Meal at our local feed store and thought it might be good to add a little seaweed to our diets.  We got the bag home and opened it, seaweed meal is dark rich green with little light green specks and is about the consistency of course ground pepper.

If you look really close at the grains of kelp, you can still tell that it is kelp by the surface texture of the granules.  (click the image to see it bigger)


We decided to prepare the kelp meal as a broth for the chickens. Our chickens like to drink soup, and they all get their share when food comes in liquid form.  We put a cup of the Kelp Meal in to a pot of water, and boil it until the Kelp expands and a thick broth forms.  We strain out the kelp solids to add to the Seed Mix, and put out bowls of Kelp Broth for the chickens. 

For the goats we just fasten a small bucket kelp meal granules to the wall, for them to eat free choice, as a mineral suppliment.
Every so often the goats eat a little, they seem to find it tasty.


I looked on the web and found some interesting information about Kelp as a food source.
 http://whfoods.org/genpage.php?tname=foodspice&dbid=135

Alfalfa, to Nourish and Entertain your Chickens

 

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 seek out leafy greens to balance out their pH. levels after 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. 

We have been trying to find something to keep the chickens closer to the house site. we figured that the chickens want to eat their greens after they have their grains.  So we thought we might find them some greens to help them balance out their grains, and baled produce seemed to be a practical way to provide greens for the chickens.

We have been experimenting with different bailed products.

The chickens always enjoy scratching in the wheat straw that we put in the coops, to find any left over seed that they might find, but the straw it's self has very little food value. 

When our neighbor cut the grass hay this year we got a few of his bails for our chickens to sample, and found that they spent a little more time pecking at the bails of hay.  There are more seed tops and some juicy grass in the fresh hay bails than in the straw. 

So then we decided to try a bail of alfalfa. A bail of alfalfa is full of  dried green leaf.  By observing the chickens behavior we can tell that alfalfa must pass the taste test with pretty high scores. 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 and other chickens walk around the bale browsing around the edges of the bale and eating the alfalfa flakes that have been scratched to 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 have been using alfalfa pellets to supplement the chickens diets, by soaking the pellets overnight and feeding it to the chickens in bowls. They eat up the soft dark green alfalfa mash during feeding times, but we wanted to provide a source for  them to nibble on throughout the day. Putting alfalfa bales in the yard allows the chickens to feed themselves and seems to entertain the chickens as much as it does us.

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.


Alfalfa is being cut now, so it is a good time to find some nice fresh alfalfa for your chickens.

P.S.

If you have Goats they will help your chickens eat the bail, if you let them,

 

 

 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.

Forest Feeding Chickens

In our quest for a leaner and healthier yolk, we have decided that just feeding the chickens good food wasn't enough, they need to exercise to aid their digestion, and to pump all the nutrients in their blood around their bodies. When a chicken feeds from a feeder, they feed until their gullet is full and then they just hang out, digest some, and poop a lot.  But when they eat in the wild, they peck once and scratch twice, repeatedly, all day long. Eating this way causes the chicken to eat more slowly and the constant exercise provided by all that scratching means that the chicken is better able to better utilize the food they eat. 
We decided to stop feeding the chickens in bowls, or even simply scattering grains on the bare ground. What we are doing now is taking a bag of mixed grains and seeds into the forest to scatter among the fallen leaves, moss and grasses. The chickens seem to get almost all the grains. (what they don't find should sprout, the grains are even better when they sprout.)
We have been throwing the seeds out in the woods for the chickens. We feed them in a random rotation to keep them from over scratching any one area of our property.

The chickens are actually requiring less seed overall, because they are getting more moss and other forest goodies along with the grains we throw, there has been a rise in egg numbers, the shells are firmer, and the yolks are darker and more translucent, and therefore less fatty.

Egg Shooters

We also noticed that the chickens seem to be having an easier time laying, because they are all spending less time sitting in the nests, they just hop up lay, and move on. Perhaps all the work spent scratching in the woods is toning up their egg shoving muscles.

Mixing up the Vitamins

Chickens enjoy this wonderful seed and vegetable mix.

This batch included roasted acorn squash and pumpkin rinds.

 

Some of the other foods that we provide to our chickens include:

Alfalfa

Beet Pulp

Whole Barley

Cracked Corn

Flax Seed

Millet

Rolled Oats

Oyster shell

Sea Weed (Kelp Meal)

Soy Bean Meal

Sunflower Seeds

 Garden Vegetables,

Fish Meal and Kelp Broth

Check here for more about the Seedy Eggs.

Steamy Morning Broth

Chickens wear natural down coats and are well equipped for cold weather, they do quite well in the winter.  That being as it is, still when we look out at our chickens in the frosty morning forest, we know that they will be all the warmer inside their coats with a good serving of this nutritious steamy broth.

In the evenings as I fish the chickens down out of the trees, and get then settled into their coops, Jin puts a big pot of water on the stove. She puts in some seaweed meal, alfalfa and beet pellets, some fish meal, brussel sprout leaves or other garden vegetables * along with some soybean meal.  It simmers awhile and then waits till morning.
When the cocks crow**, Jin goes down and warms the broth back up, and brews up our coffee.   When the broth is warmed up she pours off the broth into bowls***  that we set around the yard, so all the chickens can get some.
Then we can enjoy our coffee inside, and watch our chickens drinking broth, and exhaling steam.

Now if they don't get their soup they come and peck on the windows.  It's kind of scary, so we don't skip the soup very often.

 * Recient batches have included generous amounts of winter squash
** 9 grown roosters & 1 adolesent roo who is just getting his voice, and sleeps in the livingroom for now
*** We save the solids for their mash

Chicks dining on Q Bar Farm Chick Starter

What are "Seedy Eggs"

Seeds and Eggs are much the same, in that they are both fantastic sources of concentrated nutrition.
Seeds are formed by a plant which throughout it's growth period extracts various minerals from the soil in which it grows. Every plant stores a different composition of minerals in it's seed, but the goal is always the same, the plant stores it's best stuff in the seed as the potential to start a new plant.
Eggs are basically a chicken's seed. The chicken spends it's day scratching and hunting and pecking at the ground. They eat all day enough to sustain themselves, and enough to produce one egg. The egg contains all the protein, calcium, and other nutrients necessary to form a chick.
So if the seed is the best the plant has to offer, and the egg is the best thing that the chicken can deliver, then, we thought why not give the seeds to the chickens and get the best of the best into the eggs.

We went to the feed store and up above and behind the counter there are menu boards, like in a fast food joint, listing all the feeds they have to offer for poultry and and livestock, We ordered: millet, flax seed, sunflower seeds, ground corn and soy bean meal and oyster shell from the poultry side of the menu. But we didn't stop there over on the other side there was whole barley and rolled oats so we got those too! That is an eight grain mix.

We fed the mixed grains to our flock, and they love it. The first thing that we noticed was that after they ate it they all started going for the oyster shell like they never had when we fed them the layer pellets. They seem a lot more alert yet calm and contented after they eat the seed mix. The egg shells are getting firmer as well.

Here is the Recipe:


Into a large bowl put roughly equal parts, whole millet, flax seed, sunflower seeds, ground corn and soy bean meal (about double on the soy, because the chickens need the extra protein for making eggs), whole barley, rolled oats and oyster shell (provides grit and calcium).


Go to the Garden and collect some greens, there are: Mustard greens, Swiss Chard, Collard greens, assorted lettuce, Cabbage, assorted chinese greens, thistles and other weeds that the chickens like to eat.




Chop up the garden greens, apple, and orange peels (vitamin C is important for making calcium into Egg Shell), in the food processor and add them to the bowl and stir.

(Fish head eating not shown)
Salmon Broth

When we cook up the salmon head bones it makes a nice fish broth that we feed the chickens, salmon is an excellent source of Omega 3.
We now use a pressure cooker which makes the bones much softer so the chickens can eat everything.




Add salmon head bones (provides more calcium), softened in a pressure cooker*, and mix it all up with a "Hand Mixer"




Feed the Chickens!

Educating your baby chicks about forest dirt.

 

 Spring is around the corner, and people will be starting their flocks by bringing baby chicks home from the farm store.   Chickens when raised by humans lead a rather sheltered existence, when compared to hen raised chicks. Humans do a fine job of taking care of the basic needs of chicks like food and shelter, but what of the educational needs of your chicks, while they are living inside of a pen?  

A chick in a pen usually has a floor of pine shavings or straw which makes a nice floor to walk on and manage the droppings, but is still a fairly bland, and sterile environment for the chicks educational development.

  

 In our woods we found an old hollow oak tree trunk that had recently fallen, inside the trunk was dirt made up of over a hundred years of rotting wood, generations of dead bugs,  fungi, and old leaf matter.  

  

 We collected this black dirt, mixed it with rich soils and mosses from around the bottoms of oak trees,  and put them in roasting pans to introduce the chicks to all the stuff that they will encounter when they get old enough to graduate into the real world outside.   They get a chance to scratch, taste, smell, and roll in the stuff in the roasting pans, they really enjoy the change of scene. 

 Finding ways to enhance the environment of baby chicks, while they are in confinement, by using dirt trays or adding mossy branches for the chicks to play in, or nibble on, just seemed like a sensible thing to do.