Saturday

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

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