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Chickens
Is anyone on here still raising chickens? Layers? Meat? Any experience with feed issues in last 3 years?
Similar question came up on calcium connection. Some of us are looking for low vA eggs. At least one of us is planning to raise low vA meat birds. Someday.
I've got some ideas for you: 1. RICE diet, 2. NOT free-ranging and 3. LOW-VA kitchen/garden SCRAPS. I am not raising eggs anymore, but maybe I should. We have really cut back on egg consumption lately, but the few that we do consume are day-glo orange yolk (which I get from another backyard chicken keeper).
- I once posted here about pale egg yolks which are prized in Asia from chickens raised on RICE. It might be your answer to find out what goes into that idea. I presented the idea to the site "Back Yard Chickens", and people were quick to say chickens would not thrive on a rice diet. They probably think they need VA tho, and maybe they do and maybe they don't!
2. I experimented for a while with NOT free-ranging my chickens. NOT free-ranging solves two problems: you are more in charge of how much VA they are getting, and they don't get eaten by predators--which sure makes monetary sense. You have to clean their coop more often (you will spend more on bedding). This experiment was a very small flock, but if you aren't pounding down eggs, you don't need a large layer flock. My breed choice would be LEGHORNS-- they are egg machines and don't mind confinement. If you are making your own feed, efficiency matters. A small family could probably buy 3 Leghorn hens every 2 years and keep them in a dog-house sized coop with a screen porch.
3. On another thread, I said, quote: " my idea lately is that I try to give my chickens A BOWL OF FOOD I WOULD EAT from my own kitchen, and have the organic feed available free choice (which as you say, has VA and other supplements that are probably bad, perhaps you could instead make a rice feed). If I really try it seems like I can get their diet to be about half and half. At least they are getting half the amount of the supplements, and possibly that the pro feed might balance out any holes in nutrition that my kitchen cast offs might leave.
I try to make what I give them from the kitchen each day sort of "BALANCED" between carbs, fats, proteins, veg/fruit. This is usually unpopular LEFTOVERS, GARDEN CASTOFFS, OUT OF DATE FOOD that hasn't yet gone bad, vegetable and fruit TRIMMINGS (such as chopped cauliflower stem), STALE BREAD, food from plates that people just didn't finish, SEEDS from fruits and veggies, (cut into the autumn pumpkins and feed them just the seeds), MEAT, FISH but NOT poultry, anything that is sort of languishing in the fridge or freezer or pantry and doesn't look like it will get eaten by people. It's surprising really how much I can scrape together to give them each day. If you take the time to CHOP THINGS UP small there will be less waste.
Chickens that don't get out on pasture seem to like getting given a bit of fresh SUN-DRIED FEED HAY daily." end quote.
thoughts:
My NON-free-range chickens still got SUNLIGHT, DIRT, fresh air and grass (hay). A screened in run is necessary--you may be surprised how hard predators will try to get in, and sometimes successfully. It can be an ongoing battle. Once a predator came in at the top of the 7 foot roof in a soft area of screen and took all the chickens back out that way. I've also had a predator dig under the doorway and eat a young flock. So you will need a good threshold and strong screen everywhere. Then the only problem will be mice and rats eating your expensive home-made feed, LOL. A mouser cat is the trad answer to that but rodents are so sneaky. You will only want to put out what the chickens need each day and not having your expensive low-VA food sitting there overnight.
If a person was going to feed rice (brown or white) (or any grains really) it might make sense to SOAK it overnight, and put it out in the morning, I think they might get more out of it.
One of the things I did notice was that when I stopped feeding high-VA kitchen scraps to my chickens they were more attractive and healthy looking. Letting them peck old pumpkin and squash flesh was not a good idea! (what NOT to do, LOL).
My neighbor always gives SUNFLOWER SEEDS? and her chickens seem the better for it. Large bags are easy and cheap to come by.
I mentioned LEGHORN breed above (for max egg efficiency) but I like to keep a rooster, and Leghorn roosters can be a bit scary. There are some neat blue-egger/leghorn mixes that might be just the ticket. It brings down efficiency to keep a rooster, but they are handsome, and they do little dances and they love their girls and vice versa.
Hatching your own eggs is fun and might give you an idea about how healthy your experimental flock is. You might see a reduction of VA in each generation. You might see fertility rise or fall. Of course you should only run hatches if you are ok with slaughtering. Half the little chicks will be roosters (obviously). You can only keep one rooster, and if you try to keep more they will fight and even kill one another. Young birds of both sexes are fine to eat. Mixed breed will be meatier than pure Leghorn.
Leghorns burn out and die younger, which if you are a non-slaughterer can be a good thing. Egg production falls off, plus VA builds up. Most leghorns live only 3-4 years, while I've had blue Eggers last 8 years.
Sorry about the long post, this is what happens when you ask a "retired" backyard farmer about things haha
Apology not accepted. Thank you. We bought that exact toy chicken coop. It lasted about 3 weeks with chicks. Crazy fragile and tiny. Set it out front by curb. Gone in 5 minutes. Amazed how many of our neighbors have had birds for years with out anyone knowing.
After that, I thought about building coop and cage from scratch. Working varied shifts 70 plus hour weeks blew that idea. Bought one of these kits. Put together in a day. Worth the big bucks. Sunk hardware cloth all the way around 18" deep. Laid heavy flag stones on it against side walls of run. Buried in dirt. Then hardware cloth a couple feet up the side. Later put a tarp over it for rain and snow. Makes their cold and or wet weather much better. Thinking of building a hoop house over the whole thing.
https://overezchickencoop.com/?country=US
Best Chicken Coops for Sale | OverEZ Chicken Coop
Border collies are cool with bunnies and other birds who hang out with chickens. Squirrels and hawks get run out. Big fun. In 9 years predators visit and have all left empty handed. Our neighbors new cat though looks to be a problem soon. Will see.
Sounds like you consciously do what we do. They sift and stir our compost heap. Hay bales square off the pile. They get scraps less meat and grains. We give those scraps to them separately as treats. Keeps the dogs from eating all their snacks. We set their day's ration of grain out each day. During the day, mice, chipmunks and small birds share their water and grain. Their treat snacks are left over cooked black oatmeal, rice and raw ground beef. They get apple cores from making apple sauce and banana skins with some banana.
Read about white yolk research in Japan years ago. Looks like they did it. Ours eat grass, weeds and bugs. Hard for me to rationalize restricting their range.
Woman in Japan discovers white egg yolks due to chickens fed only rice, Internet baffled
Woman in Japan discovers white egg yolks due to chickens fed only rice, Internet baffled
Especially since we get zero skunks since we got the girls. They are fanatics for slugs and grubs. I used to watch skunks rip 10 or 20 holes a night in our grass getting grubs. Who knew skunks have great smellers and hunt grubs. And that skunk scat is so horrible. Have not used our skunk trap in 9 years. Not missing it.
This is where some questions came up on chickens that got me going again.
https://the-calcium-connection.mn.co/posts/88925836/comments
Did you delete the comment on leg horn with blue egger flock. I got the picture on the email message. Nice birds.
Awe that is a bummer that the little coop didn't work out. I did change pictures because I thought it might be better for people to see how small a coop they could get away with. Rather than see what the chickens looked like.
We have had 3 coops. Our first coop my husband made from scratch and it was a chicken tractor (ie, a coop that you can drag around to fresh grass each day). It was an A frame shape with a wooden base about 3 inches off the ground. It took a lot of abuse getting dragged around and it was time consuming for him, although it improved our lawn! It eventually found a permanent position and rats built a city under it and finally we burned it. Then we built a small shed-sized barn with a dirt floor because we experimented with goats. This is our warmest situation for the hens but it involves free range. When our kids were small we had a wooden play structure with a slide, then when they grew. up we turned it into a coop much like the picture only higher, bigger and stronger. That raised coop is cold but has a porch. You live in a colder/harsher area than me, I think? We are a cold, windy version of zone 5 here. Birds with big wattles and combs had trouble in the colder coop. The blue eggers have smaller ones.
I have always liked keeping a few blue eggers for the fun of it, but they weren't amazing layers like leghorns. Very sweet birds. Lately though I've been very impressed with the cross breeds between the two.
Thanks for the heads up that these little coops can be pieces of crap sometimes. It's tempting for me to think of putting one right outside my back door with 3 birds in it, but I sure don't want to waste money.
To get back to your original post, I definitely think something is wrong with the bagged feed for backyard chicken farmers. The resulting yolk color is just crazy.
It appears that a person would have to join that calcium group to see the discussion.
I guess the way you rationalize restricting their range is by thinking carotene is bad for you. !
I know it's crazy, but yet here we are.
This person has been feeding chickens rice, pinto beans, larvae (and some eggs at the beginning) and the chickens seem to be doing well (he says they were heavier than others and their feathers were shiny)
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=UC4ZJ5fFPiw