Tag: chicken feed

Hope for Humanity in the Chicken Forums

~ Crystal Sands ~ 1 Comment

I have been studying the chicken forums on Facebook since we first got chickens more than ten years ago. I have found that social media is one of the ways I learn about humanity, and so, in the chicken forums all these years, I have not only learned about caring for chickens but I have also learned about the humans who keep chickens.

I learned pretty early on that, just like anywhere on the internet, there is a lot of misinformation circulating in the chicken forums. In the beginning, when I was seeking advice about various animal husbandry questions related to my chickens, I sometimes got some really bad advice. But it didn’t take long for me to learn who to trust in the groups and who to ignore. One of the things I learned is that being loud isn’t the same as being right.

Over time, I became experienced and would sometimes try to help others the way I had been helped. It’s hard to do online, but I would do my best, and overall, I was always thankful for the kind of people I found in the chicken forums, especially when I decided to narrow my presence to just chicken forums based on Maine. These forums were practical, helpful, and connected me to local resources. As much as I hate Facebook, I love the Maine chicken forums.

There was always a “edge” that would appear in these Maine forums though. Just like the rest of the internet, people can be mean in the chicken forums, and sometimes, when people ask for help, they get reprimanded instead.

But I am noticing a shift…

Just last week, I saw the shift illustrated beautifully.

A woman made a post about needing help covering the costs of chicken feed. She said she had been struggling financially and couldn’t cover the cost of feed for her chickens that week. In the past, this kind of post would have been met with some help but mostly reprimand.

And there was some of that. A few people said the thing I would often see before “If you can’t afford animals, you shouldn’t have them.” However, mostly, there was help. When I first saw the post, four people had offered to meet to give the woman some chicken feed. At that point, I didn’t know how far away the people were, so I posted that I couldn’t deliver food but could Venmo her the funds for a bag of feed and for her to send me a private message.

I checked back later that night, and the post had blown up–with offers of help!

Dozens and dozens of people were offering funds and feed, and I saw a post from the author that said she had already been delivered a bag of feed and was so thankful for the support and help. I think this shift in the chicken forums is significant, and the things I read lifted my hopes and spirits in a way I cannot describe but was desperately needed.

I think we are learning that we are going to have to help each other, that hardships are upon us but that, through community, we survive. I read a quote that really resonated with me not too long ago: Civilizations fall but villages live. I think we are beginning to understand we need a village and that we have to be kind to each other.

I love Maine with every fiber of my being. I could not live anywhere else in the U.S. The people of Maine are my people, but there can be a kind of grumpiness to the practicality here. I saw a few comments in that thread that were of that nature. I have learned that Mainers are truly trying to be helpful though, not usually mean. One woman said something along the lines of, “Times are just going to get harder. If you can’t afford your chickens now, you might need to re-home them.”

Of course, this comment was likely hurtful to the original poster, but I could see the earnestness there. Times really are likely to get harder. Ron and I think often about how we would afford food for our animals if I were to lose my job, and with AI being what it is and doubling in ability every six or seven months, I can see that it might happen to me one day sooner than I thought possible. I can see that it might be hard for many people to keep affording the feed for their animals, but chickens are critical for survival in hard times. They are how my great grandparents survived the Great Depression. People are going to need their chickens.

And, as I was thinking about the earnest advice about how times are going to get harder, I thought about what happened in the chicken forums that day. Times are already hard, but there are people there to help–lots of people.

And, what if, when times get harder, we just keep helping each other?

photo credit: Robert Katzki, Unsplash

How to feed your chickens like it’s the Great Depression

~ Crystal Sands ~ 2 Comments

I wish I had talked to my grandparents more before they passed away, but I was actually pretty young. I was in high school when my great grandmother, who was like my grandmother, as she had raised my dad, passed away. I have wonderful memories of her. She was part Cherokee and taught me a kind of Christianity that I don’t see much of today. She taught me to be kind to everyone–no exceptions, to turn the other cheek, to help those who might have less, and to never judge others. She also taught me about chickens.

I wish I had a photo somewhere of her chicken coop that was in the back of an old garage. I can’t remember the outside very well, but there were strawberries and blackberries around the outside of the chicken run (I definitely remember those), and I remember the inside of the coop. It was kind of dark, without windows, and being in Texas, I guess there wasn’t a huge need for protection from the cold. It was a much “looser” structure than the coop we have now. I remember the nest boxes. I remember helping her collect eggs and being a little bit afraid of those hens pecking my arm. I remember her telling me not to look outside when she had to go get a chicken for dinner. And I remember helping her feed her chickens.

My great grandmother, Bertha (One of Poe’s grand babies is named Bertha in her honor), had lived through the Great Depression. She told me stories about growing and canning food and how she used to make clothes out of flour sacks (I later learned that the flour companies started using pretty fabrics for the flour sacks when they learned people were making dresses from them). She told me about surviving, and all of my memories of her are related to the habits she must have learned surviving the Depression. She kept a garden. She canned food. She made everything from scratch–from potato chips to syrup (no lovely Maple trees to tap in Texas). She made her clothes, and she worked non-stop even in her older age. Even when she was watching her “stories” on the little black and white television in her living room, she crocheted blankets and tablecloths.

One of my best memories of her was feeding the scraps after meals to the chickens. It was way more fun than collecting eggs, and I was so thankful to those chickens. I was a VERY picky eater when I was a kid (autism and all), and though my granny begged me to eat all of my meals, all I really wanted to eat was her homemade jam on her homemade bread. I was so thankful to the chickens for eating my carrots. Maybe that’s when I fell in love with chickens. I just didn’t know it at the time. My great grandmother’s chickens were fed with table scraps and grains. She didn’t use chicken feed, though it had been developed by the time I was a kid in the 80s.

I have been thinking more and more about my great grandmother as I try to figure out a million worst-case scenarios in my mind for what the future holds. My jobs are no longer stable, so Ron and I have been doing our best be as frugal as we can be, stock up where we can, and figure out how to live even more self sufficiently. It has occurred to me: What if we couldn’t afford organic chicken feed?

Using my great grandmother as inspiration, I researched to find out how people fed their chickens during hard times like the Great Depression and in the times before chicken feed was a thing. Below is a list of the things I have learned. I hope they are helpful to you, and I hope none of us need them.

Table Scraps

Right now, we use table scraps to supplement our chickens’ diet. It is a great way to save money on feed and avoid food waste. Plus, the variety is great for the chickens. They love getting new things to eat. You can tell it boosts their spirits. But in hard times, the table scraps become more of a staple for chickens. This means you have to get serious. We have always been pretty serious about it, and this is how we do it: We have a large glass bowl that stays in the refrigerator, and we put every single teeny tiny scrap into that bowl. When the bowl is full, it goes to the chickens. This is everything from the single edge of toast crust that my son didn’t eat at breakfast to leftover pan of rice when I accidentally cooked a little too much. It’s the three noodles left on the plate. It’s the piece of broccoli I just couldn’t fit in my tummy. Save it all. It adds up and can make such a difference and can help add variety to your chickens’ diet if you don’t have access to commercial feed.

For more information on what chickens can and cannot eat from your table (it’s pretty much everything you can eat), please check out this helpful list from Heritage Acres Market.

Foraging

Allowing your chickens room to forage for bugs, worms, and greens is a great way to feed them. Of course, given the fact that bird flu is on the rise, you may not always be able to give your chickens the space to feed themselves. It may be necessary to keep your chickens covered, but when bird flu is not a threat, allowing your chickens to fend for themselves can supplement other methods of feeding chickens. Ours love the dandelions and clover, which is a reminder to plant clover instead of grass if you can and definitely let your yard be wild.

Grow a Garden

I remember my great grandmother feeding her chickens from the garden, and we do the same thing. We can’t do it in the winter here in Maine, so winter would be tough on us in many ways if we couldn’t access chicken feed; however, from the first of May when the greens come to the middle of October when the tomatoes are winding down and the squash is ready, our chickens eat a lot from our garden. Ron grows greens the full growing season, so the chickens always have that. Then it’s beet tops, raspberries, blueberries, so many tomatoes, fresh corn, melons, and so on. There is always something about to get by us in the garden, and the chickens can take advantage of it.

And, at the end of the growing season, we let the chickens into the garden to glean, and they surely do. They love the leaves from the broccoli plants all of the tomato drops.

Grains

According to everything I have read, no grain is ideal for chickens because they need such variety in their diets, but corn, wheat, and oats can be good in combination with something like soy or another protein. While there is certainly nothing that can fully replace a really good layer pellet, the reality that layer pellets can generally only last about six months stored means that it might be a good option to store grains, which can be stored for years and may be easier to purchase during tough times. They can also be grown if you have the space.

After reading this helpful article on chicken nutrition and grains from Maine Organic Farmers and Gardeners, I hope we can always access our chicken feed, but it’s good to know that chickens can get by without it. The key is definitely just to use variety and use all of these methods listed here. You also have to provide supplements if you aren’t using chicken feed.

Supplements

Without feed, there are supplements that your chickens will need. First, the laying hens will need calcium supplements. Oyster shell works great. We also save our egg shells and crush them to feed back to the hens as a calcium supplement. They will also need grit. Grit is really just small stones that chickens can eat that stay in their gizzards to grind up larger food items like bugs and pieces of meat from scraps.

Final Thoughts

I have read in some forums that people say chickens are not worth keeping if things get so bad that you can’t access commercial feed, but I disagree. My great grandparents survived the Great Depression by growing their own food, and that included chickens. I have also read stories from people who lived through the Great Depression and felt that the chickens were part of the reason they survived. Chickens provide eggs, meat, and fertilizer. They also provide resources for trade.

Humans domesticated chickens 8,000 to 10,000 years ago, and we have been living side by side ever since. There’s a good reason we have had such a long relationship with this amazing animal.

P.S. If you have additional ideas, please share. I have been wondering about a meal worm farm but don’t know if it’s hard to do.

A Breakdown Over the Chicken Feed

~ Crystal Sands ~ 2 Comments

We started feeding our chickens organic feed in 2019 after reading more about issues with regular chicken feed. The organic was more expensive, of course, but based on what I was reading about the quality of ingredients in most chicken feed, it seemed worth the money. It was for the chickens but also for us. There is not a ton of research that I can find on how much a bio filter chickens are, but it seems pretty clear that, if you are eating chicken eggs, what goes in their little bodies goes into your body.

Over the years though, the quality of the organic feed we buy has declined significantly while the price has gone up. I get that this is just how things are. The food is still organic, so that’s important, but our bags of feed are full of food dust. Just dust. It makes the chickens sneeze, and I have to throw out pounds and pounds of it. When I do, I just think about how much money I am throwing away and how much of a waste of resources it is.

This morning, I did my usual thing of sifting through the bags of chicken feed and throwing out the dust. I had just enough actual food pellets left in an open bag to fill up both chicken bowls and the duck bowl.

As I was delivering the food bowls to the coop, I saw that our new rooster, Rostropovich, was on Mary Jane, our pardoned meat bird who will be 7 years old this June. Normally, she will let him have it for trying to mate with her, but she just let him and made a sad little noise. When I got back to deliver the fresh water, that little stinker was on her again. I shoved him off, and Mary Jane stumbled.

I realized something was not right with Mary Jane, so I had to scoop up that big chicken and bring her into the house. She had a bit of a poopy butt, but she seems great otherwise. Her comb looks good, and she has no mites. I think she has hurt her leg but, hopefully, not in a bad way. I did see her on the top roost yesterday, which is not a good idea for a nearly 7 year-old meat bird who must surely weigh 12 to 15 pounds. I’m hoping she just has a sprain.

I went out in the snow and dug out the dog crate, cleaned it up, put in fresh straw, trimmed Mary Jane’s back feathers to help her avoid poopy butt going forward, and I got her set up in the garage. She seemed pretty good about getting away from the flock–well, getting away from that young rooster.

Then, it was back inside to get Luna’s nest, food, and water ready for the day. I had to go open a new bag of the dusty feed to make Luna’s bowl, and I couldn’t get it open. I have always prided myself in being able to open the feed bags. It seems like a small thing, but there is a trick to it. There is a little tab on one side. If you pull that, the string comes all loose, and the bag opens. Well, the stupid company making the feed changed the bag, and there’s no more tab. So it’s just you and your cold fingers and the stupid string.

This morning that stupid string was just it, and I broke down and cried because they sell us dust and can’t even give us a tab to open it anymore. And it’s just all the things. The straw we have bought for years (and it’s not cheap) has repeatedly been full of plastic bits that we have pick out, so our chickens don’t eat it and it doesn’t end up in our compost. And the feed company sells dust. And grocery prices are so high that my family back home struggles to afford food, and I can’t mail them food from Maine because shipping is so expensive. Plus, I only know how to can sauce and pears and jam. I send them those things as gifts, but that’s not enough. And, though Ron and I are so tired sometimes, we have to keep going because our food industry is literally poisoning all of us and lowering our IQs and giving us cancer. I realize I am just making these claims without evidence, as an academic should never do, but we all know it’s true.

And I also realize all of this is “first world problems” considering the wars and the hungry people in the world and mess humans make of things everywhere for no good reason, as far as I can tell, but it all came down to that stupid feed bag this morning. I don’t know how farmers are going to keep making it. Feed is so expensive, and the straw is full of plastic, and there is drought, and there is flooding, and I have had three friends–two of them farmers–close their businesses in the last year because it’s all just hard.

This morning, I had a little breakdown–over the chicken feed.

But then, after I finished crying, I went in the house, got the scissors, opened the stupid bag, and got sweet Luna her food. She talks to me now. We are starting to understand each other.

And that helps.

And I am going to have to figure out how to get the organic ingredients to make our own feed. I read that it’s problematic, but it has to be better than dust.

photo credit: Prince Abid, Unsplash

Chicken Treats or a Fair Trade

~ Crystal Sands ~ Leave a comment

Day 324 of 365

I think it’s important to chicken happiness for them to get healthy treats. We eat organically and fairly healthily, so our scraps and leftovers are fantastic for the chickens. It cuts down on the feed bill, helps us avoid food waste, and really it just makes the chickens’ day. They love variety. Their chicken feed is just organic pellets. How fun is that? It seems like it would be like eating cereal for every meal for your whole life. Who wants that? I have a dream of making our own chicken food–but I digress…

Today, we had quinoa and blueberries for breakfast, and Ron accidentally doubled the quinoa. This was great because it meant the chickens were in for a healthy, delicious treat. I believe in fair trades with chickens.

I love their eggs, and they help feed our family. I feel I owe these chickens a good life and good treats, so as many days as possible, I bring treats for trade when I collect the eggs. I was so happy to have the quinoa today.

When I give treats, I have a strategy to make sure everyone gets some because I always have at least two or three who were busy doing other things or were far away and miss the initial treat party. So I save a little bit back in the bowl and hold off until I see those last couple of hens, running with all of their little chicken might, just waddling at a lightning speed. It’s fantastic because they are so worried. But then, as soon as they are close enough, I drop some of the treats right in front of them. Today, when those girls saw that pile of quinoa land right at their feet when they thought they were late, they looked like they had won the lottery. One of them was Faure!

I told Ron I do this to make sure those who are late to the party still get some treats, and he said I was cool. I didn’t expect that, but it made me smile.

Feeding Scraps and Other Ways to Cut Your Chicken Feed Bill

~ Crystal Sands ~ 5 Comments

Day 35 of 365

This weekend, I went to Tractor Supply for chicken feed. We buy organic, so it’s always been expensive. For months, I kept reading about chicken feed going up in price, but somehow, perhaps because organic feed was already so expensive, the price of the organic food we buy remained stable–until last month. Our already-expensive feed bill got a lot worse. On Saturday, I spent $215.00 on feed and came home to find just eight eggs for the day. It’s a good thing their poop is gold to us as gardeners!

Still, grain shortages and high feed prices have encouraged us to dig more deeply into ways to save on our feed bill. We have always fed scraps, and thankfully, our hens get to free range in a 3/4 acre area complete with trees, shrubs, and lots of insects. But I think it’s time to step up our game and work on other ways we can be more efficient in how we feed our chickens.

I’ve been reading in the chicken forums so many stories of people having to give up their chickens because of the rising costs of feed, but I can’t help but think, as times get harder, we are going to want to keep our chickens, as they not only provide us with eggs they also fertilize our gardens.

The following are some strategies we use or are planning to try. If you have others to add to the list, I would love to see them in the comments.

Feed scraps from your kitchen.

This just makes good sense to me. I have read that some people say that it’s not as healthy to do this and that your chickens will live longer if they are fed commercial food only, but the only study I have ever read on this topic was sponsored by a large producer of chicken feed–so I am skeptical. Chickens are omnivores and can eat what we eat, for the most part. In this photo I took recently of some scraps, I have a pile of organic quinoa, some leftover ground beef, cooked lasagna noodles that were extra (I cut them up into small pieces) and a head of lettuce from the garden.

Of course, you have to be reasonable. You should never feed your chickens rancid or rotten scraps. And chickens should not eat raw potatoes or peels, citrus, uncooked rice or beans, or avocado peels. Some people think chickens cannot eat tomatoes, but this is not true. Ripe tomatoes are wonderful; it’s just the leaves of the tomato plants that are bad. I have also read that chickens should not eat garlic or onions, but I think this may be because it will change the flavor of the eggs. You should also not feed your chickens chocolate, but I just can’t see this being an issue that often. One time, in an educational presentation, I did have a kiddo ask me if you could feed a chicken some birthday cake. I advised against it but said they could probably get away with a bite or two. Maybe I should have added only if the cake wasn’t chocolate.

But the list of what chickens cannot eat is short, and I feel chickens are a great way to turn food waste into fresh eggs. Our chickens eat leftover homemade bread, veggies, meat, pasta. Our rooster really loves Annie’s Organic Mac and Cheese. We have a couple of glass bowls we keep in our fridge at all times. Every tiny scrap that is safe for chickens goes into the bowls. When the bowls are full (or before the food will go bad), the chickens get the scraps. The scraps also make our chickens happy. I mean, would you want to eat the same exact food every day for your whole life? Chickens like a little variety too, so the scraps are a win-win.

Let them eat bugs, if you can.

We are fortunate. My husband built a fence around 3/4 of an acre on our property, so our chickens get the best of both worlds. It’s like free ranging with protection. Free ranging without a fence comes with risks, but if you have a large fenced area, let them out in it when you can. Our chickens eat bugs, worms, grass, and, sadly, frogs. It makes their eggs taste great, and it helps cut down on feed costs. If you do not have a fenced area, you could even try free ranging when you are around. I do not recommend free ranging without a fence or without people present.

Of course, I know some people just have to do it this. And, when we first got our chickens, we free ranged before my husband built the fence. But we had some close calls with predators, and the chickens definitely didn’t know property lines. We had to get a fence up before our chickens had a party in our neighbor’s vegetable garden. That would have been terrible, and I think it’s important to remember that, though there are exceptions, when it comes to chickens, good fences generally make good neighbors.

Ferment your feed.

This is something I have not tried. I have been so nervous because I worry about making a mistake with this process, but I am very interested in fermenting our feed. I have heard from some reliable people that this has done wonders to cut down on their feed costs, and, apparently, there are health benefits to it as well.

The most detailed and helpful resource on fermenting feed I have found so far is this site from Grubbly Farms–The Benefits of Fermenting Chicken Feed. I have read through this and think this is what I am going to try this summer. That $215 feed bill left an impression.

Start a mealworm farm.

I am pretty close on this one. I have been researching starting a mealworm farm for a couple of years. I have now purchased the totes and think this one is very do-able and seems highly efficient. My chickens love mealworms, but they cost a fortune in the little containers at the pet store, and my picky chickens won’t eat the dried ones. It’s fresh or nothing, I guess.

I found this fantastic video called How to Build a Mealworm Farm that has been helpful. This seems fairly simple, right?

Sprout seeds.

I have done this just a little but need to do it more. Essentially, you just take seeds that are safe for sprouting, such as sunflower seeds, alfalfa, or hard red wheat berries, and you sprout them in jars. These are fantastic treats, and it makes the seeds go further. This page from Homestead and Chill provides detailed instructions and a full list of seeds that are safe for sprouting.

Along these lines, you can also grow your own seeds. We do not have a lot of space, but we love to grow sunflowers anyway. We just started focusing on the sunflowers that produce seeds. The giant sunflowers like the Titan and the Mammoth Grey Stripe produce seeds that you can feed to your flock or sprout to make them go even further.

I hope this list is helpful, and, again, I hope you will add to it if you have additional ideas. I think it’s so important to share knowledge and to work together, as thanks to this terrible war in the Ukraine coupled with climate change, these grain shortages might be here for the foreseeable future.