Food for thought or thought for food.

[ONG]

For supper tonight we are having a meal of ingredients that I gathered from our place, with the exception of the meat which was purchased. I put a smoked ham hock in the crock pot over night. I also soaked some leather breeches (dried green beans) and some horticultural beans over night. These were added to the crock pot this morning along with a couple of hands full of ramps that I had dug yesterday and a couple of hands full of dandelion greens that Abigail had picked last week. Lastly some red potatoes from our garden last year were added.

Abigail will make some of her most excellent corn bread (made from Bloody Butcher corn that we raised) to go along with the meat and greens. The point of this short note is that in my opinion people should make every effort to get out of the habit of eating out of the box (yes pun intended) and start now to look at some self sufficient ways of feeding themselves.

[Juristic Person]

Great post. I agree. The more food you consume that you have grown and killed yourself, the better.

I recently purchased some chickens and built a coop. I also have started a garden with a variety of fruits and veggies. I can't wait for the hens to begin laying eggs. Supposedly I should be able to get one egg/day from each one. This is a new venture for me.

[ONG]

Great post. I agree. The more food you consume that you have grown and killed yourself, the better.

I recently purchased some chickens and built a coop. I also have started a garden with a variety of fruits and veggies. I can't wait for the hens to begin laying eggs. Supposedly I should be able to get one egg/day from each one. This is a new venture for me.

Good for you on the chickens, we use a chicken tractor between the rows of our garden. It's an open bottomed pen made of plastic conduit and chicken wire with a tarp top. Move it between the rows and the chickens eat the weeds and fertilize the garden as they go. In the last two years we used the mechanical tiller once. We average about 6 eggs a week per hen this time of year.

[goldie40]

you're exactly right, millions of people are in big trouble if the trucks stop rolling and the stores close. I know many who are in trouble when the power is off, they don't know how to open a can without the power opener. I'ts going to be quite a sight when people are killing each other for a piece of road kill.

[Juristic Person]

Good for you on the chickens, we use a chicken tractor between the rows of our garden. It's an open bottomed pen made of plastic conduit and chicken wire with a tarp top. Move it between the rows and the chickens eat the weeds and fertilize the garden as they go. In the last two years we used the mechanical tiller once. We average about 6 eggs a week per hen this time of year.

That's a great idea. I am new to this (raising chickens) and had no idea that they would eat the weeds. Do they eat all weeds or only certain ones? I live in Arizona and some of the weeds I see out here look like they might eat the chickens...

[ONG]

That's a great idea. I am new to this (raising chickens) and had no idea that they would eat the weeds. Do they eat all weeds or only certain ones? I live in Arizona and some of the weeds I see out here look like they might eat the chickens...

Not sure about the Arizona weeds but in Ohio the they eat'em down to bare ground, and then scratch the soil. Now if the weeds get too big 6-8" they have a harder time eating them. http://www.amazon.com/Chicken-Tractor-Permaculture-Guide-Healthy/dp/0962464864/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1273061359&sr=1-1 I bought this book and it was real helpful.

[AMforPM]

In central Texas they eat them to bare ground too. And scratch around, turn the soil, and dig up cutworms and other bugs you will be glad not to have eat your garden, and instead be transformed into eggs.

The instructions that the hatchery sent with my baby chicks said that mother hens would teach the babies to eat local weeds, and for best weeding to bring tender bits of your local weeds to your baby chicks right from the start, since they have no mom to do the teaching.

Our hens preferred some weeds to others. They love clover and dandelions, for example and thistles not so much. But when confined where they don't have a choice of various weeds they will eat everything green, and then dig up the roots and any bugs for several inches down. Great little farmhands, and leave fertilizer behind.

edit to add: I concur that chopping giant weeds to something short the first time you send them through would be better. A whacked off weed would make compost with its whacked part and tender shoots they would like more from the stump.

Hens allowed to graze provide up to half their food needs. Since they are making that egg most days they do need a lot of food, so if you are making them graze very bare ground, giving them half the day on better grazing makes their overall nutrition, and their eggs, more vitamin rich.

They are also very big on protein. If you can stand to hand pick tomato worms, the hens will gladly convert them to eggs. We took off any wormy outer cabbage leaves for the hens as well. In fact, garden 'refuse' makes great hen feed. Ours still got daily purchased grain, but I calculated that if I chose to raise my own millet, 50 x 70 would have grown a year's grain for 25 hens.

I may yet do that, and have the hens get it bare and cultivated first.

[Juristic Person]

In central Texas they eat them to bare ground too. And scratch around, turn the soil, and dig up cutworms and other bugs you will be glad not to have eat your garden, and instead be transformed into eggs.

The instructions that the hatchery sent with my baby chicks said that mother hens would teach the babies to eat local weeds, and for best weeding to bring tender bits of your local weeds to your baby chicks right from the start, since they have no mom to do the teaching.

Our hens preferred some weeds to others. They love clover and dandelions, for example and thistles not so much. But when confined where they don't have a choice of various weeds they will eat everything green, and then dig up the roots and any bugs for several inches down. Great little farmhands, and leave fertilizer behind.

I don't know why anyone would choose NOT to have chickens. They are cheap, easy to keep and provide a huge benefit to your garden, your land and independent living. I only wish I had room for more.

[ONG]

I don't know why anyone would choose NOT to have chickens. They are cheap, easy to keep and provide a huge benefit to your garden, your land and independent living. I only wish I had room for more.

Well we don't keep a rooster in the chicken tractor. The garden is close to our house the barn is over the hill. On the rare Saturday's where we can sleep in till 7:00 I don't want any rooster crowing at the butt crack of dawn.

[AMforPM]

When our last old hen died H1N1 was hot and heavy in the news and I did not want big bro murdering them. Then the wife wants to wait 1 more year because this year has been very busy, but I worry the collapse will cut me off from the black aussie hatchery, and I prefer them greatly.