This is an experiment I’ve
been wanting to try.
It seems some chickens really
like that slow swinging effect you get when suspending a solid branch
with some chain or rope.
Image credit goes to
Buttercup and Youtube user ThePartyAnimalVideos.
Most books recommend that
you lower the protein content of your chicken and duck feed from around
20% protein (starter feed) to about 13 to 18% protein (grower/finisher
feeds) when the youngsters pass their peak growth period (by the time
they’re two to three months old). You don’t want to just change
the pullets over to laying pellets at this time, even though the protein
content of the feed is right, because excess calcium before a bird
starts to lay can damage the birds’ internal organs and skeleton.
And even though I’ve raised pullets all the way to laying on chick feed
in the past, this option isn’t the best either since it can make birds
grow too fast and not develop properly (and since chick feed is more
expensive than lower-protein feeds).
While it seems simple to
go to the feed store and pick up some grower/finisher feed, ours only
stocks three kinds of poultry feed — chick starter, laying pellets for
adult hens, and scratch feed (which is just mixed grains, appropriate
for treats only). We don’t have the storage area needed to mix our own feeds, so I was glad that Storey’s Guide to Raising Ducks
suggested a simpler option. The author recommends adding whole,
rolled, meal, or pelleted oats to your ducks’ rations at a rate of 5% by
volume the first week, then an additional 5% each week until you’re
feeding 25% oats and 75% starter feed. Since oats are 12% protein, that drops the protein content of your mixed feed to 18% (if my math is right).
I went back to check on
our pullets and cockerels a few hours after giving them their mixed feed
to see if they pecked around the oats. To my surprise, I found
that they’d actually broken apart their automatic feeder so they could
eat up all the oats first
— I guess the chickens knew they needed more carbs in their diet and
were itching for the extra grain. That was at 10% oats by volume,
so I guess I’ll move the chickens right up to 25% grain and see how they
do. The ducks, on the other hand, are younger and are reputed to
be pickier about changing feeds, so I’ll keep tapering their diet down
to a lower protein level over the next few weeks.
The flip side of the forest pasture coin from my focus on trees
is what the chicken-level plant life is like. Although it will be
years before the chicken-friendly trees I planted begin to cast serious
shade in our pastures, I have a preview of that effect in a pasture
where my attempt to girdle the existing trees failed miserably.
As a result this pasture is in near-solid shade for most of the day,
and the sward has suffered. In fact, I had such a hard time
getting anything to grow there that I took the pasture out of commission
in 2013, planted grass and white clover in the spring and then cut the
weeds at intervals to make sure the pasture plants had a chance to get
their feet under them.
The result? The
chickens love this pasture more than any of their others, but I can only
keep the flock there for about three or four days (instead of the six
or seven I’m currently clocking in the other pastures) or the chickens
will scratch up the tender young plants. I’ll be curious to see
whether the grass and clover becomes more of a solid pasture in later
years, or whether this is simply what to expect from a very shady
chicken pasture.
On a semi-related note, we turned the ducks into our hillside pasture
a week ago…and learned that ducks don’t climb hills. I’d noted
the Cornish Cross were hanging out by the coop door when I opened the
pophole into this pasture, but had never experienced a problem with
birds balking at steepness before, so I blamed it on the broilers.
Now I see that our ducks, also, have yet to leave level ground, which
makes me curious to hear from other duck keepers. Do your ducks
handle rough terrain, or do they prefer flat land?
I’ll
end this disjointed post with a picture of a tree I forgot to add to my
previous forest pasture post. Long before I decided to turn the
starplate area into a pasture, I had Mark cut down a couple of trees and
then planted a little butternut tree into the gap. And in the
last six years, it has grown…about twelve inches.
Granted, I never weeded,
mulched, or fertilized the butternut, but it does seem like many nut
trees are seriously slow growers. The exception is hazels,
which fruit at bush size. (My five-year-old bush had female
flowers for the first time this year and didn’t keep those fruits, but I
hope for our first homegrown nuts in 2015.)
Of course, chickens won’t
eat unshelled nuts, so adding nut trees to a chicken pasture is more of
an exercise in hope for eventual pigs than anything else. Not
that I would mind adding some homegrown nuts to the human menu.
Thanks for wading through another long forest pasture post! Now
I’ll probably forget to tell you anything more for six months or a
year. These experiments are fascinating (to me, at least), but
take a long time to yield results.