Free range chicks

May 28, 2012 Posts No Comments
Chick habitat

Chicks eating sourgrassI’ll probably regret it, but
I’ve been letting our second batch of chicks forage freely for three
weeks now.  The chicks were itching to get out onto pasture when
they were still small enough to fit through the holes in our temporary
fence material, so I
just took down the fence and let them roam.



Since the brooder is currently situated near a
garden plot that’s mostly fallow (planted in an annual
ryegrass cover crop),
they can’t do much damage.  Chick eating chickweedYes, the chicks have
scratched up the mulch under my blackberries, but I don’t mind
remulching after I move the chicks elsewhere if it means lots of free
protein.



And I’m very impressed
by the youngster’s ability to demolish the bits of sourgrass that are
growing in the garden.  The birds make short work of the chickweed
too, and entertain us for hours as they hunt down bugs in the grass and
on the wing.



Care of the flock became
even easier when I upgraded them to a two gallon bucket waterer, suspended from a branch of
the peach tree.  The chicks cluster around the nipples on hot
summer Chick watererafternoons and drink to their
hearts’ content.



So, why will I regret
letting our chicks free range when both they and we enjoy it so
much?  At a month old, they’re already ranging thirty or forty
feet away from the brooder, and at this rate they’ll be in the active
part of the vegetable garden within two or three weeks.  At that
point, I’ll have to fence the rascals in, and I’ll bet they’ll turn
into fence
fliers after
enjoying free run of the whole back yard for so long.



Chick speakBut
I’ll cross that bridge when I come to it.  For now, I’m enjoying
Chicken TV too much to shut it off.








Our chicken waterer is perfect
for chicks from day 1.

Compost pile deep bedding

May 23, 2012 Posts No Comments

Compost pile in the chicken coopAlthough I liked putting
our compost pile in the chicken pasture last year, the method had
issues.  First and foremost, the kitchen scraps I tossed on top
tempted our usually well-behaved dog to break in, which was only a
problem because the chickens always found the holes in the fence and
ended up scratching up the vegetable garden.



But I also didn’t like
devoting that much space to compost.  I had to put a pile in each
pasture, and each pile tended to sprawl out as the chickens scratched
through in search of goodies.  As a result, we had quite a lot of
bare ground that could have been growing edibles for the flock.



This year, we’re trying
something completely different.  A few weeks ago, I started
tossing the kitchen scraps on the deep
bedding inside the
coop itself.  The coop walls blocked the scent, so our dog left
them alone.



Then, last week, I got
lazy and dumped some garden weeds in the coop to refresh the deep
bedding rather than raking
more leaves out of the woods.  Even though weeds are
much lower in carbon than tree leaves (meaning you need more of them to
counteract the high nitrogen manure), we never have a paucity of garden
weeds on our farm.  Maybe I can solve the compost problem at the
same time I lower the amount of work required to keep up the deep
bedding, all while allowing the flock just as much access to chickweed
and apple cores.  I’ll keep you posted about how this new method
works out.


Our chicken waterer keeps the flock healthy with
copious, clean water.

Feed conversion rate and cicadas

May 21, 2012 Posts No Comments

Edible cicadaIn Pastured
Poultry Profits,
Joel Salatin opened my eyes to the fact that I’ve been comparing apples
to oranges with my feed
conversion rates. 
He explained that the industry standard I’ve been trying to live up to
(2:1) uses liveweight of the chickens — in other words, how much they
weigh “on the hoof” with feathers, guts, and all.  I’ve been using
carcass weight in my calculations, the industry standard for which is
closer to 3:1.  That seems much more achievable…


Jar full of cicadas

…Especially if I
supplement our flock’s diet with cicadas!  Yep, I’m here to admit
that my feed conversion rate for this first batch of broilers is going
to have no relation to reality because the 17
year cicadas are
going strong this spring.  I suspect that if I had a way to let Emerging cicadathe chickens run free without
having them decimate the garden, I wouldn’t be feeding the flock
anything at all — our broilers snap up the cicadas like candy, and
there are so many of the insects that I can easily gather a jarful like
the one shown above in twenty minutes.



This living off the
“cream” is how Joel Salatin is able to cut the feed costs in his
Eggmobiles by 67%.  I’ll write more about his system in a later
post, but the point I want to make now is that everyone’s habitat
offers a different chicken-feeding opportunity, and you have to be on
the lookout for free food when it falls in your lap.  The cicadas
are falling in my lap right now.


Male and female cicadas

Chicken eating cicadaBecause I just can’t resist
throwing in numbers, here are some to think about.  An ounce of
cicadas (liveweight) consists of about 38 individuals, with the number
depending on how many are males and how many are females.  (I’m
guessing the big ones are girls, but thirty seconds on the internet
hasn’t confirmed this.)

Chicken eating bug

My flock of broilers can
eat those 38 individuals in about three minutes, but only about 16% of
the humans I offered insects to were willing to taste
a cicada.



“They’re delicious,” my
young cockerels tell me.  “Just gulp them down whole!”  Even
our dog has been seen hunting cicadas, which is yet more proof that the
bugs are as nutritious as they are delicious.  If you don’t feel
like eating them yourself, take my advice and spend half an hour
filling a jar for your flock.


Our chicken waterer provides clean waterer to
ensure the health of your flock.