Author: Anna & Mark

Around the beginning of
November, I had to increase the forest pasture flock’s daily ration of
storebought feed back to the normal levels.  Kitchen scraps have
mostly petered out since we’re now just eating out of the garden rather
than freezing masses of produce every day, and the last of the garden
is now weeded and put to bed for the winter.  With less coming in
from outside the pasture, the current paddock is looking quite bare and
the chickens are depending mostly on storebought feed for their energy.



In a perfect world, we
would have a third paddock fenced in and ready for the flock, but fall
is a busy time and I suspect that paddock won’t make it onto the list
of chores for a few more weeks.  Instead, I plan to start layering
fresh wood chips and other sources of biomass in the paddock for the
chickens to work through, creating mulch and keeping them off the bare
soil in a deep-bedding
type system.



Meanwhile,
I’m eying the winter
wheat in the first
paddock, which popped up in a lush layer of green during a late October
rain.  Around the end of November, I think the seedlings will be
well enough rooted that I’ll be able to turn the chickens into this
paddock for a day or so to give them a dose of fresh green vegetables.

If you choose carefully, you
can have American persimmons ripening in your forest pasture
for over six months, from August through February.  The fruits are
mostly sugar, but they provide a vitamin boost that your flock will
enjoy during the cold, winter months when fresh food is scarce.  I
tossed a few persimmons to our chickens last week to test them out and
was stunned by how well the fruits were received.  “More
persimmons, please!” the hens seemed to say.



This winter, I’m collecting
seeds from wild trees to start my own persimmon test patch.  With
the help of a reader and some friends and family, I’ve already nailed
down varieties that ripen in August, September, October, November, and
December.  (If you’ve got a later ripening tree, I’d trade a
waterer for some seeds.)  Planting persimmons is a long term
project, but I feel confident that at least by 2020, our chickens will
be fat and happy on the winter fruits.



I posted a lot of
information about persimmons over on my homestead blog last week:

• Persimmon
  uses for livestock, nutritional information, and sources of information
• Persimmons
  as human food and the difference between American and Asian persimmons
• General
  information about planting persimmons
• How
  to propagate persimmons by germinating seeds, grafting, and
  transplanting
• How
  to ripen persimmons

Hopefully those tips
will help you out if you decide to add persimmons to your own forest
pasture.