Recent content by LilyD

Here in New England there are a lot of things that I grow and sell. First off I have chickens and I sell their eggs for eating mos of the year. That pretty much gives me enough to cover the costs of the grains so I keep the girls fed. I do also offer eggs for hatching but haven't really had that...

No I will try an ad, I didn't think about home brewers I just focused on the known breweries in the state but they are all taken by people already who use the grains. I have been looking into fermenting my own grains and I am checking out what grains are available at the feed stores that we...

I tried to get the brewers grain but all the good breweries up here have a waiting list for people to take the grains. Instead I am going to get some whole grains and then I will sprout them and feed them that as a supplemental feed. Right now though they are getting so much good food from the...

We picked up the first two batches of food from the bakery on Friday and today. It works out to 5 or 6 5 gallon pails although they say it will go down once winter gets here because that's their slow season. We feed a large amount of it to the pigs and keep about 10 gallons for the chickens...

The new diet I started for my chickens is working wonders. The ladies are starting to grow their feathers back in and are starting to look much more healthy. I might not have to knit them little chicken sweaters for the winter after all. The last of the roosters have either gotten homes or...

Bettacreek thank you for the wealth of information. It's very helpful. I would have never pictured Cornish X as being foragers but I guess if the food isn't provided for them that their drive to eat would overpower their want to stay by the feeder all day. I am hoping that by lowering the...

Marianne, The sunchoke roots seem really hard kind of like a potato. I am wonderinf if they need to sit and rot a bit before the chickens can eat them or if we cook them to soften them if they would be more edible. I do know the pigs love them and will go out of their way to eat them given the...

They definitely are good dual purpose birds and super sweet as well. :D Today has been rainy and cold all day. I had a whole list of things planned that I wanted to get done outside and when I woke up to the ground being completely soaked again all those plans had to get tossed out the...

I don't believe that cooking makes an item processed at least not in my book. I think that what people are trying to eliminate are the products that we don't know the ingredients to. If I look at a bag of chicken feed that is pelleted there are a lot of things in there that I know but there...

The chickens I am feeding are living on 2 acres of land. They have blueberry bushes, raspberry, blackberry, cherry, peach, grape and 8 apple trees on the property and they are my clean up crew for the drops that I have for each and every one. They also get veggie scraps pretty much daily from my...

That was my thinking too I am trying hard to only eat foods that are natural for myself how could I not offer the same thing to my animals. While rice doesn't have anything really super good in it, it is a carb so it could be a fill in for corn or a grain. I also will have some whole grains to...

Chickens love mice for food but the fur slows them down. you could try spliting trapped mice [not poisioned] for them. "pinky" young before fur are real treats which they will fight to get I don't really have to work to feed them the mice if they see them they will grab them and eat them and...

Marianne I do make bone broth and actually had that from last night to add to the chickens dinner for today. I have some in the freezer as well that I have used for the dog but I think it would be okay for the chickens as well. I had heard that some birds do well and others might not. Right now...

Marianne ~ That website had tons of information thank you. I haven't researched much about raising meal worms but I am definitely interested in giving it a try. My cat never finishes her canned cat food when we give it to her so I will give whatever she doesn't finish to them. I am thinking as...

DP stands for a dual purpose bird. It means any chicken that was bred in the past to be good for both laying eggs and eating. Things like your barred rock, brahmas, dorkings, cornish etc are all DP birds there are a lot more I could list too.