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  • From: paxamicus AT earthlink.net
  • To: homestead AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [Homestead] Chickens
  • Date: Tue, 20 May 2008 08:11:46 -0400

I'm not keen on guineas because of that horrible rusty ratchet noise they make. And I have no idea if they flock like ducks. I've never tried. Frankly, if they started making noise all I'd want is for the dogs to eat them anyway. : )

My plan was to let them run with the sheep free range. I'm hoping an Anatolian (once properly introduced) would guard them, too. My old one did the banties on the old farm.

Both sheep and horses waste grain enough to feed chickens amply if they are free ranging. I'd supplement if I got no eggs, fragile eggs, or when there's no forage. But really, with all these grain eating herbivores around, when is there ever not enough forage? There's always something lying around waiting to get eaten up....even if it's been um, previously consumed.

I use eggs a lot as a protein, but I hate the idea of caged anything, so I always buy the organic cage-free blah blah blah. I KNOW cage-free isn't really any good, they need to be FREE, but it's the best I can do at the moment. When you figure bug patrol+eggs I don't have to pay an oil well for+clear conscience..my eggs might be $13 a dozen but that's ok with me.

At a certain point you stop balancing just the actual cost in money, you know, and count the real one. The real one to me is not supporting a chicken industry that's incredibly horrible. If I lose money on eggs, that's ok, because so are they, the egg people.

I once had a tour of a chicken killing factory in Maryland. It made an impact. It's why I don't eat chicken.

I like RI Reds, they are so pretty. But my banties were scrappy tough. : )



On May 20, 2008, at 6:24 AM, Gene GeRue wrote:


On May 19, 2008, at 10:43 PM, Marie McHarry wrote:

It's only necessary to feed chickens in winter in my
experience. The rest of the year, they'll get fat on bugs, grubs,
weeds, and whatever else they can get their beaks around.

Happy to hear that. I am currently experimenting. Now withholding
grain and trying to train them to come into the Taj Mahen at night
when I call and rattle a small container with egg pellets in it. Like
all teens, they want to stay out after dark and I want them secured so
I can stop thinking about them.

With only three hens, this fenced yard might be enough to feed them.
And I am scheming an overhead wire design to thwart the hawks, like
the cheeky one that flew right up to and perched in the walnut tree
directly above where the hens were lounging under their raised porch.
And which flew away so fast when I went out that I was sent to the
bird ID book and determined that it was a peregrine falcon, the first
I have ever seen. Too small, certainly, to carry a hen away but big
enough to kill. Beautiful bird.

I bought these three RIReds about a month ago. They had apparently
been raised in a building and for days would not even come outside. I
finally forced the issue with the water pan. Now they are scratching
and pecking away almost as if they know what they're doing. Ain't
instinct wonderful.





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