Healthy soil and sustainable growing

[Harvey Ussery <boxwood@nelsoncable.com>]

(Responses interspersed below.  ~Harvey)

> Ok Harvey, I went out and picked up the current Mother Earth and found your
> piece on chickens. Very, very practical and down to earth.  ~Paul
> I too just read the article. 
>
> I have a question re: feed for layers. I bought organic roasted soybeans
> which was expensive and a mistake. They don't like to eat them and to grind
> them just doesn't work.   ~Rhoda
>   

I haven't used soybeans for years--ever since I was able to replace with 
field peas (Pisum arvense, relative of garden pea Pisum sativum). I do 
grind them, though--the birds resist eating them if left whole. I have a 
heavy-duty grinder, and make all my own feeds--have for years.




> DO you use a specific formula? I have the fertrell minerals and a whole
> recipe but just don't have the energy to stand and mix. 

There's a *big* section on feeding on my website, starts at:
   http://themodernhomestead.us/article/Feeding.html
(I will be adding another article or two on feeding in the next few days.)


> What about sunflower
> seeds for them? 

I throw sunflower heads to the birds and they eat the seeds. I've read 
posts from folks who make purchased sunflower seeds a major part of a 
home-designed feeding program with good results, but haven't used them 
that way myself. Some people caution that, if you feed too much 
sunflower, you can get the birds' fat intake too high.


> Would love to know what you are all feeding them. Do you
> leave feed for them all day?  
>   

I no longer feed free choice, since having an unbelievable mouse 
infestation as a result. I measure out my feed and give it in the 
morning. (3-1/2 ounces per adult chicken per day.) They are on an 
exercise yard heavily mulched with old hay, so they also get plenty of 
wild seeds in the hay, plus animal foods like earthworms and slugs at 
the soil line (which remains unfrozen because of the hay mulch). In 
addition, I feed them earthworms from my vermicomposting bins.

I think it's working: This is the second winter I've adopted this 
feeding strategy. In previous winters, egg quality dropped off some in 
winter (i.e. was only about 800 times better than supermarket eggs, 
rather than the summertime 1000 times better). But last winter and this, 
egg quality has held at very close to pasture-season quality.


> At present I have 9 layers but get only 3 eggs. I have 25 chickens that were
> hatched August 14. I have 7 guineas hatched 8/14 as well. They and the older
> 2 guineas that I have are very mean to the chicks. I never had that before
> with my other guineas. I live in Central Florida.
>
> My chickens are free range all day over a few acres. As they get older they
> go further. I have 10 acres. Their coops are stationary coops that get
> locked at night. 

Free ranging over that much space is the best thing you could be doing, 
much better than any other element in your feeding program.

~Harvey


--
Harvey in northern Va
www.themodernhomestead.us

"How we eat determines, to a considerable extent, how the world is used."  
~Wendell Berry