Feed for chickens?

[big brown horse]

 

[sekinkead]

Hello, I am also interested in growing feed for my chickens this year. I only live on 2 acres so I'm not sure how much I can grow for them. If I want to get the most bang for my buck what is the one crop you would recoomend.

P.s I came over here from BYC.

 

[ohiofarmgirl]

*Edited because I couldn't figure out how to fix scrampled eggs. I'm sure if there is a way, I'll find out here.

Scrampled eggs are eggs mixed with scrapple. To make your own:

First you need one fresh pig's head......

did someone want me to dig that pigs head out of the burn pile bucket?? its been rotting since the first week of dec.... might need to scrape some if the ick off it.. but hey we've had mostly freezing temps

;-)

 

[GardenWeasel]

If I had to pick one it would be buckwheat. Grows fast, chickens will eat at any stage, great cover crop.

 

[Bettacreek]

For right now, I'm just copying and pasting a message that I had sent to a member of BYC on cultures for a bearded dragon.

Mealworms would be an excellent culture to have around. They're ungodly inexpensive to breed, they breed like crazy, and you can feed the excess to quail and chickens, or sell/trade them to bait/petshops (or even in the local classifieds). For mealworms, start out with a small 50 count pack of them, toss them into a five or ten gallon tank, or one of the 20qt sterilite containers (or whatever you can find that is at least 10" deep. toss an inch of chicken food or wheat bran into the container. To water them, you can use the cricket crystals (buy the dry form online or through a gardening source, NOT the wet ones from the petstore, they put a horrendus price tag on it, plus I think there are preservatives in it them), or you can slice up a potato or carrot. I personally went with the crystals, as it's only $3 to make a gallon of it from crystals. Just let the original breeders reach beetle size, then wait for tons of mealworms to get to size. It does take a bit of time, but it's worth it. Get the large size mealies (not superworms) to cut some of the time off. Some people seperate the pupae into a seperate container until they pupate into beetles, but I never did. If you want, you can refridgerate some to keep them at the size they are. However, there will be so darned many that you won't really need to do this for one single beardie. Just feed excess off to your chooks or quail, being sure to keep some of the largest in the tub for reproduction.

Redworms are another good culture. They're easy to eat, aren't gross, and you can use them to help compost organic waste. I haven't cultured these on any large scale, so you'd have to check into vermiculture if you want to raise them on a large scale. I personally just tossed worms into any container (once I had a ton of them in a baby wipe container). Put topsoil in with them. A lot of places tell you that you need rabbit poop or manure. I never used this and did just fine with topsoil. Not to mention that you could dump them out and add new top soil once their "dirt" turned black. Then you knew that the topsoil was all processed into valuable castings for your plants. Feed them with organic wastes (bunny poop, banana peels, etc), baby cereal (if you have a small amount), cornmeal, whole wheat flour, etc. Just pick out ones that you'd like to use for feeding, fishing etc. Just keep an eye on your total stock to make sure that you're not over-harvesting them.

Waxworms are an alright culture. They just depend on your preference. They are fatty, so feed in moderation to the beardy. Most feeders are supplemental however, and need to be balanced. They require more work than the mealworm, but probably less than the redworms. The work is all concentrated into blocks. You need to have an insect container (I use "culture cups" which are deli cups with holes in the lids covered in polyfabric), for small home purposes, you can use a quart canning jar with fabric in the ring (or use a spaghetti jar, pound holes in the lid with nails, then use fabric in the same way you would with a canning jar). I recommend the canning jar with ring though, which you should be able to find dirt cheap at a thrift store. If you have wheat bran (the cheapest option if bought from a feed store) use this to mix with honey. Mix it only until you have a dry crumble. If no wheat bran, try oatmeal, though I'm not 100% sure how well this would work. If you have glycerine, you can add this as well (I believe it's one part honey to one part glycerine). Put an inch or so into the jar, add your waxworms. Start out with 50 or so of these as well. Once they pupate, add pieces of crumbled wax paper to the jar, where the moths will lay their eggs. The moths need no special care, just remove them once they're dead. The dead (or live) moths can be fed to your critters. Remove the eggs and put them into new containers using the same process as before. Keep 50 or so to reproduce your next batch. You can refridgerate these to keep them at the size you want. Put them on the door of the fridge so that they don't get too cold.

Silkworms are an excellent food source. They are PACKED with nutrition. Unfortunately, you do need a mulberry tree to harvest leaves from, or you must purchase mulberry mash (dried and powdered mulberry leaves). As an added bonus, you can harvest mulberries and make jam from your new tree, lol. You can also use them for silk, but silk production requires that you allow them to pupate, then kill them off. Some people say that the killed pupae can be used for reptile food, but I'm not sure what the nutrient level is at this stage. Anyways, I have yet to get these guys (just waiting on a bit of extra cash to order them), so this info is just from my research and not personal experience. You can order bulk eggs or silkworms. Personal preference there really. I'll probably personally order eggs, then refridgerate extra eggs and only hatch out what I have food for (I have powdered silkworm chow for now, will be ordering a weeping mulberry tree in the spring). Put them in a container (some say a shoebox), add chow paste or YOUNG mulberry leaves. Clean out the frass and old food every day or so (use your best judgement), add new food. Use toilet paper tubes to allow them to pupate in. The moths don't eat, just breed and die, so no special care is needed for the moths.

http://www.beautifuldragons.503xtreme.com/Nutrition.html

 

[savingdogs]

Bettacreek, thank you so much for the interesting post. We could have all searched far and wide for all that specialised information. Do you raise these worms indoors or do you have an outdoor shed? If outside, what is your lowest winter temperature where you live?

 

[Bettacreek]

Honestly, I raised them indoors, in my small apartment. It was on a small scale of course, but you can raise production without taking up much more space at all. Now that I actually have a yard, I may put them outside during the mellow months (I live in PA). During the other months (like this month, lol), they'll go in the basement. You need to make sure that they don't freeze. I'm not honestly sure of the best temperature (or the temp range) for them, but if I remember correctly, silkworms and waxworms all need to be kept in room temp. Production will drop/stop on all of these if the temps are too low below room temp.

P.S. - From what I'm hearing on BYC, chickens LOVE mulberries, so that would be another added chicken feed source if you go the route of silkworms.

 

[big brown horse]

Yup, mealworms are quite easy to raise. I had a plastic bin full of them for about a year, in my living room window! I dont do it anymore simply b/c my chickens are out free ranging all day now.

They don't smell either...no gross factor.

 

[Bettacreek]

Yup, mealworms are quite easy to raise. I had a plastic bin full of them for about a year, in my living room window! I dont do it anymore simply b/c my chickens are out free ranging all day now.

They don't smell either...no gross factor.

I agree with everything except the no gross factor, lol. They're perfectly fine to breed and such, but I get the eebie jeebies if I try to pick them up. I used a 20qt container with wheat bran. I often forgot about them, but had no issues, even if I forgot about them for over a month, lol. There is one issue with them however... If you're asthmatic, you'll want to use a dust mask and take them outdoors when you dig through the bedding. I always did it indoors without a dust mask, but then again, I also make soap without gloves and end up with minor chemical burns all of the time too. I'm not exactly the most precautious in anything that I do.

 

[big brown horse]

I used a slotted spoon to get them out!