Grow enough to feed 10 chickens

[GardenWeasel]

Sustainable Seed Company- online- has a poultry package that dada gives the products and the amount of each to plant to feed 10 chickens with some free range. I loved reading it. I may purchase some of the items, some I can get cheaper elsewhere and some I prefer to use a different variety. It was a very informative site. Lots of grain, all open pollinated and non GMO. Great choices of landrace and other wheat seeds. Pretty expensive for those but from what I read you can save your own seed by not eating all of your harvest.

 

[thistlebloom]

That was very interesting 'weasel. It sure is a good idea to supply the girls with homegrown forage, cheaper and better!

 

[April Manier]

Would you tractor the chickens to the grain? Or just pull it up and throw it in?

I grew Quinoa for kicks this year. I won't again! To much work harvesting it!

 

[GardenWeasel]

Last year cut and hauled oats, millet, sunflowers and buckwheat. Lots of work. This year stole part of their run and planted oats, buckwheat, millet and a few sunflowers and fenced it off with fences I could take down when it was ready. Got 2 crops of buckwheat. They mowed it down and ate it all. Will try to leave my fence posts up if we can still till. Next year will steal more room and do some dent corn. I thought about quinoa but our summers are so hot and dry. I did amaranth, really hard to thresh so just tossed it in the run in the winter and the chickens got most of it. I would love to tractor them but not much shade and my hens are pretty used to free ranging so all they did was pace back and forth and not eat a darn thing.

 

[April Manier]

I am getting ready to build a new pen. I think I will build it with the idea of having a section of crops to unleash them in. I like this idea! Very permaculture...

 

[wsmoak]

I bought a bag of oats for the horse and when I opened the bag, they were moldy. I got a refund, but asked to keep it for a cover crop if they were just going to throw it away.

So I tossed a bunch out in the summer garden area, and then sprouted some in a plastic container (that previously held strawberries). I lined it with newspaper and layered some potting soil and oats, and put it under my seed-starting grow lights. Pretty soon, I have 6" oat seedlings!

This batch went to the rabbits. The chickens were not interested, they have an entire yard of green stuff. I think they'll reconsider this winter though!

The oats are about $13 for 50 lbs, and I'm still working on my 'free' bag.

One day, though... I *really* want one of these: https://www.farmtek.com/farm/suppli...1&langId=-1&division=FarmTek&productId=536005

-Wendy

 

[GardenWeasel]

I think what I found most informative on that site was they gave the amount of seed required. Then you have to adjust for bugs and weather. I expanded my run this year and put in a mulberry tree where there is no shade so at some point they should have shade and mulberries. I grow a lot of those plants already but am really interested in the sorghum. Also saw that the pumpkin was a Moschata which is resistant to vine borers.