Turkey Tracks: February 9, 2011
Chicken Feed Recipe
Our chickens are very tired of being “cooped up” in their coop and attached cage, both of which are now banked high with snow and which are, therefore, dark. You will recall that the chicks were venturing out in the snow paths we made, lured by me and sunflower seeds, until a bird (an owl?) killed May May at dusk one day.
The cage, actually, has about 2 feet of snow on its top as well–which probably provides quite a bit of insulation, especially since I layered tarps over it before the first snow fall. Inside the coop, we have a red 60 watt translucent light, which gives them a bit more heat. (The temps up here were in the teens last night.) I plug in the light in the morning when I feed the chicks so they have some light in their coop during the day. I turn if off about 8 p.m. They don’t really like the light on all night, so I only leave it on all night when the temps fall into the single digits. They get quite cross when they go all night with the light on.
Chickens are very social, so I try to visit them several times a day after they have finished laying. They don’t like to be disturbed when they are laying. I open the roof, and they come to see me. Several will fly up to perch on the opened roof edge and like to be petted and rubbed. All of them talk to you. I throw a handful of sunflower seeds into the cage, which is now many inches deep with coop bedding that falls out when the cage door gets opened in the morning. They scratch around looking for the seeds, and it gives them something to do. They are VERY bored. (The dogs are too.) The other day I sacrificed some of my compost worms and took a full bowl out to the coop. Mercy me! Those chickens were so excited.
Chickens love greens, and now all the grass is covered with snow. I give them as many greens as I can–leftover lettuce, cooked greens, the stems from cleaning greens, and so forth. I’ve even been known to BUY them some lettuce. But, what the really love are sprouts, so I’ve been sprouting mung beans for them–something I do this time of year anyway to get fresh greens into our diets. If I leave the sprouts growing longer, they start to grow leaves, and the chicks really like those. Here are some sprouting in the kitchen window:
That rock in in the window is a piece of the old, old Bryan mill stone from the mill out on what was once the farm in Reynolds, Georgia. My Uncle Buddy gave it to me long years ago now. The mill was gone by the time I was a child, but he remembered it.
I also give the chickens a big bowl of milk, some hamburger, a bit of bread to soak up the milk, kitchen leftovers they like, and whatever greens I can muster up first thing in the morning. They love cooked oatmeal, like a warm mash, on a cold morning. Ditto ground corn cooked in a bit of milk. This food is their second choice, after greens.
I don’t feed my chickens commercial organic feed, which is full of industrial by-products, like spent, rancid oils, SOY, and synthetic protein, needed because the corn/soy ratio doesn’t supply enough protein. Chickens fed commercial feed, even organic feed, produce egg yolks with soy isoflavones, which are phytoestrogens that act like hormones and which affect human reproductive and nervous systems.
Here’s what the mixture I make for them looks like–and I’m darn lucky to have access to all of these organic grains. Looks good enough to grind and cook, right? I could, if I didn’t put grit into the mixture. See the tiny rocks–grit–mixed it? That’s what chickens use to help digest their food inside their crop, or gizzard. Anyway, I keep all the grains, seeds, and beans separate out in the garage, so I can use them if I like.
I got the master recipe from a farm out west somewhere, called Greener Pastures (www.greenerpasturesfarm.com/ChickenFeed Recipe.html). Thanks so much for sharing, Greener Pastures!
This recipe uses wheat, which has a fair amount of protein, as the base grain and peas and lentils for proteins. Everything is organic. So, here’s what I’m mixing up:
3 parts hard red winter wheat
3 parts soft spring wheat
1 part whole corn (I up this in the winter to almost 3 parts to help the chicks gain and hold fat, and in the summer I throw out a bit of whole corn for scratch feed.)
1 part steel-cut oats
1 part hulled barley
1 part hulled sunflower seeds
1 part green split peas
1 part lentils
Any other seeds/grain I think they’ll like for a change: millet, sesame seeds, etc.
About two cups of grit per mixture.
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