That's correct, Shannymara. I use a small counter top toaster oven to bake my shells and then crush them when they're done. Or, I put them in the still-warm oven after I've baked something else. Feeding them raw egg shells can lead to eating eggs, but Ive never had a problem feeding them the baked egg shells. I also leave out oyster shells free choice for the birds, and they do love them. Someone asked me once what in the world I fed my chickens, because their shells were so hard ... so I guess it works.

Here at the henhouse...
We've sold so many eggs lately that I have less than a dozen in the fridge. I guess the selling comes in spurts. I need to learn not to worry about it. It seems that everytime I end up with a few extra dozen and start worrying, then everyone wants eggs at once, and before its all over, I end up turning folks away because I dont have enough to sell. That should be remedied in the next two months as the babies begin laying.

I sold three teenager ducks on Friday - for $5 each. Though they're not fully mature (and thus, dont have their full coloration yet), I think what I sold was one male and two females. I know the people that bought them from us - the same people who gave us the commercial laying box, and are regular egg customers, so I'm not worried about them . But it made us a little money to help pay for food for the rest. I probably could have sold them for more to someone I didnt know, but since these folks have been such good customers and helped us out, I didnt want to take advantage of them.

Yesterday I also did the nasty chore of cleaning out the henhouse and putting in new bedding. It took me a while, and was hot work, but now I have a sizable pile of composting chicken manure and shavings which will go on the garden this fall. Nothing is wasted on a homestead, so they say.

The predator problem seems to be increasing around here. Though so far (knock on wood) none of the chickens have been harmed, once again yesterday morning there was a ruckus by the chicken pen, and I opened the door to find someone's cat (or a feral cat) out by the coop. The chickens were raising all kinds of hell, but it ran off without incident. Still, the 22 rifle stays near the back door, just in case.

I have two more hens who have started getting broody - one who was broody with the last batch and one white leghorn. White leghorns generally are not good setters, so I'm glad to see her setting. I left a few eggs under them yesterday which I marked with a pencil, so hopefully in a few weeks we'll have some more babies.

Finally, I have a question for anyone who might know. When I was digging up a row of potatoes the other day, the question occurred to me - what garden plants are unsafe for animals to eat? The potato plants were composted, as will be the tomato plants, since I know both are poisonous. But are there others? I'd hate to be trying to give my animals a treat and end up poisoning them - so if anyone knows of any plants other than tomatoes and potatoes that I shouldn't be feeding them, please let me know.
Thanks,
Kathy

does anyone know if beer will bother chickens? I think I have a slug problem because the tops of some of my beans & marigolds are missing, so I want to try the beer in a lid on the ground. We do have some free range chickens so I don't know if the beer will bother them?
Thanks
Robz
NE Pa

IIRC they might get drunk but they won't get dead.

On the other hand, if you feed chickens anything sticky like wet mash or old apple sauce make sure it is in a very shallow layer, if they get it packed into there nostrils they will suffocate because they can not breath through their mouths.

Wouldn't it make more sense to eat the flax and seafood ourselves, rather than feed it to chickens? Unless of course the flax and seafood is in a form not consumeable/digestible by humans....

I plan to grow flaxseed in the near future. I recently learned it has to be ground before being eaten by people, because we can't digest it otherwise. But I imagine chickens can easily digest unground flaxseeds.

Will the chickens and duck eat the sunflower seeds unshelled? Any particular varieties better than others (i.e., size, shell hardness, etc)?

How are you planting, harvesting, and storing the grain sorghum?

skyemoor,
Well, as they say, the best laid plans of mice and men....
I could not tell you what variety of sunflowers I planted this year. They were from saved seeds from the last several years - back when I wasn't so good at writing down variety names . They were a giant variety (dinner plate sized flowers) and did pretty well, though the flowers were smaller this year than in past years. I'll be buying a new variety for next year.

I've been having to buy black oil sunflower seeds for my goats (makes their coats shiny, and the extra fat in them is good for winter, too - and yes, they eat them shell and all), so I'll be planting that variety next year, along with another variety for the birds.

The ducks haven't shown much interest in the seeds - perhaps they would eat more if I did shell them, I don't know. The chickens, however, fight each other over them. They don't seem to have any problem with them having the shell on. Perhaps they're picking them apart and wasting more than they eat. I honestly don't know. There aren't many that sprout in the chicken run, though, so from what I can determine, they're eating them . Primarily, the sunflowers are for my parrots - and now for my goats.

As for the grain sorghum. I ended up not planting my own plot this year, because I ran out of time - and because I was supposed to get a LOT of grain from a local grower, so it wasn't high on my priority list. But his sorghum crop went to crap. Personal issues kept him from taking care of them properly, and because of the drought, they burned up. So, I didn't get ANY grain from him this year . It's a good lesson - don't depend on anyone else. Luckily, I can still buy food for my birds this year. Next year, however, whether he plants or not (and he has assured me that he will, and that I can have the grain next year - with profuse apologies for not being able to provide them this year), I'll be planting a large patch of grain sorghum myself.

I'll be drilling the seed, rather than broadcasting it - because the yield is much higher with drilled seed. For harvesting, before the cane is cut to make sorghum, the grain tops are cut off. I'll store the grain heads whole, as long as I have room, but if I run out of room and need to, I'll take the seeds off the heads. I plan to store them as I do most other animal food here, in plastic trash cans.

Sorry I don't have much more in the way of concrete information to share - but this is a good example of why I tell people they can't just run out to the boonies and start a homestead overnight. Plans always take longer than you want, cost more than you anticipated - and if anything can go wrong, it probably will
Kathy

I prefer the moveable coop/field pen/chicken tractor, though I do have a stationary duplex house as well.





When I tried free range, they soon went onto the road. We have 20 acres with the house and animal areas in the center of the farm, this wasn't enough for them so they wandered onto the neighbors' property. We also had horrible attrition due to predation by a hawk, who took approximately one chicken per day. I seriously advise against freerange unless you have very few predators. A friend had one young chicken killed by a rat snake. I've lost many to racoons until I worked out a house design to thwart these crafty guys.



They will eat all kinds of scraps. Don't feed them chicken.



When he is mature (around six months).

Can I use clean sand as Chick Grit???

My chicks arrive Monday, and the feed store is out of chick grit!! Since I have not even seen chick grit, I was wondering how big it is and what I can substitute for it. I live on the beach so I have access to sand, gravel and shell fragments.

HELP!!!

Cliff (Start a revolution, grow a garden)

speaking of shells don't for get to cook and crush up the used egg shells and feed that back to your chickens. It helps with the protien content(shell production). We once got an egg that looked like it only had the membrane surrounding it (no shell). it was like a yolk filled balloon. It was the craziest thing I think I've seen.

If you feed back the shells, be sure to crush them fine so they don't resemble shells, or you might be encouraging your chickens to eat whole eggs. Shells provide calcium which is needed to make new shells. I prefer to use the crushed shells on my garden rather than feeding them back to the chickens, but that might just becuse of hearing so much about feeding other livestock on animal feed and the potential for disease such as "mad cow". I actually don't think it would be a problem with chickens and eggshells, but who knows??

Feeding them their own shells sounds a bit scary to me. Too much like mad cow.

OK Here are the details.

The good part is they are all healthy and happy today, and far fewer of them needed to be cleaned.

I am feeding them Honor Country Flock Starter/Grower. I also am using Quick Chick in their water. I am using course sand for chick grit as the local cenix does not have chick grit.

I bought the heavy assorted straight run, so I am not sure what I really have. I can narrow it down but some of them could be any of several breeds.

Of the four that died. One was the "exotic freebee" and I have no idea what it was, it was all black. The other three were all the same type they had very light yellow almost white down, with no other markings.

I have some others that look the same except they have a black line on their heads.

I read in one of the chicken books that if the chicks have a rough trip, that caking could be a problem for a day or two.

My suspicion is with the arctic cold spell going on, my chicks got chilled in transport. My post office called me at 05:30 in the morning the day they arrived and I went right in a got them. Three of the four were either dead or close to it when I picked them up. So I doubt it is the food I am feeding them.

I have no reason to doubt that McMurry is not a fine company, and I don't blame them. I think it was just the bad weather coming at the wrong time.

Cliff (Start a revolution, grow a garden)

Congrats on your chicks Cliff. Too bad I didn't see your posts sooner. I'm in WA too and know of a little farm near me that sells chicks and some grown birds. That could have saved you the shipping trauma if you were close enough. Best of luck with them.

I have questions, I saw a post by Loki that spoke of higher prices on chicken feed which is mainly soy. Does anyone have any experience with alternative feeds or not using feed? Is buying feed necessary? Can't they get by without if they're free-range and get table scraps?

Edit: Oops, I just went back and saw UnknownElement's post regarding this issue. Never mind!

If you don't cook them then it can be a problem because you would be feeding them something that may have salmonella on it. You HAVE TO cook the shells first.

You dont' want to pulverize the shells either becuase then it acts as a grit they can ingest. but yeah, not so big they go after eggs because chickens have a tendency to get canibalistic. lol.

careinke,
If your birds were locked in a chicken run, and all they got were pellets, then I'd say they need something else. But, since you have them in a tractor with access to fresh greens, then I'd say they're fine.

Our birds free range, and in the summer I give them less food, because they have all the bugs they can stand , but this time of year, I feed both pellets and scratch grain. They'd be fine with pellets alone, but I feed them the grain because they seem to like it more. I start out by throwing them the pellets to make sure they get some to eat, but the minute I throw out the scratch grain, they ignore the pellets and go for the grain.

They also get kitchen scraps. My birds aren't nearly laying at the percentage you're getting, though. If they did, I'd be buried in eggs . I have about 70 laying hens. I don't need that many eggs all at once. In the summer, I'll get 4 dozen eggs a day on a good day. Most days closer to 3 dozen - about 50%. These days, I'm getting about 2 dozen - 25%, but I don't have a light going except in one of the hen houses (there are three separate places the hens sleep)... so that's part of it.

Don't know if this helped, but there it is .
Kathy