Nutritious & medicinal garden plants for your chickens
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 29 ก.ค. 2022
- Feeding our chickens for free? As much feed as we can grow, is all money back in my wallet. Plus, most of the stuff we can grow here is nutrient rich and medicinal. Just like humans, a healthy chicken diet can prevent health issues before they start.
Not only do we feed them all the incredibly nutritious plants shown in this video, but also purslane, lamb's quarter, watercress, plantain, lovage, sage, rose hips, grapes (in moderation), seaberry, haskaps, gooseberries, goumi berries and so many more. Plus, bugs, larvae, and even beeferoni from the kids lunches (in moderation of course). But these dinos are garbage disposals. Well, that's if your garbage disposal made eggs and also returned you the best compost in the world.
Sources: (MANY) but here are the ones used directly in this video:
Nutritional Evaluation of Edible Freshwater Green Macroalga Spirogyra varians, by Sawitree Tipnee, Rameshprabu Ramaraj, Yuwalee Unpaprom
www.researchgate.net/profile/...
Pigment and Nutritional Value of Spirogyra spp. in Sakon Nakhon, Nakhon Phanom and Mukdahan Provinces, by Nopparut Sitthiwong.
www.semanticscholar.org/paper...
Also here is that super comprehensive list on garden plants in a "chicken garden":
www.backyardchickens.com/arti...
Approach with caution and double check that list though - that list is formed from 1 person's opinion. Always double check and DYOR.
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I was concerned chickens would be too much work, too. Got them and now I know: Chickens are easier than cats! And chickens produces eggs and "fertilizer gold"! Thanks for the intro to duckweed!
I'm completely surprised how easy they are, and I do probably 100x more than most chicken owners, or what is the bare minimum required.
Chickens produce fertilizer silver .... Rabbits produce fertilizer gold which you can use immediately without wait.
I rough up patches of soil in my chicken run and put egg crates in to protect the soil, and then I plant alfalfa underneath. Kick it over once things start to happen. The sprouts are highly nutritious, or let it grow longer and they can forage as it grows up thru the crate. They also love cannabis leaves😉
Hello There❗️Great idea temporarily using egg crates in your chicken run while allowing alfalfa to get growing‼️
@@Sunnytrailrunner q
Fabulous idea! Gonna give that a try!
There's lots of research to support cannabis as an immune booster for chickens. In Canada I guess y'all can grow no problem here in the states we can not
@@SugarCreekOffGrid
Shoot move to kommifornication it's legal. Although don't think the tradeoff is worth it
I planted one or two lemon balm plants years ago and they’ve reseeded themselves into a couple of nice stands, one of which is right outside a chicken run. They love the stuff and will run outside clucking excitedly when I drop some through the fence. We’ve actually frozen some in old ice cream containers to give them something cold to eat and drink during this summer’s heat wave, “balm pops” for chickens, lol excuse the pun. Another bonus with growing lemon balm, it loves shady areas under trees and is perennial.
Lemon balm is also good for mosquito repellent, may keep the mites down/away. I use it dried for a different version of lemon popsicle.
cool, I will try it, we have tons of it.
I make the pops with mint, mint has a natural cooling effect on their bodies when consumed
Lemon balm can also grow in clay dirt very well. It is established at a family member's house and it grows so prolifically in clay dirt.
What crazy timing! I just sat down at my computer, mostly to get out of this heatwave (I'm in Western Washington) to start looking into my seed orders for fall and 2023. I was looking at things I could grow specifically for my chickens! I made a grazing box for them in their run, which is basically 2x4 frame, 4 inches for the height, then 1/4" hardware cloth on top. I've been planting all sorts of stuff under it for them. It allows the plants to get 4 inches tall, and basically stay that tall, because the chickens can only graze what grows out of the hardware mesh. My seed companies will thank you, I just added a few more seed packets to my order!🤣🐓🐣🐞🌻🍀
YOU do not have problems with mice getting under and in growing box?
@@debodeeful no, I haven't had any rodent problem with my grazing boxes. I do have 2 large dogs and also some feral cats.
We planted a wild rose next to our run when it was built. Now it has spread like crazy around the corner of it, but the chickens keep it cleared out from inside the run, and they absolutely love the rosehips. We also have a lot of problems with bindweed, except in the run, lol. I pick chickweed and green cleavers, plantain, occasionally I will find a little bit of purslane in addition to many of the common weeds you mentioned. We planted Jerusalem artichokes along our other run to help block wind and sun in the summer, and they nibble at the leaves they can reach. Our neighbor just sold their place and the new owner came in and cleaned out lots of invasive briars and downed apple trees on our fenceline leaving it exposed, so we now need to consider blocking other sides too this year. I'm going to try sweet potatoes, and trellising some of the vines up the side, and maybe nasturtium too.
(When I was hatching gamebirds, I did a batch for someone else. I had one little bobwhite hen that got stuck a bit too long, and had curled feet. I taped her toes flat to some card to straighten them, and kept her back. Because she was the only chick in the house at that time, "Flippers" got quite spoiled. My teens would take her out to the garden where she would hop around between the cabbages, picking off flea beetles and cabbage worms under supervision. LOTS of fun to watch😊)
haha so cute
Our chickens are spoiled too lol! In addition to commercial feed, they get all the slugs and snails I can find, oregano, lemon balm, dandelion. Also plants that grow in unwanted spaces like arugula, calendula, nusturstium. I dry the ends of loafs of bread for them which they love and they also get fruit that have too many spots for us. They go crazy for apples and peaches. Also the ends of cucumbers and zucchinis.
I've got lemon balm but they don't seem too interested
Do they actually eat the slugs and snails?
@ Racheal’s Garden Diary. I have been told they’ll will even eat small mice! So just about anything is fair game as long as it’s small enough and slow enough!
@@RachellesGardenDiary yes they do! The chicken that reaches it first will run with it followed by the other chickens, it’s so funny to watch!
@@margaretlovrich6837 yes, we’ve seen them catch 2 mice and devour them completely… didn’t know they would do that 😅
I put logs in my chicken run area and flip them every once in a while so they can eat the worms.
Ours free range behind an electric fence- we have currants, red and black raspberries that they pick at the lower branches. They will help clean up the fallen apples, pears and cherries- along with grass and bugs. It really offsets our feed bill in the summer.
You have the best fed chickens in the world! Add a few black soldier fly larvae and your set! Your yard is totally amazing!!!
Thanks! BSFL was in my original plan, but apparently people around here have a really hard time overwintering them.
I had an infestation of June beetles on my fig tree last year… I went out every day for several days and caught 5-6 beetles and gave them to the birds… they LOVED THEM!!
That's great! Turn the problem into free feed (money) and great nutrient rich eggs.
do u smash the bugs before they eat?
Man, your kids won the dad lottery with you!
So kind
I can spend hours in our chickens world. Makes us happy to make them happy! :)
Duck weed, purslane,water cress, water melon, sun flowers: vegies, fruit, moringa, crushed eggshells.
Im glad to see that im not the only one who "harvests" Japanese beetles for my chickens. I find them on my roses & asparagus. Im actually disappointed when I can't find any because the chickens absolutely love them!
13:12 Thorny blackberry and raspberry canes laid around the bases of your succulents is also a great deterrent for slugs and snails. 20:00 Sumac berries are a big part of Middle Eastern cuisine, being used as a substitute for lemon as a flavouring.
With Red Sumac, you can also boil the berries, strain the liquid, sweeten and have an excellent tea!! It is reputed to cool your body when you drink it in the heat of the summer!!
Our chickens love sorrel, italian dandelion, clover, Swiss chard and rye grass. We plant a lot of that around their run for them to eat when we let them out.
mine love mulberries.....every morning they run out to the mulberry tree and wait for fruit to drop. Sometimes I help them out by shaking the tree a bit.
I don't think they're crazy about the leaves but staghorn sumac grows wild in my runs and it doesn't bother them. I've also seen them gorge themselves on things the internet swears are poisonous without any seeming ill effect.
i love my little chickens! they are so useful beyond eggs, they are my compost heep! they really help to breakdown scraps.
I keep a few logs in the chicken yard and move them every once in a while. the ladies love the wide variety of free bugs!
I put a cardboard bos over the dirt & bury kitchen scraps & chook poo under it for a few weeks..worms galore for chickens.😍
I feel so good just watching living things going about to live a life. It's more of a passion than a business. Thank you for this great platform
Those frogs are the most laid-back frogs I've ever seen. 😂
Shaking food doesn't work for my chicken, but if I hold a spade shovel in a vertical position they come running, full run. They love earth worms and bugs I dig up. Makes it hard to dig a hole with 10 chickens helping me. My chickens like grass and mustard weeds. I have to keep my Swiss chard covered.
Thank you, I so enjoyed seeing the many types of plants growing so beautifully in your food forest, especially showing us all the things you harvested just for your healthy flock of hens‼️ They’re definitely some happy girls, so soothing to watch.
I make cookies for my chooks. Buckwheat, oats, meal worm, flaxseed and another ingredient which is my secret and they go crazy. It's green and legal worldwide. Lol.
Your yard is so beautiful!!! With all the plants and the gorgeous pond! And now amazing chicken coop! I have been giving dried meal worms to my chickens for a long time and after only a short time they learned the sound of the bag and we use it to train them to move where we want them when we want. I'll let them out to explore the garden a bit and do some bug hunting and then when it's time to go back in the run we shake the bag and they come sprinting! It's so funny! Hope it will work for you. Looks like you are having fun and I love to see all the things you are experimenting with feeding them from your food forest!
Indeed! They already come running out of the coup when they hear me. It's really fun. I've been accepted. LOL
Your videos are so educational. Love it!
They are truly a magnificent gang! They look so happy!! Definitely look like they are adapting and feeling at home 🏡🐔☺️
Great ideas! Thanks for sharing. Another advantage of feeding them herbs like mint and oregano is protecting them from chicken mites.
cant wait to have chickens of my own! enjoyed your video
I would say all the food trials have as much value as enrichment as they do food source. Keeps the hens happy and stress free when they have new things so often.
Wonderful 👍
Amazing pond!
Beautiful little paradise there
"...stuff that used to have a face..."🤣👍
Excellent video - thanks!
Looks beautiful,!
I absolutely love your waterfall and pond!! I'm trying not to be jealous.
Dude! You live in a paradise!!!
Thank you! It's been 6 years of hard work, but really fun work.
@@CanadianPermacultureLegacy Thank you for sharing with us!
Watching this video is like a virtual vacation!❤
haha love it 😀
We are cutting the tall grass (hay) slowly around our place and drying for winter. They love the grass seed!! Anything in your garden that goes to seed (sunflowers, grasses etc) you can keep for winter.
I use old wood pallets, remove some of the center boards and fasten them to the sides . I cover the pallets with chicken wire or hardware cloth. Sprinkle in different seeds of greens and grains. As they grow up through the wire chickens can help themselves to as much as they want without scratching up the plants. This gives them greens year round.
Your property is becoming more and more beautiful, its been a pleasure to watch the transformation. I wonder if you couldn't shortcut your research a little bit by taking your most trusted chicken out and having a bit of a walk through the orchard with her; I'm sure she would find what she is looking for. :)
Yeah, that's another great idea. Hopefully one really warms up to me. There are a few that let me pet them, but none yet that run up to me to see me.
Nice pond
Thanks for this video. Very nice. I thought my chickens had run away to Canada - they look just like yours! I let mine roam free but have to fence them out of some parts of the garden. Chickens are wonderful pets, helpful gardeners & good providers (eggs), but they eat everything, so you have to be careful when letting them free range. They are wonderful to have around.
Thanks so much! Careful if you go free range. They can munch so much that it'll be the last generation of their favorites plus of course you need to protect crops.
I grow purslane (Portulaca oleracea) as a good source of Omega-3 for the family and I’ve read that chickens like it. I also grow patches of purple dead nettle (Lamium purpureum) as both a food source in spring and as a herbal remedy and read that chickens like to eat it also.
We plan to get several chickens this year and hope to free range them or at the least provide them with a large enclosure and healthy food sources from our land.
My parents chickens absolutely love boiled vegetable peelings
love this video!!!I really enjoyed watching it❤
thanks for watching, and the excited comment. This made my day ❤️
Chickens are easy as long as you don’t have too many of them. Mine enjoy all kinds of fruit, sunchokes and pumpkins. And bugs of course!
How do you feed them the sun chokes? The leaves, the tubers?
I love your water features.
Thank you 😊
Caragana (Siberian pea shrub) is great for chickens. And it’s a legume, so accumulates nitrogen in the soil.
Cool, we have some, I will try it.
This is a great video. A wet board in the chicken coup can protect some insects like slaters. Any containers of sitting water need mosquito netting in this part of the world unless they are emptied every four days... or have a resident fish. What's your mosquito pressure? With frozen goods, I store the ziplock bags in a foil bag (old coffee or powdered milk ones) so that they aren't exposed to light every time the freezer is opened. I don't get the browning effect although I do have problems with sightings of UFOs (unidentified frozen objects). I have 24 new little chickens. At 18 pesos each (less than a dollar) they are the cheapest marriage saving investment according to my daughter.... Still too hot to have them outdoors so I am being entertained with chickavision near the real idiot box. I'm going to have to eventually combine two flocks of old ladies which is going to be tricky because of the size difference or send one lot to Antarctica which is always extremely difficult.
LOL UFOs. 😆
Mosquitoes aren't bad here, way too many dragonflies. If anything I need to allow some to breed, just so the dragonflies have more food in order to keep their high population sustained. But walking around here there's no mosquitoes at all.
If you fill your frozen produce bags with enough water to eliminate any air pockets you can avoid freezer burning.
Sumac is a wonderful source of free food for all birds! In NC in the mountains, the birds counted on the Sumac in winter. I live in Florida now, and my chickens have sumac growing next to the cage. I am looking forward to seeing how they like them!
My dad hates Sumac. Always tells me to cut mine down. I love it. Food for the bees, birds, tea for me, berries (furry ones lol), and amazing source of coppiced wood for biochar. I love my staghorn sumac.
Thanks for all your research and showing us all you have learned to give them or not.
Just today I thought I'd make a little garden in my chicken yard specifically for chickens. In their pen I have a small rectangular box made from 2x4's and 1/2" hardware cloth across the top. I use that in the winter so they have fresh greens in the winter Put down soil about 1 1/2" deep....sprinkle heavily with red wheat or rye seed. Then another 1 1/2" of soil over that. Then put the box over the planted soil and water. The cloth keeps them from scratching up the grass...they just nip off what they want. It's also planted deep enough they don't yank up the whole seedling. Appreciate you showing us alot of your hard work on your property. Jesus bless.
You live in paradise… I’m a little green with envy 🌟
❤️
When i was a kid we use to have a couple of cotes in an Athens (Greece ) suburb and we usually fed them with our meal remains. They could easily eat spaggetti and pastas, worn tomatoes and other vegetables, fruits and fruiit skins and other similar kitchen remains egg cells, mellon, watermellon and pumbkin skins and remains and all of these short of things shich were always eating happily.
That way we could save some money from the cost for feeding them with the usual nutricients of the market as well ashaving a chance for changes on their feeding.
Beautiful pond.
Thank you 😊
Thank you for sharing this video. It brought tear to my eyes remembering my childhood. I went to a catholic school and one my chores was looking after the chickens. Have a restful weekend. Carmen
Thanks! Tears of happy memories I hope
For sure,very good memories 🌻
I like your food Forrest, lucky family, and chickens
Awww thanks 😊
Wow what a beautiful place to live
Thanks for visiting
Beautiful gardens and solarium! I like to let my hens out of their run about an hour before dusk whilst I putter about the garden, they love the freedom to choose and to check out whatever I am cutting or digging. Then they put themselves to bed nicely as they love their roost area. If I have any reluctant to bed down, I use freeze dried black soldier fly grub and they come running! Thank you for sharing!
That's great timing indeed. I did that during my latest video released yesterday on growing fertility with biochar and chickens. They were out enjoying the backyard while I made biochar, and they just put themselves to bed before I was finished.
I loved this video so much , I love your permaculture life , I keep trying to sneak plants into my yard , my husband is a green grass guy so the process is slow I just love knowing people live such a beautiful life , thank you for sharing , I loved it so much !
My wife was the same, it takes time but it can happen. Be very patient with him, it took a long time for my wife to come along with these ideas. It's hard because we have already seen the problems with modern society and have started our awakening process, it takes longer when someone else is trying to change the way you see the world.
@@CanadianPermacultureLegacy Thanks for the encouragement, he goes in stages , but recently retired so our yard didn’t look the way he envisioned and then he got cancer so he can’t upkeep ,I think he feels defeated and I have a adult son with autism who takes a lot of time , my husband is onboard with fruit trees and chickens but are set up is not as nice as yours and he likes growing food it takes baby steps , I have liners for ponds and water catchment containers that never got placed and started a green house that needs repairs , a bee hive and no bees yet , I should be grateful for what I got , I love permaculture farms , I look forward to just keep sneaking plants in and watching your channel. It brings me so much joy and lately that’s hard to find . Again thank-you!
Lots to learn young man
Always. Never stop learning.
you built a badass water feature that you can forage for your chickens' benefit .. LOL pretty cool setup though
Cheers
very interesting..
Here are some general space guidelines for your chicken coop and the chicken coop enclosure or run: Standard Breed Chickens: 4 square feet of coop space per bird; 8 square feet of run space per bird. Standard Heavy Breed Chickens: 8 square feet of coop space per bird; 15 square feet of run space per bird.
Now that you love chickens... :) Your lawn will love geese. They surgically eat only grass and leave flowers and herbs and "weeds" as long as there is grass. it looks really nice, impossible to cut/mow any other way. Cave! when grass becomes less in autumn they will eat the leaves off the bushes and trees. they live completely off grass when there is, only need feed during the winter. and they don't scratch like chickens and don't hurt the woodchipbeds. and they are so calm. not crazy erratic like the chooks. wish I could Video comment with what it looks like when my viking chooks go "berserk". :)
no idea about sumach, sorry. I have found that they have very individual tastes and what their favourite is.
thank you for the video! lovely to see!
I'd love to add more animals. My limiting factor is space to place any shelters, habitat, etc. Also I would be weary of geese for pooping in a (relatively) small pond that we swim in. I know what they did to the small bay on the lake at my parents cottage, and that is 100x larger.
I've trained my chickens to know when I'm coming with food. When I have a cupful of grubs, handfuls of weeds, or other treats, I announce my approach with, "Chook, Chook!" They all put all their attention on me and run towards me. If I come to the run with no food I remain quiet. They mostly keep their attention on whatever had it before I arrived. Some exceptions.
I do the same LOL
Now I also want to grow duckweed for my chicken and quail!!
My dream garden
Oh la la. It is a joy to see you enjoying your chickens, but it has made me miss having birds and my garden so much (which is why I have not been watching your or other permaculture channels for the past 8 months). If we can travel home for vacation in September, I am going to look into planting some more bushes all over the (now obviously empty) chicken yard because yes, aerial predators we're always our biggest bane. The plants will have lots of time to get established in the next 3 yrs if the neglect doesn't kill them.😄
Nice. 3 years from now you will have a great little chicken forest.
Our chickens love spinach, kale, all berries, oregano, lemon balm, parsley, cilantro, milo, millet, amaranth, apples, watermelon, and so on. Cracklins and leftover meat bits. Ground mesquite bean pods. They're spoiled.
I think I have everything there except for millet. I should plant some!
If you have any sweet woodruff chickens love that.
Excellent video with lots of helpful info. You seem to learn more in a couple of weeks than most of us do in decades. Here's a dumb question about duck weed. How do you get it started?
As for other food that we give our chickens:
-our chickens are going crazy over some huge zuchini that someone gave us. They can hollow out a large chunk very quickly.
- They also love the bolted lettuce that we throw in.
- A favourite was a number of Chinese cabbage that were destroyed by earwigs. They first picked the earwigs out and then ate the cabbage.
- I often bag the grass when I mow and put it in their run, especially when it contains lots of clover and birdsfoot trefoil, both of which are tasty and high in protein. Any leftover ends up helping the woodchip or leaf bedding to compost.
- of course, chickens will eat almost anything left over from your kitchen. Unlike pigs they can eat table scraps without worry of getting sick because their systems run so "hot" kill any bacteria that might cause illness.
- after a while the composting bedding and leftovers begins to produce another source of food (bugs and fungi etc). They are always working through it finding things they like.
- haven't tried sumac for the chickens but our goats absolutely love it and I have read that it is very high in protein. Can't imagine the chickens not liking it.
All of the good stuff you are giving your chickens goes to making the eggs much more nutritious for you and your family. Have you noticed the yolks being a rich, dark yellow?
Oh the yolks are such a DEEP yellow - almost so dark they are pushing into brown.
For duckweed, there's a pond nearby that is filled with it (pretty much every pond here is filled with it). So I just took a bit and put it into my contained ponds here. I don't feel bad spreading it, since every water source I've put them in is a self contained water source.
They also eat parts of the plants that we don't eat much of like apple leaves, pumpkin leaves, older carrot tops, mulberry leaves, some peach leaves (not too many), wood sorrel, amaranth leaves when the plants are beginning to be prickly, prickly pear pads (prickles burnt off)...
Mine love Kochia, a weed found all over the inter mountain and Rocky Mountain west ( likely Canadian west, too). It’s gnarly when it matures and becomes tumbleweed but even now, into August, the leaves are a delicacy to my hens. They also love dandelion leaves all season long. Mustard leaves are a favorite and young cheatgrass ( Bromus tectorum) leaves are a favorite as well. Keep your cheatgrass mowed and you’ll have young leaves until Sept. They also like curly dock (Rumex sp?). For some reason mine don’t cherish comfrey. Really- don’t have clue as to why. These all grow wild in the disturbed areas around my place. It was once a “horse property”. Nuff said. Make use of your weeds when you can!
For sure, it's all free food! And really healthy.
Speaking of japanesse beetles, I put the bait right in the chicken run and threw the trap away. Solved a pest problem, and the chicken food delivered itself.
Some chickens love honeyberries, other love mulberries and strawberries, other want blueberries. Some chicken love wild rocket.
Chickens love any of the brassica family..Kale, cabbage ect.
Absolutely. I always let my kale for to seed at the end of the year instead of rotating a new crop in. The benefit is TONS of self sowed kale popping up in the spring. I'm reaping that reward right now, as myself AND the chickens are gorging on early spring kale.
I'm just starting seeds in my basement for my annuals (May 24 is out planting date), but I've been eating kale for a month already. That and my perennial greens like sorrel and good king Henry. I LOVE perennials.
Grapes. My chickens LOVE grapes
Thanks for the algae advice. Have lots on my lake in the summer
Should the chicken run be bigger for the number of chickens you have there? Thanks for showing us all of the things chickens can eat other than the feed. I have wanted chickens for a long time but have always worried about whether I can actually keep them alive and happy as we do have a lot of hawks and some other wild critters in our area that might be a problem. I did notice that one of our neighbors were free-ranging some chickens two years ago but did not have any chickens at all this year. There are also wild geese and wild turkeys that visit our yard to dig worms after a good rain. Last year we had a doe give birth in our backyard and left her baby in our raised bed while she went to feed. I'm really happy that she felt safe enough to trust us to watch over her infant, if only for a short three hours. When she returned, she and her baby pranced around the yard for a bit under the apple tree and then returned to the woods and safety. With all of the construction and development starting around us, we lose more and more of our beautiful wooded areas. I have a lot of wild berries that grow around the edge of our property and also a pear tree that mostly gets eaten by the ground wasps unless I can get to them first. Last year and the year before we had a huge problem with those weird-looking beetles and chickens would have been a huge help. There is also a lot of chicory, yarrow, and goldenrod growing wild in our area, plus I grow lots of herbs and different mint varieties in my garden. I would really love to have chickens someday, thank you for sharing all you have learned during your investigation. May God always Bless you with good health, safety, and prosperity in all you do. ~SuzyJC-in-Central-Southeastern-Ohio_11.16.2023~
Yes this run is actually just a night-time run. They are out in an extended run all day.
Grain sorghum, wheat grass and pumpkins.
I typically try out different types of foods on the chickens I don’t really want around. If they live, it’s safe to give to all my chickens. Works out well mostly all the time 😂
My hens' favorite thing ever is blueberries. They ignore raspberries (and I have a few of the same breeds as you!) They ate my mint plant to the ground when their movable fencing included that area. Also they love watermelon rinds although that is not something you could grow in Canada. Spaghetti squash rinds and seeds, kale leaves, beet skins. Anything they don't eat attracts bugs which they will eat. Win-win. Some people put their compost piles where their chickens can scratch around in them and add manure.
You have a beautiful place
Thank you
Oregano is good as antibiotics for repertory, dandelion for calcium
Chickens also love clover and alfalfa.
it looks like your chickens had their fill of feed soon before you tried to demonstrate their liking of weeds😊
Plant some pigeon peas a great protein source!✌️
I know this is an older video, so maybe you're doing this now- but I've been researching how to grow my own black soldier flies. There's a few video's I've found online that have inexpensive set ups and it's really easy/low maintenance. I also have started a worm bin and funny enough, black soldier flies have decided to grow in there as well.
I did a ton of research on this just before getting my birds. Integrating a BSFL bin next to the run was going to be a major part of my design. But apparently they don't overwinter here, it gets far too cold. They won't even overwinter in the garage here, as it hits -40C in there each winter. So the only way to get them to survive would be to bring them indoors, and Trish made it very clear that was NOT an option. LOL
@@CanadianPermacultureLegacy Haha! Smart wife, I would never allow them in the house lol. This will be my first year with the worm bin and we have it in the garage. I'm hopeful that our mild TN winters don't kill them. Fingers crossed! You could definitely keep a bin in the summertime, they reproduce so quickly that it may be worth having them even just through the warm months.
@ChopChic1 TN will definitely be fine, although with such unstable weather who knows if you start getting some really nasty polar vortexes coming down. The loss of the AMOC, ice melting and breakdown of the troposphere jet stream, so who knows, you may see some random -30F winter nights in the years to come. One day this winter we went from -40C/F one night, to +5C the next night and back down to about -20C the following night. It was pure chaos.
@@CanadianPermacultureLegacy wow, that is outrageous temp swings! It definitely makes homesteading/farming challenging when the weather is unpredictable. I don't like the fear mongering and elite agenda behind the whole climate change deal though. I think those in power definitely use that narrative to their advantage to impose more and more restrictions that take away our individual rights. We should encourage people to be good stewards of the earth and provide education on that rather than take away individual liberties. Have you heard of Curtis Stone? He's up there in Canada as well, I've learned a ton from his channel. He's living completely off-grid and has a brilliant set up on his homestead. You should check him out!
Keith - I like @EdibleAcres idea. We use spent vegetable stalks and fruit tree summer prunings (high auxin content) as the soil protector. and pour our more sloppy chicken food overtop. The insects like the brassica stalk to perch and then get pecked since they are stinky. SOO FUN! Frozen zucchini is their favorite on hot days. I like to get a shot of apple cider or other natural vinegar and add yarrow/nettle/, marshmallow to the cider - I then add this to their water. They give me the most gorgeous eggs when I Igive them the apple cider shot.
Apple cider vinegar is probably unneeded if you give them fermented/spent/old tomatoes and those nice polysaccharides in the Jerusalem artichokes.
My blue heeler cannot get enough sunflower leaves.
Chickens if not stressed are great at avoiding self-poisonings Avoid overly siliceous grasses with long fibers - tends to encourage sour crop since the fibers get stuck in the crop and keep it from closing properly and irritate the duodenum-esque openings.
Thanks so much for all the comments. I love getting feedback from super experienced people!
duckweed, yes !
I heard oregano oil is used as an antibiotic for chickens by putting drops in their water(and humans)
A great idea
I could be wrong but since it's an oil, it won't mix with the water so it'll need an emulsifier. A small amount of alcohol may help.
i have also identified many herbs in my garden which are beneficial for chicken one is chickweed
A great one!
Have you planted any Tagssate (Tree lucerne)? Great for chickens, livestock and a nitrogen fixer too!
never heard of it!
Have you looked into black soldier fly larvae for your chickens? Supposedly they're efficient at recycling proteins and kitchen scraps. Anyways, thanks for sharing your chicken experiences!
Indeed, I wanted these so bad. Apparently they are impossible to overwinter here though, and my wife would never let me bring them inside. We ultimately decided against it. I really really wanted them... I may try it at some point.
@@CanadianPermacultureLegacy lol, it's no fun when you can't play with all the permaculture toys. I wonder if a greenhouse with a large thermal mass would work. No clue how practical that would be.
Looking forward to your future black soldier fly video ;_D
I plan on trying to raise black soldier flies this year. I'd never heard of trying to overwinter them, but will raise them as weather allows.
Good to see you enjoying caring for the hens. Until you get the chicken tractor, is it feasible to use electric fencing to create free range areas off the coop? You could shift the fencing around for new ground as required. Think of a fan pattern off the coop, with linear runs rather than a nearby square.
We were doing that today actually! It just doesn't have a roof, so I wouldn't want to do it when I'm not out there to scare away hawks and such.
@@CanadianPermacultureLegacy Sounds like a good idea. If you are able to plant a few bushes and trees in the area of the runs, they will usually have enough protection from aerial predators. I am only a couple of hours from your area and have only lost chickens to hawks in October when migration patterns bring more of them into our area.
Yeah, my end goal is a chicken run like Edible Acres. Large elderberries forming a canopy for protection from the air (even if just visual) and maybe things like Siberia peashrub to run under that offers more protection almost like wooden armor.
Listen to ticket Carlson segment Jan 30th 2023 it is shocking! Good luck and thanks for your post!
That guy was sued for slander/misinformation, and the Fox lawyers won the case by using a defense that, and I'm quoting here, "no reasonable viewer would take the network's star Tucker Carlson seriously". Their defense was that Fox news isn't a news station but an entertainment station, and therefore nobody with a rational mind would believe what he is saying at any point in time. I'll add a link in a separate comment, but if youtube blocks it just google "businessinsider tucker carlson sued for misinformation. We all have to be really critical of what we're being told on media, and one should be even more critical when they listen to that clown.
www.businessinsider.com/fox-news-karen-mcdougal-case-tucker-carlson-2020-9
www.npr.org/2020/09/29/917747123/you-literally-cant-believe-the-facts-tucker-carlson-tells-you-so-say-fox-s-lawye
We have Japanese Beetle traps and we empty them every day throughout the summer. They go gaga over them! And they’re free!!!