We took your suggestion and asked about picking up the “prep waste” at a local restaurant. They are giving me two 5 gallon buckets full of scraps three times a week. Thank you for the great idea.
Make sure that you pick up the food when agreed upon. If you don't, they might stop giving it to you. So happy that you have this extra food for the chickens.
Back in Belgium I had a deal with the local organic supermarket, I went 2 times a week to get all the fruit, veggies, milk, yoghurt, cheese... that didn't look fresh anymore, or was passed date.You have no idea what stores throw away. My pigs and chickens where eating certified organic, for free!!! : )
And so it begins! If you can ask them to set aside the coffee in its own container that would make your life better. Coffee isn't great for chickens at all, and ideally you can compost that in it's own bin... Enjoy your process!
@@edibleacres Done and done! I'm a regular watcher of your videos so coffee was at the top of my list for something I didn't want. So far it's working spectacularly!
You are my composting hero.i have about 60 chickens and because of you I put them to work for me making compost.thanks for all the info and I think I have watched all your videos at least 4 or 5 times each.keep it up
That's honestly how I really feel about these guys....these committed to doing things farm wise that are so helpful and healthy not just for us but our farm friends as well😉
I was just rewatching this video because I'm having trouble sourcing scraps. Where I live is rural and all the farmers have dibs on scraps from every place I've contacted. But my kids go to daycare, and they feed at least 80 kids a day. I'm going to ask them this afternoon when I go in.
I do recollect what greengrocers trow away... broccoli, onion, lettuces, etc but sometimes people see me doing that, with my humble bicycle trailer and I see them thinking "oh that guy is a scavenger for food... grose!" but then they go and buy my "organic free range eggs" at top notch neighbourhood store... I feel like the Tyler Durden of eggs lol
We get looks from folks when we collect scraps, but it's part of the deal I think. I consider myself a 2 legged raccoon with tubs :) Tyler Durden of eggs, that is a great image!
We give our chickens all sorts of food scraps and garden waste, so it's sometimes a challenge to get enough material for our compost! We have been inspired by your other videos about your chicken 'n' compost operation, Sean, so we have started a pile this fall, with the intent to move the chix to that area of our place. We very much want to lower our costs of keeping them and to make them work more on the farm by making compost for us. This week i gave our small flock (17) sprouted lentils, "failed" homemade yoghurt (it didnt get thick), a pork steak we didnt eat, scraps from vegetable soup making, and an egg that was broken. Not all at once, of course. I also give them the remains of the pot from making bone broth, except the onions. Earlier this fall they would free range while i worked in the garden. They were happily scratching and pooping, and eating the grubs that I turned up.
I grow extra kale, turnips and other assorted greens. For a few dollars worth of seeds. I supplement my feed in the spring and fall and even into the winter months. I just pick a bucket full two or three times a week.
I have probably watched every homestead chicken video on TH-cam, and I have to say that you and Justin Rhodes without a doubt have the best set up . Your narration is exquisite and you have that ability to connect with the audience and bring them in to the video as if they were there in person. Over all I have learned alot of great techniques from your videos and have enjoyed everything you have put out. I am grateful that you share your experiences with us, and I hope more people will tap into this style of life because of your awesome work on here. I'm thinking that some recipes for how y'all use the unique "permacultery" foods in everyday life would be very interesting. I live in a very rural area and have 0 access to wood chips. Have you ever used sawdust from a lumber mill in place of the chips? If not, how do you think it would affect the nursery compost?
Thanks so much for the kind words here! Really appreciate it. Sawdust... makes sense to me. Super dry/absorbent so either adding water or having a whole lot of food scraps would make it work better. But I've used sawdust as bulking/bedding material and for the food compost and it seems quite functional.
@@edibleacres I think I heard somewhere that mill sawdust is OK (probably great if 'treated' with urine in the garden process :) But, not so good from a furniture shop, for some reason.. probably because some might be from varnished, etc. pieces.
Furniture and cabinet shops often use MDF which contains formaldehyde which is toxic if consumed. It can be composted overtime but takes special attention. Our local cabinet shop has two machines that cut only hardwood, so they gather that up for me in a separately marked bag. And I avoid the rest of their sawdust completely. All that to say, use sawdust only from natural wood. I also had an old man who told me to avoid composting walnut wood- not sure why though.
We moved out coop into our compost area after watching your videos and we absolutely love it. We only have 5 hens and our house hold compost but even on our tiny scale it has been absolutly wonderful.
@@edibleacres We do it from start last year and did it two decades ago, not knowing about your videos. We only give our house hold compost and food scraps and if there is a big event around catering scraps of this event. But now our chicks refuse to eat normal chick food even they do not eat wheat and corn if there is human food scraps around, they had a taste for rice with butter and noodle soups.
Would love to have a live video feed of your chickens "going about their daily work in the compost yard" to watch whenever we feel the need for a "chicken fix" as someone had suggested! Just like they have live feed videos of bird feeders, or bird nests, or animal dens etc. you could have a live feed of your chickens! A lot of chicken people would definitely watch, they are so relaxing! Just a thought and have a blessed day!
Just found your videos.. you are very informational.. I own. A restaurant and after a few years of throwing veggies scraps and food into the dumpster, a light bulb finally came, and now I collect leftover food for my chickens and save the veggies scraps for my compost pile.. I’m from Rochester New York but now live in Savannah, Georgia..
We asked our local supermarket’s produce manager and we now get a banana box of fresh produce from them three times a week. I was not sure how they would take it but they love it. It’s a win win!
Having logs or stumps covering litter can breed bugs in safety, then you can casually turn them over and reveal bugs. I think that you spoke about that in an earlier video. I've heard of people having a sawdust heap that they leave a carcass in to attract maggots. Then the chickens scratch away the sawdust to get to the maggots, and the sawdust composts with the meat scraps. I believe this needs to be near enough to the surface that the flies can get to it, rather than properly buried. A related idea is having a flytrap which you put meat scraps in and the flies lay eggs, and the maggots are shaken out over the chicken yard. I think you have one of the better systems though, it's very efficient for labour and you're constantly importing biomass.
Another way to get free feed is to source your local brewery, hit them up for their used malt and barley (called mash) my local brewery is more than happy to get rid of it and as long as it doesn't have hops added (baaaaaaad for chickens) it's a great feed for them
I love this video!! I've tried all of the grocery stores around me to no avail. Tried a few healthy restaurants around and haven't been able to score any scraps.....I didn't even think about catering businesses!!! Incredible!!!
We've definitely had some misses over time. Some we tried to connect with and failed, some we connected with and realized it was a bad fit over time. Just keep reaching out... Call farmers, too!
@@edibleacres Thank you!!! I know it will all work out in the end. And you are sincerely the only people who reply on all the channels I follow, so thank you so much for that!!!!!
This is amazing! I was going to ask the same questions, after watching a different video and found this! Our area is very rural-but I'm excited to try a few places and see how they feel about saving compost materials. You are blessed to be in an area that is already very "green concious". I still get strange looks when I start talking about Kombucha and composting, lol!
Sure, we're in a 'progressive' area but for the most part businesses have to pay to have trash taken away... If they aren't composting then a fair bit of what they pay for is to have rotting food go away. You can help their bottom line and reduce the flies, smells, etc. And who doesn't like a dozen eggs here or there! Universal stuff :)
I really like the idea of me asking the local restaurants for their scraps, I love my chickens and want the best diet for them, the feed store sells these pellets and it’s costing me a ton of money, a little 5-6 pound bag is 12.00! I also supplement with other things but these ideas are fabulous and I thank you. We never have snow here in Roseville California and it was a treat seeing the snow especially that donut on the tire!!!
In a warmer climate like yours the composting system would work incredibly well. Just ask, if you can, that they put coffee grinds in it's own container and you should be golden!
Please don't buy the small bags, ever. They are so grossly overpriced! At least buy a 40-50 pound bag and your per unit price will go down significantly! Feeding from scraps and compost can be useful, but definitely keep an eye on your birds' health. Especially important if you raise meat birds that are fast growing birds such as Cornish... and also your laying hens' calcium... If they don't get enough protein and calcium, the meat birds can grow so fast their legs are prone to breaking under heir own body weight...And the laying hens will supplement their blood calcium levels out of their own bones if there is insufficiency in their diet... If you start getting thin egg shells, there is already damage that has been occurring that you hadn't yet been noticing. Oyster shell can provide a long-acting calcium source. Recycling their egg shells by washing them then heating them in the oven to kill pathogens prior to crushing and adding to their feed can provide fast-acting calcium. Please note that excessive egg shell feeding can also be problematic, so do your research to avoid overuse issues... And most importantly, NEVER use egg shells from other birds nor unsanitized used equipment from another flock in order to prevent spread of chicken diseases! Reference: "The Chicken Chick" on FB, IG, Pinterest, and ChickenChick.com for excellent information! Her book is great and I highly recommend it. (Signed copies available on her website!} Tell her Caprice and Bobbie sent you!!!
Thank you so much! As a first-year chicken owner, I watch a ton of TH-cam channels looking for information on the best ways to raise my chickens. It’s not always been easy to find channels that 1. have a philosophy that align with my own and 2. provide practical suggestions that I have been able to implement on my own farm. Y’all consistently put out such enjoyable, and more importantly, useful content. Thank you again for doing a Q&A and please let us know if you have a Patreon that we might support, in order to help you continue to help us work towards finding a more sustainable way of growing/raising our food.
I’m sure it takes quite a bit of time to film, edit, answer questions, etc. A lot of TH-camrs have them. There’s real value in what you are sharing with the community. It feels good to be able to say thank you in a concrete way. Another thing I love to do, especially if someone has animals on their channel, is to send something from their Amazon Wishlist (or even better, a local place where they have a wishlist!). I feel like it strengthens the sustainability community, which helps all of us. My chickens, and thus my farm and family, have benefitted from using your system of composting with your chickens. It’s just a way we could pay it forward, and a little good karma never hurt anyone. :D
I acquired a new waste stream and I wanted to share the idea. BAGEL SHOPS! Our local bagel place discards a large amount of seeds from under their racks. Every Monday after the busy weekend I am collecting a nice supplement of nutritional seeds. FOOD FOR THOUGHT!
i live in wisconsin and if i put scraps out in winter if would freeze hard as a rock in 5 minutes. does the compost heap generate enough heat to keep it from freezing and allow them to pick at it ? thx
@@d65-m1x there seems to be snowball around him when he's filming, so hopefully yes? I've seen compost heaps get to 50°C but that's in spring etc. Good question!
@@jenniferjarvis1207 you don’t need to. The hens will pick out insects & left over seeds, then scratch what is left and turn it into nice compost. If the manure does not have a carbon component (leaves sawdust or straw) it is best to throw some in with it to improve the resulting compost. Worms will migrate into it and provide additional nourishment.
An excellent video! I am not a chicken person currently but am strongly considering it and information such as this is very helpful in my future consideration.
EdibleAcres have you considered bioponics, using a compost tea type in an aquaponics system, instead of fish? You could grow an unlimited amount of seaweed.
Please consider subscribing and hitting like if you found this video useful! Lets share more ideas on how to source free food and resources for raising chickens! What do you do? What neat tricks have you come up with or relationships you've developed to offset costs? Some more ideas to consider: Contact local butcher shops to get offcuts of meat/etc... Local hunters you may know who have leftover material you can feed your chickens? Bakery in your neighborhood with stale bread, old grain, etc? Local farms you can help with cleanup after a crop harvest, or access their compost piles? Folks in your neighborhood with old piles of logs, leaves, lawn clippings that are abandoned? SOO much soil life in there... Waste hay or silage available from any local farms? - I would strongly encourage NOT taking straw unless it is organic... It can be some of the most intensely sprayed stuff out there... Hay is generally great. YOUR turn!
I think I'll have to look into some of these other options in more detail For now I have a loadhandler(thanks for the suggestion btw) and a poly scoop fork (again, thanks for the suggestion lol) and a local arborist company that has a yard located in a convenient place near my commute and I pick up wood chips from them when I can, they're the only company that has ever brought chips to me but that was only once and as far out as I am I don't expect it'll happen again anytime soon, no other company has been willing to drop chips to me since I lived in town I find an excess of Halloween pumpkins handy to feed through winter, cut jack o lanterns must be used quickly but whole uncut pumpkins last a while into the season In the summer my system is a cross between composting and rotational paddock shift, I use electric poultry net and have 4 compost "yards" set along some erosion gulls leading down to a spot in our road, each week I turn the "piles" down one space and put a bit of woodchips at the top and then move the chickens into this yard, in so doing each yard gets 3 weeks to rest, grow fungal and macrobiotic life and achieve some small degree of moisture, if I had food scraps like your sources I think I would see some actual compost, as it is this last year I only managed to see slightly darker woodchips after about 4 months or 4 turns but I think with improvement the concept could contribute significantly to reducing or eliminating feed Bill's due to regrowth that would happen in a wetter climate
For me leaf bags are unfortunately laden with trash and cigarette butts and have previously caused more frustration than material, furthermore unlike wood chips leaves tend to blow away, a problem in my windy fall and winter
It is a bit harder to source that kind of thing in my area. I asked once either someone else has asked or I got turned down like the waste at the grocery store. I guess they don't allow people collecting waste produce for some reason. It's been a few years when I first got chickens I asked around. There is an organic feed mill about 30 miles west of me. I get the transitional stuff, since I am not certified organic myself. I get whole grains with a bit of layer mix. I just buy the starter and grower when I get chicks. I try to give them our scraps and such from gardening, etc. We have a chipper place just down the road, but they charge. It is a bit harder to catch the road crew when they are cleaning/chipping. My chickens like the cow manure/hay winter piles when I turn them a bit, but I need to use the tractor for turning the stuff is pretty wet and heavy. When I can I use our yard waste like grass clippings and leaves. I need to fix/replace my bagging system. I don't look forward to that.
Our nephew works in the produce department at one of our local grocery stores. We contact him a few days a week and he saves whatever he'd end up throwing in the dumpster for us. Even the potatoes which I cook and the chickens love it!
EdibleAcres: We are home brewers and have a local club. We have some of the other club members that give us their “waste” grains after they have brewed. The sugars are gone but the fiber and rest of grain is present. Next year we plan on using wine grapes and cuttings from the vines the vineyards don’t want. We also have the local VFW that saves coffee grounds for us for our worm bin. Vets drink a lot of coffee. It’s a 5 gallon bucket once a week that we swap out. Paper filter and all. The worms love it. We also spoke to some ladies that do lots of baking for the holidays. We dropped off buckets and hope that they drop some scraps from baking into them. Last we have bees and about once a month I take our moth traps and drop them into the chickens. They love the bugs and it is great to get rid of the pests to our bees. Also we hunt, fish and raise a lot of our meat. The parts we don’t use for meat we have thrown to the chickens. They love fish guts and rabbit parts. We used to get the bakery scraps from our local bakery thrift store but they decided to start selling them. Five dollars for a shopping cart of old bread isn’t bad but it’s not free. Maybe someone has a local bakery that would give old breads, donuts and cakes?
Yay! Ithaca! I grew up in Freeville, went to Cornell for college. Now we live in Northern VA. But Ithaca area always has a special place in my heart! Great video. I’m going to try this
Such good info! Thanks for helping renew my thought process on this... as I have a large flock of chickens, ducks, turkeys, and guineas and my feed prices have gone from $8-9/bag to $16-20+/bag and my fixed income doesn't accomodate such vast and rapid increases in costs.
Hoping to adventure into this in about 2 years. I'd really have to scale down my operation compared to what I'm seeing. You have what appears to be about 20+ chickens. Only looking to have about 4-6 myself. Solid content and information either way! Thank you all of it is gold!
Fine rice bran mixed with corn make natural organic chicken feed. Chopped sweet potato tops can be added to the bran mix. Just mix it well . With my bran and corn mix, I add one grated coconut for nice consistency
This was a great watch! I hadn't heard of anyone else in ny doing this type of thing successfully - it seems like food safety laws are more stringent here. I'm excited to try this when we get chix in about a year. Are there any plants you grow purposefully specifically to add to your chicken's diet?
Coming from West Palm Beach Florida. USA. I get all the scraps from the local grocery store. They text me when they have several shopping carts full I go by pick it up usually every day to every other day. I also have an arborist that brings green and brown material and drops it off it’s usually a 30 yard one dump truck full. I have four wooden pallets I pile it on. I throwing corn and sunflower,wheat seeds and other things to make it fun for the ladies to treasure hunt. My local feed store sweeps up of the Timothy hay that fell on the ground and put it in garbage bags if I’m lucky enough to go by there at the right time to give me the bags for free.I also put Braggs vinegar and garlic in their water. a barbecue restaurant gives me all their ashes I drop off a metal trashcan and pick up the other trashcan so they always have a trashcan ready. When the ladies break everything down. I sifts it through then put it on the garden Love your video thank you so much for sharing God bless you
How do you protect your chickens from predators? I haven’t been able to see if you have fencing around your area or netting? I would love to have my chickens free ranging and working through compost but have predator issues here that we are trying to work through. 😢 we have lost most of our flock recently and now they stay in their small coop and run.
Nice to see How do you deal with smell that is liked out of the rotten materials by your chicken. Do you feel smell in the surrounding if so how do you prevent it and the surroundings etc. Thanks for your kind efforts towards educating public. İt's really inspirational indeed. Stay blessed.
I work in produce & our managers don't want us to take home any plant scraps because they assume it will lead to customers bugging them about it. Hopefully that's just where I live
Direblade11-No, it’s most places unfortunately. They stopped the local school from giving the scraps away. They claim it’s against government regulations, but if that true...that needs changed!
Great information. Encouraging. For food waste composting, could I layer it out on a wide area of ground? Are you covering this area of ground with soil or ...? I would like to remediate the soil in a large unused plot of land. Following nature in this way, will it biodegrade into useful organic matter for a future large garden? And how are the quality of your eggs? Any breakage? Chickens look hardy and healthy. Superb work you are doing. Thanks for sharing.
Chickens seem healthy overall, good, strong eggs, we could probably offer them calcium but so far they seem fine with what they get. The chickens are most interested in working it when you pile it up, but you can do that for a bit, then let them spread it all out and work it over for a while and then move them to a new place if you wanted!
I have an arrangement with the manager of my local farmers market to take all the fruits and vegetables that doesn’t sell like bruised or some say ugly, lol, produce. Twice a week works best for her and she always has broken or old produce crates she needs to retire. Next I’m going to see if my local grocery store will donate the trimming from the produce department. I also make my own dog food with produce and scraps from my butcher. I’m rambling on but thank you very much for sharing. William
Sounds like you are making some really excellent connections and relationships to save you money, improve the lives of the animals you care for, and reduce waste. Kudos for all the time and effort!
Very interesting and informative. I don´t have chickens yet, but hope to have them next year. So I am looking for all the information to raise them as best as posible, while producing compost. I do have vermiculture so, at this time, my scraps go the worms. But the worms can also become chicken feed. Have to figure out how to make the cycle.
Sounds like the worm composting system will work beautifully in tangent with your chicken system when you are ready. I'm actually looking into building a continuous flow worm bin in the next few days!
You know I totally agree with your idea because we used to do that with our Hogs I used to do that back then would you go around getting food from the Chinese places stuff like that not a bad idea you have to go through it with gloves on make sure there's nothing else inside the trash but that could hurt the animals so I go through it but it is a good idea I mean you've definitely got the best idea on TH-cam I think now you're in your method being up north like you are
Sprouted grains convert carbohydrate to vegetation making them preeminently healthy - from what I've read on fodder, you can convert 50# grain to 300# of vegetation in 7 days
I live in a state where they spray poison all over the sides of the roads, including mine, and I just don't trust the wood chips here. However there is a lot of wooded area here. I'm thinking of using a wood chipper and fallen trees out of my woods and maybe my neighbors would allow me to use some of the ones out of their woods. Although I still worry about the roundup some spray running off into my gardens and woods, as well as the ground water.
That is a tough one, but adding a ton of woody debris from your own land, and maybe getting into making charcoal, will help to clean up the questionable aspects of what is coming in... Super healthy soil can really reduce a LOT of toxins, so if you focus on increasing that you may be able to make it all work out.
I just found your channel and I just want to say Thank You 💯💯 You sent my mind racing, I'm going to contact the local restaurants and grocery store in my small town to see if I can get their scraps 🙏🙏 Kendra
Here in the UK we’re not allowed to use scraps from the kitchen to feed our chickens. I use my harvesting scraps before it gets to the kitchen, and unused cabbages, kale etc, from the garden to feed my birds xx
We took your suggestion and asked about picking up the “prep waste” at a local restaurant. They are giving me two 5 gallon buckets full of scraps three times a week. Thank you for the great idea.
Thats a lot of free food for your friends! SO glad you asked, and now the flow begins!
That's amazing
How many chickens do you have? I'm trying to figure out how much I will need.
Over 60, he has posted.
Make sure that you pick up the food when agreed upon. If you don't, they might stop giving it to you.
So happy that you have this extra food for the chickens.
Back in Belgium I had a deal with the local organic supermarket, I went 2 times a week to get all the fruit, veggies, milk, yoghurt, cheese... that didn't look fresh anymore, or was passed date.You have no idea what stores throw away. My pigs and chickens where eating certified organic, for free!!! : )
Exactly, the more you ask and look around the more you realize how much is available!
😮😮😮
your pigs ate better than me...!
Excellent video
Your chickens probably eat healthier than most Americans
: ))
That's hilarious and sadly true ...
Got my first bucket of scraps from a local cafeteria today. They were more than willing. What a great idea.
And so it begins! If you can ask them to set aside the coffee in its own container that would make your life better. Coffee isn't great for chickens at all, and ideally you can compost that in it's own bin... Enjoy your process!
@@edibleacres Done and done! I'm a regular watcher of your videos so coffee was at the top of my list for something I didn't want. So far it's working spectacularly!
My kids’ high school has a salad bar. We get 2 buckets of trimmings a day and on Fridays we get leftovers of the cooked veggies and pasta.
Good thing to reduce food waste.
So you give them eggs in return ?
You are my composting hero.i have about 60 chickens and because of you I put them to work for me making compost.thanks for all the info and I think I have watched all your videos at least 4 or 5 times each.keep it up
Hell yes Sean and sasha are my #compostHERO (s)
So incredibly glad to be sharing ideas that feel useful to you!
That's honestly how I really feel about these guys....these committed to doing things farm wise that are so helpful and healthy not just for us but our farm friends as well😉
I was just rewatching this video because I'm having trouble sourcing scraps. Where I live is rural and all the farmers have dibs on scraps from every place I've contacted. But my kids go to daycare, and they feed at least 80 kids a day. I'm going to ask them this afternoon when I go in.
Good luck. It can't hurt to ask. Maybe there are manure piles or waste piles at the farms you could 'help' them out with :)
I do recollect what greengrocers trow away... broccoli, onion, lettuces, etc but sometimes people see me doing that, with my humble bicycle trailer and I see them thinking "oh that guy is a scavenger for food... grose!"
but then they go and buy my "organic free range eggs" at top notch neighbourhood store... I feel like the Tyler Durden of eggs lol
We get looks from folks when we collect scraps, but it's part of the deal I think. I consider myself a 2 legged raccoon with tubs :)
Tyler Durden of eggs, that is a great image!
Haha yeah i know right
We give our chickens all sorts of food scraps and garden waste, so it's sometimes a challenge to get enough material for our compost! We have been inspired by your other videos about your chicken 'n' compost operation, Sean, so we have started a pile this fall, with the intent to move the chix to that area of our place. We very much want to lower our costs of keeping them and to make them work more on the farm by making compost for us.
This week i gave our small flock (17) sprouted lentils, "failed" homemade yoghurt (it didnt get thick), a pork steak we didnt eat, scraps from vegetable soup making, and an egg that was broken. Not all at once, of course.
I also give them the remains of the pot from making bone broth, except the onions. Earlier this fall they would free range while i worked in the garden. They were happily scratching and pooping, and eating the grubs that I turned up.
Sounds like some really loved birds in your system.
You should make audio books; your voice is so relaxing to listen to.
I grow extra kale, turnips and other assorted greens. For a few dollars worth of seeds. I supplement my feed in the spring and fall and even into the winter months. I just pick a bucket full two or three times a week.
We do this but we leave a few plants to seed so we don't have to keep buying seed each year.
I have probably watched every homestead chicken video on TH-cam, and I have to say that you and Justin Rhodes without a doubt have the best set up . Your narration is exquisite and you have that ability to connect with the audience and bring them in to the video as if they were there in person.
Over all I have learned alot of great techniques from your videos and have enjoyed everything you have put out. I am grateful that you share your experiences with us, and I hope more people will tap into this style of life because of your awesome work on here. I'm thinking that some recipes for how y'all use the unique "permacultery" foods in everyday life would be very interesting.
I live in a very rural area and have 0 access to wood chips. Have you ever used sawdust from a lumber mill in place of the chips? If not, how do you think it would affect the nursery compost?
Thanks so much for the kind words here! Really appreciate it.
Sawdust... makes sense to me. Super dry/absorbent so either adding water or having a whole lot of food scraps would make it work better. But I've used sawdust as bulking/bedding material and for the food compost and it seems quite functional.
@@edibleacres I think I heard somewhere that mill sawdust is OK (probably great if 'treated' with urine in the garden process :) But, not so good from a furniture shop, for some reason.. probably because some might be from varnished, etc. pieces.
Agreed
100%
Furniture and cabinet shops often use MDF which contains formaldehyde which is toxic if consumed. It can be composted overtime but takes special attention. Our local cabinet shop has two machines that cut only hardwood, so they gather that up for me in a separately marked bag. And I avoid the rest of their sawdust completely.
All that to say, use sawdust only from natural wood. I also had an old man who told me to avoid composting walnut wood- not sure why though.
We moved out coop into our compost area after watching your videos and we absolutely love it. We only have 5 hens and our house hold compost but even on our tiny scale it has been absolutly wonderful.
So great to hear!
@@edibleacres We do it from start last year and did it two decades ago, not knowing about your videos. We only give our house hold compost and food scraps and if there is a big event around catering scraps of this event. But now our chicks refuse to eat normal chick food even they do not eat wheat and corn if there is human food scraps around, they had a taste for rice with butter and noodle soups.
Ali Abakan 😂🤣 Picky Chicks! They’ll eat them if they get hungry enough. It’s hard to go from gourmet to bleh! I can be the same way! 🙂
@@1shaneeka is going to
Would love to have a live video feed of your chickens "going about their daily work in the compost yard" to watch whenever we feel the need for a "chicken fix" as someone had suggested! Just like they have live feed videos of bird feeders, or bird nests, or animal dens etc. you could have a live feed of your chickens! A lot of chicken people would definitely watch, they are so relaxing! Just a thought and have a blessed day!
That is a sweet idea. Probably a bit too much for me to manage, but a good nudge to up the chicken video content for sure.
Another good idea is find a local nonprofit food bank. They throw away a ton of rotten food especially veggies donated from supermarkets.
Its a pretty good system youve got there, I do something similar but very scaled down with my five hens.
Do you have a video on that? :)
@@madeofyucca I do. It's based on Edible Acres system. th-cam.com/video/6tE3szF9VlE/w-d-xo.html
@@HomesteadDIY thanks for sharing your video. Great to see a small set up.
I was going to ask the same question. Thanks for sharing!
Just found your videos.. you are very informational.. I own. A restaurant and after a few years of throwing veggies scraps and food into the dumpster, a light bulb finally came, and now I collect leftover food for my chickens and save the veggies scraps for my compost pile.. I’m from Rochester New York but now live in Savannah, Georgia..
How do u deal with flies during the heat season?
We asked our local supermarket’s produce manager and we now get a banana box of fresh produce from them three times a week. I was not sure how they would take it but they love it. It’s a win win!
Having logs or stumps covering litter can breed bugs in safety, then you can casually turn them over and reveal bugs. I think that you spoke about that in an earlier video.
I've heard of people having a sawdust heap that they leave a carcass in to attract maggots. Then the chickens scratch away the sawdust to get to the maggots, and the sawdust composts with the meat scraps. I believe this needs to be near enough to the surface that the flies can get to it, rather than properly buried.
A related idea is having a flytrap which you put meat scraps in and the flies lay eggs, and the maggots are shaken out over the chicken yard.
I think you have one of the better systems though, it's very efficient for labour and you're constantly importing biomass.
Good ideas here. Really smart ways to improve some serious protein access for the birds!
Does that smell?
Another way to get free feed is to source your local brewery, hit them up for their used malt and barley (called mash) my local brewery is more than happy to get rid of it and as long as it doesn't have hops added (baaaaaaad for chickens) it's a great feed for them
I love this video!! I've tried all of the grocery stores around me to no avail. Tried a few healthy restaurants around and haven't been able to score any scraps.....I didn't even think about catering businesses!!! Incredible!!!
We've definitely had some misses over time. Some we tried to connect with and failed, some we connected with and realized it was a bad fit over time. Just keep reaching out... Call farmers, too!
@@edibleacres Thank you!!! I know it will all work out in the end. And you are sincerely the only people who reply on all the channels I follow, so thank you so much for that!!!!!
This is amazing! I was going to ask the same questions, after watching a different video and found this! Our area is very rural-but I'm excited to try a few places and see how they feel about saving compost materials. You are blessed to be in an area that is already very "green concious". I still get strange looks when I start talking about Kombucha and composting, lol!
Sure, we're in a 'progressive' area but for the most part businesses have to pay to have trash taken away... If they aren't composting then a fair bit of what they pay for is to have rotting food go away. You can help their bottom line and reduce the flies, smells, etc. And who doesn't like a dozen eggs here or there! Universal stuff :)
I just started my chicken coop here in our province in the Philippines. I used rice straw, banana shoots in feeding my chickens.
I really like the idea of me asking the local restaurants for their scraps, I love my chickens and want the best diet for them, the feed store sells these pellets and it’s costing me a ton of money, a little 5-6 pound bag is 12.00! I also supplement with other things but these ideas are fabulous and I thank you. We never have snow here in Roseville California and it was a treat seeing the snow especially that donut on the tire!!!
In a warmer climate like yours the composting system would work incredibly well. Just ask, if you can, that they put coffee grinds in it's own container and you should be golden!
Please don't buy the small bags, ever. They are so grossly overpriced! At least buy a 40-50 pound bag and your per unit price will go down significantly! Feeding from scraps and compost can be useful, but definitely keep an eye on your birds' health. Especially important if you raise meat birds that are fast growing birds such as Cornish... and also your laying hens' calcium... If they don't get enough protein and calcium, the meat birds can grow so fast their legs are prone to breaking under heir own body weight...And the laying hens will supplement their blood calcium levels out of their own bones if there is insufficiency in their diet... If you start getting thin egg shells, there is already damage that has been occurring that you hadn't yet been noticing. Oyster shell can provide a long-acting calcium source. Recycling their egg shells by washing them then heating them in the oven to kill pathogens prior to crushing and adding to their feed can provide fast-acting calcium. Please note that excessive egg shell feeding can also be problematic, so do your research to avoid overuse issues... And most importantly, NEVER use egg shells from other birds nor unsanitized used equipment from another flock in order to prevent spread of chicken diseases! Reference: "The Chicken Chick" on FB, IG, Pinterest, and ChickenChick.com for excellent information! Her book is great and I highly recommend it. (Signed copies available on her website!} Tell her Caprice and Bobbie sent you!!!
Food for chickens AND food for thought! That's multifunction
Thank you so much! As a first-year chicken owner, I watch a ton of TH-cam channels looking for information on the best ways to raise my chickens. It’s not always been easy to find channels that 1. have a philosophy that align with my own and 2. provide practical suggestions that I have been able to implement on my own farm. Y’all consistently put out such enjoyable, and more importantly, useful content. Thank you again for doing a Q&A and please let us know if you have a Patreon that we might support, in order to help you continue to help us work towards finding a more sustainable way of growing/raising our food.
THanks so much for the kind words. Our pleasure to make the videos and share. I haven't thought about the Patreon avenue, hmmm... :)
I’m sure it takes quite a bit of time to film, edit, answer questions, etc. A lot of TH-camrs have them. There’s real value in what you are sharing with the community. It feels good to be able to say thank you in a concrete way. Another thing I love to do, especially if someone has animals on their channel, is to send something from their Amazon Wishlist (or even better, a local place where they have a wishlist!). I feel like it strengthens the sustainability community, which helps all of us. My chickens, and thus my farm and family, have benefitted from using your system of composting with your chickens. It’s just a way we could pay it forward, and a little good karma never hurt anyone. :D
I acquired a new waste stream and I wanted to share the idea. BAGEL SHOPS! Our local bagel place discards a large amount of seeds from under their racks. Every Monday after the busy weekend I am collecting a nice supplement of nutritional seeds. FOOD FOR THOUGHT!
How about security camera feeds of the chicken yard so we can log in and get our chicken composting fix when needed 🐔🐔😉
Ok, now this is just a great idea! 😄
Almost a year later your comment is paying dividends.
I could watch them scratching around for hours... so soothing.. and those little "burrruk burrruk!" noises
i live in wisconsin and if i put scraps out in winter if would freeze hard as a rock in 5 minutes. does the compost heap generate enough heat to keep it from freezing and allow them to pick at it ?
thx
@@d65-m1x there seems to be snowball around him when he's filming, so hopefully yes? I've seen compost heaps get to 50°C but that's in spring etc. Good question!
Always enjoy the vibe. Gotta say it again those are the most contented hens I've ever seen. They're in their glory.
Thanks for that tip about doing it small scale. I could only have four chickens anyway. Now I'm having fun thinking about ways to make this work.
Certainly can work on a small scale.
I do a similar thing with horse Manure the straw acts as wood chips and the chickens eat bugs and something in horse poop
Do you age the poop first? Just learning:)
@@jenniferjarvis1207 you don’t need to. The hens will pick out insects & left over seeds, then scratch what is left and turn it into nice compost. If the manure does not have a carbon component (leaves sawdust or straw) it is best to throw some in with it to improve the resulting compost. Worms will migrate into it and provide additional nourishment.
An excellent video! I am not a chicken person currently but am strongly considering it and information such as this is very helpful in my future consideration.
i get seaweed from the beach, contains all trace minerals and elements, super good
I would love to harvest seaweed for our chickens/gardens. TOO far for us though!
EdibleAcres have you considered bioponics, using a compost tea type in an aquaponics system, instead of fish? You could grow an unlimited amount of seaweed.
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Lets share more ideas on how to source free food and resources for raising chickens! What do you do? What neat tricks have you come up with or relationships you've developed to offset costs?
Some more ideas to consider:
Contact local butcher shops to get offcuts of meat/etc...
Local hunters you may know who have leftover material you can feed your chickens?
Bakery in your neighborhood with stale bread, old grain, etc?
Local farms you can help with cleanup after a crop harvest, or access their compost piles?
Folks in your neighborhood with old piles of logs, leaves, lawn clippings that are abandoned? SOO much soil life in there...
Waste hay or silage available from any local farms?
- I would strongly encourage NOT taking straw unless it is organic... It can be some of the most intensely sprayed stuff out there... Hay is generally great.
YOUR turn!
I think I'll have to look into some of these other options in more detail
For now I have a loadhandler(thanks for the suggestion btw) and a poly scoop fork (again, thanks for the suggestion lol) and a local arborist company that has a yard located in a convenient place near my commute and I pick up wood chips from them when I can, they're the only company that has ever brought chips to me but that was only once and as far out as I am I don't expect it'll happen again anytime soon, no other company has been willing to drop chips to me since I lived in town
I find an excess of Halloween pumpkins handy to feed through winter, cut jack o lanterns must be used quickly but whole uncut pumpkins last a while into the season
In the summer my system is a cross between composting and rotational paddock shift, I use electric poultry net and have 4 compost "yards" set along some erosion gulls leading down to a spot in our road, each week I turn the "piles" down one space and put a bit of woodchips at the top and then move the chickens into this yard, in so doing each yard gets 3 weeks to rest, grow fungal and macrobiotic life and achieve some small degree of moisture, if I had food scraps like your sources I think I would see some actual compost, as it is this last year I only managed to see slightly darker woodchips after about 4 months or 4 turns but I think with improvement the concept could contribute significantly to reducing or eliminating feed Bill's due to regrowth that would happen in a wetter climate
For me leaf bags are unfortunately laden with trash and cigarette butts and have previously caused more frustration than material, furthermore unlike wood chips leaves tend to blow away, a problem in my windy fall and winter
It is a bit harder to source that kind of thing in my area. I asked once either someone else has asked or I got turned down like the waste at the grocery store. I guess they don't allow people collecting waste produce for some reason. It's been a few years when I first got chickens I asked around. There is an organic feed mill about 30 miles west of me. I get the transitional stuff, since I am not certified organic myself. I get whole grains with a bit of layer mix. I just buy the starter and grower when I get chicks. I try to give them our scraps and such from gardening, etc.
We have a chipper place just down the road, but they charge. It is a bit harder to catch the road crew when they are cleaning/chipping.
My chickens like the cow manure/hay winter piles when I turn them a bit, but I need to use the tractor for turning the stuff is pretty wet and heavy.
When I can I use our yard waste like grass clippings and leaves. I need to fix/replace my bagging system. I don't look forward to that.
Our nephew works in the produce department at one of our local grocery stores. We contact him a few days a week and he saves whatever he'd end up throwing in the dumpster for us. Even the potatoes which I cook and the chickens love it!
EdibleAcres: We are home brewers and have a local club. We have some of the other club members that give us their “waste” grains after they have brewed. The sugars are gone but the fiber and rest of grain is present. Next year we plan on using wine grapes and cuttings from the vines the vineyards don’t want. We also have the local VFW that saves coffee grounds for us for our worm bin. Vets drink a lot of coffee. It’s a 5 gallon bucket once a week that we swap out. Paper filter and all. The worms love it. We also spoke to some ladies that do lots of baking for the holidays. We dropped off buckets and hope that they drop some scraps from baking into them. Last we have bees and about once a month I take our moth traps and drop them into the chickens. They love the bugs and it is great to get rid of the pests to our bees. Also we hunt, fish and raise a lot of our meat. The parts we don’t use for meat we have thrown to the chickens. They love fish guts and rabbit parts. We used to get the bakery scraps from our local bakery thrift store but they decided to start selling them. Five dollars for a shopping cart of old bread isn’t bad but it’s not free. Maybe someone has a local bakery that would give old breads, donuts and cakes?
Your chickens are beautiful !! They look very healthy.
I'm so glad that you think so, I always wonder but to be fair they were much older in general so they look a little rough around the edges anyway
Yay! Ithaca! I grew up in Freeville, went to Cornell for college. Now we live in Northern VA. But Ithaca area always has a special place in my heart!
Great video. I’m going to try this
Nice to hear from you!
WOW!!!!!!!! this is Amazing! Found your channel through roots and refuge. I cant stop watching your videos lol
Welcome to our community here, hope you find a lot of valuable ideas
Such good info! Thanks for helping renew my thought process on this... as I have a large flock of chickens, ducks, turkeys, and guineas and my feed prices have gone from $8-9/bag to $16-20+/bag and my fixed income doesn't accomodate such vast and rapid increases in costs.
Sorry you are dealing with that, so so many people are. I hope you can find waste streams to tap into right where you live!
This is giving me great ideas. Never thought of asking restaurants...thank you!!
Good luck.
Its so cute when they eat, and start cooing (sorta). Nice video.
It's a win-win. Them's happy chickens = Mighty tasty and nutritious hens.
I have about 24 chickens, and collect food scrape form my neighbors-friends. It is sufficient for now.
And also, I add hey plus dry leaves.
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Hoping to adventure into this in about 2 years. I'd really have to scale down my operation compared to what I'm seeing. You have what appears to be about 20+ chickens. Only looking to have about 4-6 myself. Solid content and information either way! Thank you all of it is gold!
Chicken math applies. First thing you know, you'll have 8 or 10!
Fine rice bran mixed with corn make natural organic chicken feed. Chopped sweet potato tops can be added to the bran mix. Just mix it well . With my bran and corn mix, I add one grated coconut for nice consistency
We did the same thing, except got the old fruits and vegetable from a small store. Excellent idea! Thanks for sharing :)
Our pleasure.
Ahhh, this is the answer to the question I just asked on another of your vids. Thanks!
Happy to help!
This was a great watch! I hadn't heard of anyone else in ny doing this type of thing successfully - it seems like food safety laws are more stringent here. I'm excited to try this when we get chix in about a year.
Are there any plants you grow purposefully specifically to add to your chicken's diet?
Of course I’m going to Thumbs up thank you so much for all the details love your management cheers
Glad you enjoy it :)
You certainly have healthy looking chickens. So it's obviously working well. Thank you for the sourcing ideas.
Thank you for the inspiration! I shall visit my local farm shop tmrw 👍
Sending you good luck!
cool video!!
Those look like some very happy hens. Thanks for this video some really great recommendations and ideas!
I pick up once a week for the animals.. past date blemished etc.. wonderful!
Such great ideas and information. Thank you
Coming from West Palm Beach Florida. USA. I get all the scraps from the local grocery store. They text me when they have several shopping carts full I go by pick it up usually every day to every other day. I also have an arborist that brings green and brown material and drops it off it’s usually a 30 yard one dump truck full. I have four wooden pallets I pile it on. I throwing corn and sunflower,wheat seeds and other things to make it fun for the ladies to treasure hunt. My local feed store sweeps up of the Timothy hay that fell on the ground and put it in garbage bags if I’m lucky enough to go by there at the right time to give me the bags for free.I also put Braggs vinegar and garlic in their water. a barbecue restaurant gives me all their ashes I drop off a metal trashcan and pick up the other trashcan so they always have a trashcan ready. When the ladies break everything down. I sifts it through then put it on the garden Love your video thank you so much for sharing God bless you
Wow, you've got a system cranking down there! Seems so very very dialed in, kudos! How long have you been at it?
Wow, how many chickens do you have with that system?
They look so healthy!
Glad you think so
Not gonna lie, I love your chickens and this is the umpteenth time I've been back to watch, lol. Thank you!!
How do you protect your chickens from predators? I haven’t been able to see if you have fencing around your area or netting? I would love to have my chickens free ranging and working through compost but have predator issues here that we are trying to work through. 😢 we have lost most of our flock recently and now they stay in their small coop and run.
my family doesn't like to eat leftovers so i give the chickens those (except for chicken) and they love it
Chicken scraps are great source of protein
@@judyhowell7075 And they love cooked chicken! (and any other meat ;) They catch and gobble up 'fresh' mice, too : )
My neigbors are quite happy to feed our chickens with stale bread while they watch them with their grandchildren.
Nice to see
How do you deal with smell that is liked out of the rotten materials by your chicken.
Do you feel smell in the surrounding if so how do you prevent it and the surroundings etc.
Thanks for your kind efforts towards educating public. İt's really inspirational indeed. Stay blessed.
Thank you so much! Very informative.
Great tips thank you so much for sharing this important information listening from Bangs Texas
Great content in this video. New chicken owner here and I’m starting a lot of the methods you’ve listed here.
So great!
Great job... That is organic food for them... They look so healthy.. When you buy in store has chemicals add!!
!
Ithaca NY! hahha.. i was shocked when you said that as I grew up in Spencer and still live in the surrounding area.... small world!
I get stuff from my local grocery stores, cheers for the idea
I work in produce & our managers don't want us to take home any plant scraps because they assume it will lead to customers bugging them about it.
Hopefully that's just where I live
Hopefully!
Direblade11-No, it’s most places unfortunately. They stopped the local school from giving the scraps away. They claim it’s against government regulations, but if that true...that needs changed!
My uncle work at chines restaurant he brought back rice , shrimp we feed our chicken and pigs they love it .
Great ideas. How do you handle rats and mice when having all the food on the ground?
Great information. Encouraging. For food waste composting, could I layer it out on a wide area of ground? Are you covering this area of ground with soil or ...? I would like to remediate the soil in a large unused plot of land. Following nature in this way, will it biodegrade into useful organic matter for a future large garden? And how are the quality of your eggs? Any breakage? Chickens look hardy and healthy. Superb work you are doing. Thanks for sharing.
Chickens seem healthy overall, good, strong eggs, we could probably offer them calcium but so far they seem fine with what they get. The chickens are most interested in working it when you pile it up, but you can do that for a bit, then let them spread it all out and work it over for a while and then move them to a new place if you wanted!
I have an arrangement with the manager of my local farmers market to take all the fruits and vegetables that doesn’t sell like bruised or some say ugly, lol, produce.
Twice a week works best for her and she always has broken or old produce crates she needs to retire.
Next I’m going to see if my local grocery store will donate the trimming from the produce department.
I also make my own dog food with produce and scraps from my butcher.
I’m rambling on but thank you very much for sharing.
William
Sounds like you are making some really excellent connections and relationships to save you money, improve the lives of the animals you care for, and reduce waste. Kudos for all the time and effort!
Hey thanks . Now I am on the flow too. From srilanka. Asia.🤩
Great to know this is useful to folks far away too!
Very interesting and informative. I don´t have chickens yet, but hope to have them next year. So I am looking for all the information to raise them as best as posible, while producing compost. I do have vermiculture so, at this time, my scraps go the worms. But the worms can also become chicken feed. Have to figure out how to make the cycle.
Sounds like the worm composting system will work beautifully in tangent with your chicken system when you are ready. I'm actually looking into building a continuous flow worm bin in the next few days!
Wow wonderful advice.
God bless you.
Lots of great ideas and info!
Love your videos, your an excellent narrator
Thank you so much it was very informational
your chickens look so healthy, well done buddy ;)
Thanks!
Great video guys thank you 🙏
You know I totally agree with your idea because we used to do that with our Hogs I used to do that back then would you go around getting food from the Chinese places stuff like that not a bad idea you have to go through it with gloves on make sure there's nothing else inside the trash but that could hurt the animals so I go through it but it is a good idea I mean you've definitely got the best idea on TH-cam I think now you're in your method being up north like you are
So interesting. Unfortunately, here in the UK, it is actually illegal to feed chickens on kitchen scraps. Can you believe it?!? Totally nuts!
I've heard that before. Really lame rules there.
Thank you very much for this information.
Glad it was helpful!
Love the idea!! We will be trying this out for our birds
Thank you for sharing. Very useful information.
Yes
Sprouted grains convert carbohydrate to vegetation making them preeminently healthy - from what I've read on fodder, you can convert 50# grain to 300# of vegetation in 7 days
That doesn't surprise me to read. Soaking grain really isn't a big deal and it makes such a more exciting food for them!
That was so beautiful thank you
Our pleasure
This is great! Thanks so much!
I live in a state where they spray poison all over the sides of the roads, including mine, and I just don't trust the wood chips here. However there is a lot of wooded area here. I'm thinking of using a wood chipper and fallen trees out of my woods and maybe my neighbors would allow me to use some of the ones out of their woods. Although I still worry about the roundup some spray running off into my gardens and woods, as well as the ground water.
That is a tough one, but adding a ton of woody debris from your own land, and maybe getting into making charcoal, will help to clean up the questionable aspects of what is coming in... Super healthy soil can really reduce a LOT of toxins, so if you focus on increasing that you may be able to make it all work out.
I just found your channel and I just want to say Thank You 💯💯 You sent my mind racing, I'm going to contact the local restaurants and grocery store in my small town to see if I can get their scraps 🙏🙏 Kendra
They look very healthy 🐓
Glad you think so
Very informative, thank you and God bless!!
If you have space you can plant moringa tree.. This tree leafs have best nutritional value also you can eat Moringa beans and leafs..
I think we're not warm enough for this
Those chicken look awesome!!! It works for them!!!
Looks like a great setup! Thanks for sharing. With all those food scraps, what do you do to avoid rat problems?
Rats come sometimes, but they haven't been a problem at all. Lately we haven't seen them at all.
@@edibleacres get buckeye chickens....they eat rodents too…
That’s incredibly resourceful.
Have you considered black soldier fly larva?
This is so helpful. Great suggestions.
Glad it was helpful!
Here in the UK we’re not allowed to use scraps from the kitchen to feed our chickens. I use my harvesting scraps before it gets to the kitchen, and unused cabbages, kale etc, from the garden to feed my birds xx
You aren't allowed if you plan to sell the eggs I guess, right? If you just want to raise chickens for yourself you should be OK, right?
EdibleAcres No, we’re not allowed full stop. It’s supposed to be about infection control
Wow that's a disgusting level of control.