I have my meal worm farm. I feed them organic carrots that I do not peel. Bell peppers that I slice up, apples sliced up, (I have an apple tree), butternut squash, which I grow too and store all winter long. Half a potato or sweet potato the mealworms eat it. Their bedding is organic rolled oats and wheat bran. Then my carrots start growing after the butternut squash runs out. I also hardboil the chicken eggs at least once a week and smash them to bits, and give it to the chickens including their shells. My mealworms have multiplied to the point that I can give my chickens mealworms daily as treats, and they love it. I am not worried about not having grains. During the growing season, I grow amaranth, quinoa, millet, black oil sunflowers, peas, beans, and dent corn for the hens. Each amaranth averages about 1 pound of grain. I also give them the leaves from the amaranth. I average about 300 pounds of amaranth alone. It seeds itself as well. Plus the sunflower seeds, quinoa, millet, flax and dent corn....I have plenty of food for the winter months for them. I freeze dry & dehydrate alot of my produce, herbs and flowers....kale, spinach, collards, swish chard, calendula pedals, marigold petals, Zinnia pedals, wild red and pink roses, hibiscus/Rose of sharon, oregano, parsley, basil, mint and more....all gets added into their feed too. I also grow sprouts for them during the winter, barley, rye, wheat, lentils, Flax, clover, amaranth, arugula, broccoli, sunflower, pea, mung bean....they love those sprouts as well. Usually have 12 mason jars on my counter daily in different stages of sprouting. You can grow fodder as well from these sprouts.
This is awesome and a goal I want to reach! Last year was our first year growing amaranth. We have grown corn in the past but critters ate the cobs before we got a harvest. Even sunflowers the birds and chipmunks get them. This year I will set a good patch of land and grow three sisters style and fence it off with electric fence just during the ripening stage.
@@healthyfitmom I put the material tulle over my sunflower heads and tie them around the bottom of the head on the stem, birds and squirrels can't get to them but they still get sun. They look funny, but saves them. I leave a few exposed so the birds and the squirrels have something.
@@healthyfitmom you can put the tulle over the cobs as well. I usually by a bolt or two of tulle from Joanns, in their online store when it's on sale and have it delivered. I also put tulle over my tomatoes that I want to save for next year's seeds. And I use the tulle as hammocks for my tiger melons because I grow them on a hog panel as an arbor and they climb. Don't want the melons to break away off the vine. Any of my melons that I grow that way, or squash (acorn squash, butternut). I learned the hardway...you have to support them or they will break off. I didn't want to them growing all on the ground taking up ground space so I went verticle. The tulle also works great over blueberry bushes and raspberry bushes so the birds don't pick them bare. The bird netting, I will never use. Hear too many stories of birds getting entangled in that and die. At least with the tulle, they can't get entangled in it. You can so use the bolts of tulle to cover cauliflower rows or cabbage rows or broccoli rows or lettuce rows, arugula. Cheaper than the row covers that are sold in farm stores online. Get hula hoops from the dollar store, cut them in half and stick them in the geound to support the tulle fabric. Or you can use pvc tubes, but that will cost more. Let's in the sun and rain, and limits squash bugs or worms that would eat your ground veggies. Love the tulle. And it's reusable year after year. If you get too much sun and your tomatoes are scorching, tulle can be used as a shade cloth too. Just need poles and grommets for the tulle and caribeeners to hook them to the poles and make the shade for them. Have you seen how much those shade things sell for online? Insane amount. I try to always reuse everything I can. And find a cheaper solution.
We have a feed garden, a kitchen garden, a bee garden, and a tea garden. Some of them overlap. We have beans, peas, squash, and field corn growing for the animals.
The grains or seed you buy, can be sprouted or even planted to grow more feed, and fermenting and feed, triples them in volume thus reducing food costs by 2/3...!!! I leave out a tray of wet grain and the flies lay eggs in it and in 3-5 days I just give it all to my birds...high protein feed...
I will sing the duck song all day long. They don’t wreck my garden like the chickens, so I can let them free range, so they’re able to forage for much more of their diet. I feed them very little compared to the chickens. The only downside to ducks IMO is they are better at hiding their eggs
Do'n't ducks require water for paddling/swimming though? I've had ducks and had to constantly clean the pool of water as they do like to bring mud into their baths 🙂
@@dsawake58 i use a kiddie pool, the smallest size so it’s easy to pick it up to empty it every day. Place it uphill from your favorite tree and watch the tree g r o w
I saw a guy here on TH-cam cooking up a pot of pinto beans, adding a bag of macaroni of any type to that, and feeding that to his chicken instead of grains!
I have done that with organic brown rice, lentils and navy beans. I no longer trust commercially packaged chicken feed after I read all the experiences people had with chicken feed this year.
Growing some sweetpotatoes and white potatoes to cook for your chickens would be an easy way to get carbs in the winter for your birds. And if you raise your own BSF, mealworms and redwigglers it should be fairly easy to keep them fed. Our winters aren't really cold so hoop houses over my garden beds will keep them in greens. If not I can sprout grains or seeds inside my house to feed them
I sprout for the winter as well for my chickens, plus my family loves sprouts in their salads & soups. Lots of nutrition in sprouts. I usually have 12 jars in different stages on my counter. 2 jars a day for my hens.
@@sheilal3172 I cook my sweetpotatoes for my chickens due to how hard they are but I don't think it will make them sick. And my girls love cooked sweetpotatoes.
Yes... On the home scale, with our .37 acre back yard and garden, we haven't spent anything on chicken feed since they were chicks. All suet goes in the freezer for the winter, we don't throw out any of the imperfect squash or wormy apples... they just get cool storage to get thrown to the chickens throughout the winter. I also leave the last of the summer growth (not mature but blade grass) at full length, on the back half of the yard, until I need it, and then cut it as I need it to supplement the other stuff I have for them in the winter. I experience the usual "half in the winter" but no worse than the seasonal change if I were feeding grain. I acknowledge that not everyone has a 50 year old apple tree that gives our family 5 times more apples than we can press and use, .37 acres of grass over sandy loam, and an old 1962 deep freeze that just keeps on going and can hold all of our suit and such. I also am spending "depression era" time into supporting the chickens just to support the principle of not buying grain. If you count my time, most would say it is not worth it. I just LOVE throwing stuff in for the girls all through the summer as I am pruning, weeding, and harvesting (sorting) vegetables. Through all seasons, watching them turn it all into mulch and fertilizer while giving us those wonderful bright orange yokes... sorry for the nauseating monologue but it is just so much fun.
On just a 'feed my family' scale, I'm already planning on scaling back the number of chickens we have to just two or three layers per person. We can feed that number of hens from kitchen and garden scraps, offal from butchering, and growing a few things just for the chickens. But primarily we'll be raising animals that don't need any feed other than grass -- hair sheep, and a few geese. We have a pond, and if the guys can get the snapping turtle(s) out of it, I'll add a few Muscovy ducks, too. Animals like pigs and chickens that need a lot of grain may still have a place here, but only in small numbers.
Pigs don't need grains. Poor people used to often have a pig, which was fed table scraps and growing plants. They do a great job of tilling the soil too -- far superior to machinery.
@@judylloyd7901 This is true, to a degree. However, I know that I couldn't feed a pig on just the scraps from my kitchen and garden -- the poor thing would starve to death! Even poor people used to have a family milk cow, and at the time of year when they were raising a pig, they usually also had skim milk from making butter, and whey from making cheese, to supplement the pig food. They also generally had much larger gardens than most people do now, because they had, of necessity, to grow almost everything they ate. They may have had a surplus of eggs in the spring and summer. And often their pigs were turned out in the woods to forage part of their own feed. Most of us can't do that. Most people raising a family pig now are purchasing most of the feed for it, and most of that feed is grains and soybeans. Someone who has enough land can grow those, but it does take quite a bit of land (and some equipment). People who live on a small property are going to have a hard time finding enough to feed a pig without buying at least part of it's diet. It's very important to both know how much feed an animal will need, and what kind of feed they need, as well as to be able to accurately estimate how much of their diet you can realistically produce from your own property.
@@kathleensanderson3082 I agree. I used to raise pigs when you could sell one for enough to pay for their feed. I'm having a hard enough time keep my small herd of goats fed this year. If I weren't feeding grain they'd be starving during the winter. Very little browse is left for them, and I can feed them for 4 weeks on grain compared to just 6 bales of hay. Grain costs me $14 a week; hay costs me $30. it's very important to me that they can get out and graze or browse. I know the Idaho pasture pigs are a big heal right now, but they have certain mineral requirements that MUST be met, or they go to rooting to find enough. Minerals that you have to buy ! Pigs are omnivores; they don't have a rumin to help digest only grasses. They can eat many things and survive, but every chance they get, they'll eat grain, even in the wild. Grains, seeds, nuts, roots, eggs, and carrion.
Breed matters-I bought an AGH/kune cross piglet last summer. Between my husband and me, our two young children, and my parents, that pig has grown steadily eating mostly leftovers. Every now and then when the fridge is empty he gets some of the cattle ration but he certainly prefers what my kids leave him ;) His rate of growth is slower, but the daily requirement for the pig to be happy is smaller. I never would have been able to raise a pig on just leftovers when I was keeping full-size meat breeds (even the heritage ones like red wattle).
@@lagoya exactly. I have mangalitsas, and they are very easy keepers, even if they do grow slower. But I also have jersey cows and chickens, so hay along with extra milk and eggs come easy for me. Even the chickens can do fairly well on the alfalfa leaf that fall from the hay and clabbered milk, and whatever meat scraps I may have (by which I mean meats scraps/meat bones from butchering or maggots from maggot buckets etc…). I also raise rabbits, so that is another protein source for the chickens. It is fairly easy to feed rabbits from things you grow (and preserve) on a small scale. So, for me, it all boils down to this: As long as I have grass/hay for my cows, I can support the chickens and pigs.
I have a breeding trio of rabbits and 10 laying hens. BSFL can eat the offal from butchering the rabbits, the hens eat the organs. This year I will be growing several beds of feed for them. I can't provide all of their feed, but every bit helps.
In the early 1900s a man named John Hershey collected and bred tree crops in Philadelphia area as a alternative form of agriculture. For feeding chickens he recommended serviceberry, mulberry, persimmon, pawpaw, mountain ash, haws and hawthorn, and cracked nuts for winter feeding.
I just planted 3 paw paws, 3 persimmons, 4 chestnuts and we have 2 big apple trees that produce a lot of apples (at least 100lbs each). Persimmons are sweeter in December and January. Never had paw Paw, but I have read that they are delicious, so we are giving it a try. We love roasted chestnuts.
@@dictionaryzzz I do. They love apples. My hens get a lot of our garden produce and fruit. I have a bunch of rose of sharon bushes/trees....they get a lot of the flowers and leaves, they love it. They are not denied.
Had 2 pecan trees and my layers loved the pecans. Kept up to 20 layers with minimal feed cost on 1/6 acre back yard using large compost pile, garden scraps, and rotating them on the grass.
Mold is a HUGE problem in grains!! That's probably the biggest problem with grains next to glyphosates. Maybe chicken bodies can deal with it but many of us humans cannot.
Good video, I have about 20-25 chickens (layer hens and after 4yrs freezer) I DO NOT feed my hens and I never have a problems with eggs or meat. What they eat all our table scraps and what they forage in their yard, (it's better than 1/4-1/3 acers. We also have our compost pile in the center of their yard.
Maybe try to keep an active compost heap going through the winter for the chickens to work through. Worms will stay closer to the surface where the warm compost is rather than go deep to avoid the cold. Waterers sitting on top of or very close to warm compost heap will not freeze over. Yes, chickens will happily devour mice, but rats are better killed by dogs... cats and chickens would rather not go for rats. We have dogs here that love to hunt for rats. They don't bother the chickens at all except to occasionally steal eggs from the nest boxes. But the dogs will eat whole cages worth of quail if they find the opportunity. (DAMHIK)😧
I would not do the dead animal thing for my birds due to disease potential and possible bacterial buildup. Instead, I grow microgreens in big flats in winter and, once the greens are up to some size, I set the whole flat in their pen. That’s just a supplement to their feed and the dried mealworms. This summer I plan to move their pen around and let them forage safely within their pen which, again, is only a supplement to their regular feed. I have Japanese Quail which cannot free range because of two reasons: Predators such as hawks will kill them, and quail tend to wander, unlike chickens. I chose quail (for their eggs) because they are smaller birds and can be housed in the garage with heat lamps in winter. For those who use heat lamps: Be very, very careful, because if a lamp falls or is knocked down, your entire place will burn up. Bad enough to lose one’s home, but a terrible way for an animal to die. Make sure you add wire to help keep the lamp in place and test it well. Also, clean the dust off the lamps that can accumulate, as it is a potential source of combustion.
@@curiouscat3384 I wonder if you put: cheap natural sea salt, seaweed, rock dust near it that it might change it's flavor and be more tasty to chickens. Foliar feeding small amount of sea salt once a week might do it for a test
@@GriffenNaif Very interesting! I use Sea90 in my vegetable beds and it does sweeten and enrich them. Never thought I'd need to supplement comfrey because it's recommended as a supplement mulch for gardens because it pulls up minerals from many feet below the surface. But I'm just preparing a new "fodder bed" for the chickens and will use it there today - and do a foliar feed today for the emerging spring comfrey. Thank you! I'll try to remember to come back here with feedback.
Good morning from the Pacific Northwest. We can and need to cross this divide of urban vs. rural. If we begin to encourage our urbanite patrons to recycle their food scraps, then we begin to have the large-scale food source that is missing for operations like meal or compost worm harvesting. If we can create jobs to support the divide between urban and rural areas, that would be even better. Can you imagine if someone who lived on the outskirts of say the Raleigh Durham region of North Carolina had a business that collected food scraps from not only local homes but also restaurants in those metropolitan regions. They then would separate those scraps (meat vs veg scrap). Now they have the ability to create a large-scale meal worm operation as well as a food source for raising compost worms and just plain old magnificent composting. An operation large enough can be a regenerarive source of materials for small to medium scale animal and vegetable farmers. Now is the time to heal this division of us vs them. We can help those in the urban centers by growing more nutrient dense food, helping them to detox off the industry sludge that is killing them. They can help the small to medium and large scale regenerative operations by purchasing our products, voting with the power of the almighty dollar that is idealized in this world, and lastly they can learn how to start doing their part i.e separating their food scraps and compostables in order to support new composting operations. To those who may say this will never work, I say you don't see how desperate things are getting around you. I am currently a Critical Carr nursein the Seattle/Olympia region, Army veteran of ten years, and transitioning into farming. I can personally tell you that humans are getting sicker. I can tell you all the terrible things that will happened to your body if We the people keep going in the direction it's going in. However, I will spare you those gruesome images. Thank a nurse or a cna or an lpn or a lab tech or a doctor for having those images kept away. The fact remains that currently around the country the health care system is starting to crack. While rsvFluRona is not helping the situation it is the straw on the camel's back. We all (urban and rural) need to start doing our part to regenerate our health and our neighbor's health. When we can start to care about each other's well being that's when we can really start healing our country from under the ground up. Mr Salatin ( I know that's your father's name). You have passed on so much info to so many folks and inspired people to live their dream of farming. I personally will be forever thankful. As much as you have taught us about incorporating Mother Nature cycles into our farms operations, I believe we can also incorporate the human cycles into our regenerative operations. Positive begets positivity. Stay blessed and fruitful.
Totally agree. 1 question... why do we separate veg matter from protein scraps? It can all be composted... unless you mean give the veg to the chickens? Thanks for clearing this for me❣
Yaaay Joel and Sina!! It's great to see your TH-cam channel. Been a fan of the Poly Face Farm since the early 2000s when I did a report on your unique farming business practice. Twenty-some years later...I'm preparing for my first backyard chicken flock. Look forward to seeing future content. Best.
My wild chickens take care of themselves, but I am domesticating a few for my new flock, im using grain now just because its easy, but my father never bought grain or has ever had a coop, he was super old school, im in the tropics so keeping chickens without grain is easier here.
We only keep a few back yard hens and they free range for most of their food. In cold weather we boil up rice, oats, lentils and vegetable peelings from our own dinner and they love it. They'll lay in winter if there is enough sun so I know they are not going hungry.
In his story about the rats moving in to the rabbit poop/worm/sprout cycle during being winter had me thinking, why not trap the rats and feed them to the chickens. That would close the loop in the winter?
There are two main types of meat alternatives. That made from vegetable oil and beans. And that grown in a lab. It would not surprise me if they blended the two. We do not know what processing they are doing to the plant matter to get it to the texture required. Remember that processing vegetable oils into margarine generates trans fats. So just because something is vegetable in origin, does not mean that weird by-products won't form in the processing. Lab meat is taking muscle cells and growing them in an appropriate medium. What and how the growing medium is prepared is one thing. But the second thing is that this tissue culture is not being conducted with any type of cellular quality control. Even if we ignore that the meat is being grown with essentially cancerous cells, how will we exclude misfolded prion like proteins from forming? At least if an animal is carrying something bad, behavioral responses will tell us something isn't right. And where is the B12 that is synthesized by cow gut bacteria going to come from? So this entire enterprise is being driven by people who have no respect for the complex biological processes involved and think that we can synthesize anything in a lab.
and remember that the folks funding this 'special' food-producing process openly embrace 'depopulation' of the planet. When you make that connection, you may prefer to avoid anything they concoct, especially when they say it's good/better for you. Their 'standards' and purpose aren't the same as the tried&true, tested by generations, concerned with Humanity thriving, historical standards. Awaken to the real purpose of Agenda 21/2030.
@@PatrickKQ4HBD I dream that one day we'd be able to synthesize everything we nees (maybe we get better at extracting energy, Dyson sphere perhaps?). But I agree, maybe they haven't considered these possible issues.
@@nunyabiznes33 you actually trust food factories to do this, when they've been killing us with junk food since the 70s? Do you eat fast food for breakfast, lunch and dinner?
Grains are not the problem, government is! No reason why grains can’t be grown and fed to animals. Growing grains is nearly akin to human survival and habitation of earth.
Where I live the government is a problem for back yard chickens, the by-laws are so ridiculous (only have Bantams is just one rule) The government is the reason we have so many problems with the food supply. They are like an invasive species, over taking and infesting every aspect of our lives.
I don't know if they're "meal warms", but I set up a double bucket compost system to collect the leachates of dead leaves mixed with kitchen waste, and it was teaming with white grub worms. A roaming chicken found out about it and wanted to hang around. Fruit scraps, veggie scraps, occasional bone or egg shells, occasional feeding of green grass and dried dead leaves, and occasional watering. They were so thick I could hear them moving around, and watch them flee as I pulled back the black plastic cover.
I would never be so arrogant to say I disagree with Joel Salatin, but I think he is off the mark on one thing. He is talking about 'size of flock'.. but that is really misleading. What he should be talking about is ' overall profit '. Feed cost can be 60-70% of your operating expenses. So if you raise your own feed, in order to gain the same overall profit, you would need less than half as many chickens. If Joel makes $3 profit per bird and he wants to make $1000, he needs 333 chickens. If I make $10 in profit per bird because I grow my own food, then I only need to have 100 chickens.... this compounds itself also.. because I only have 100 chickens, I only have to clean 100 chickens and I only have to refrigerate 100 chickens, and I only have to market and sell 100 chickens. I took this approach for this very reason, marketing and delivery/transactions is a huge timesink and hidden expense. If you can make the same overall profit and limit your refrigeration, marketing and # of transactions, that is a good trade-off, and really it is a trade-off, because what I am trading is my time to grow food specifically for the chickens. (duckweed, BSFL, Buckwheat Fodder, and Fodder beats) instead of the marketing/transactions/cleaning/refrigeration.
I think he's talking about scale though. Throwing some mealworms or sending hens onto a compost pile or finding some roadkill is feasible to keep 20-50 chickens going if there's no grain. Harder to find roadkill for 2000 hens regularly.
@@SuperMrgentleman yeah, that is a strawman arguement.. nobody doing it on a production scale uses roadkill. You can easily scale bsfl production to feed a large flock using consistent sources. A micro brewery, a starbucks, spent mushroom blocks...and you ignored fodder beets, buckwheat fodder and duckweed ( grown in duckwater or tilapia water). And as i pointed out with math, you can make the same overall profit without scaling nearly as large as someone transporting in all their feed and wiping out their profit margins.
Even on a small scale, farming your own feed isn't easy, and isn't cheap. You might plant wheat, corn, peas, or whatever. How will you harvest, process and store it? None of that is easy or free without the right equipment, storage and processing equipment. Then you have the issues of acquiring enough seed. Most seed now, can't be replanted from last year's harvest. Either because of genetics or because of contract. This possible issue is WAY more complex that you think it is. It's way more of an issue than "I'll just plant a few things in my back yard and keep my birds fed". Frankly, I think everyone should be thinking of ways to be self sufficient, and not think like Joe. IF grains were that hard to get, his eggs would be so expensive, people would not be BUYING eggs at the HUGE price they would command in that situation. Everyone should be looking for smaller scale, self sustaining flocks. So that means looking now, for a decent ration of feed you can grow and process yourself. That means getting the equipment you need to make that happen, and do it now. Become self sustaining NOW, not when you can't get stuff. Not when it's too late to act.
There is a guy that has a successful chicken operation and a successful compost operation , but I cannot remember his name... he made some TH-cam videos around 2012 so ya may be able to find him... dude had like 300 layers and fed them nothing ....they scratched through the mountains of compost piles he had ... pretty good p/l plan and scale time/ reward plan contingency.....
When grain becomes too expensive or unavailable, in addition to "alternative" feeds, there's the solution of eating less chicken. Historically, people didn't eat chicken twice a week all year long.
Meat birds or layers, it doesn't matter. Historically, Dante is absolutely right. But the question here is one of innovation: how can we change things to get to the point that eating chicken twice a week(or feeding your layers through the winter) is feasibly sustainable?
@@bradsimpson8724 Depends whether you're talking about sustainable for a household or sustainable at scale. I'm in the Great Plains and we find that we can free range 70 birds on an acre with rotational access in the growing season, but would have to cull our flock down to 5-10 so that they could survive the winter just eating our kitchen garbage.
Worms can be grown on cardboard and soil, fed with a small amount of hot material. Hot material can be preserved in water with fermentation. The fermented material can be fed directly ( after aeration ) and the liquid can be used as an addendum for other plants. A greenhouse heated with wood using a rocket mass heater can be used to grow fodder and promote worm growth. You just need a good supply of seed. That seed can be harvested in the fall from hardy plants like sunflowers, buckwheat and etc. It's possible. We have the tech and knowledge to do it now, but it would take planning and care.
Just breathe. A fellow uploaded a video of him giving his big flock some boiled pinto beans and macaroni. The chickens loved it. Today I saw a lady watching over her free-rangers. She said she had seen one carrying a mouse in its mouth. Now you ‘re talking.
I heard from an English lady in the UKchicken register the register all your chickenregister you know I guess what you feed them. Remember they want people to register their garden don't do that. show up for the harvest and you don't get thing. It will be the first step of eliminating homesteads and the rest of the stubborn farmers.if I just keep your prayer believe that your prayer that God hears it and that he's working it out for his children. And if you ain't got your child tell him talk to him. Read the word of God. And be under his wing of protection.
I tried that for a year or two. Mealworms and red wrigglers. I only have a dozen hens and it was impossible to keep up enough volume to give them any more than a treat here and there.
More for the backyard than the homestead, I guess, but FWIW... Sometimes, when he was going fishing, my FIL would get hold of a large fish head from the local fish market. He would leave it out for the blowflies, wrap it tightly in newspaper, and bury it deep till the "gents" hatched. I can't see why that wouldn't work for chicken treats. Oh yeah, the Trouble and Strife just gave me a pointed stare and growled "He didn't do that in the backyard!" 😁 😇
Those are empty calories though. Where the rabbit or rodent or pork has proteins, amino acids, vitamins, minerals, carbon. It gives the body energy- calories. Empty calories are quickly digested and do nothing for the body. Our or the chickens. It’s good to give them occasionally I prefer beans and rice as a carb boost in winter. That’s the only time they may get rice unless we cook too much of it one night. The pigs get everything. Their pigs. Yo I want them fat but also lean. As close to 50/50 as possible. Chickens should have a good thin layer of fat.
Wonder why he didn't mention acorns, hickories, beeches, or chestnuts as alternatives to grains as these can produce way more carbs per acre than most grains with much less inputs.
Maybe focus on herbivores that don’t require grain in any way. Ruminants and Cecal digesters….. cattle, horses, bison, camels, goats, sheep etc etc etc
Maggots or, fly larvae, are very different from meal worms/beetle larvae. Meal worms & super worms don't need dead carcasses, they can live fine in bin of oatmeal with kitchen scraps, decaying leaves. Hell you can even keep roaches in a bin with a bunch of decaying leaves & kitchen scraps. Look into Pantanal "headlamp" Roaches, the unmature live under dirt and the adults live in the leaf litter on top of the dirt.
Use invasive species like that Asian Carp and kudzu vines. Dry and store it for winter. The carp, even dried, might produce a few maggots too, even in winter, if you wet or soaked it before throwing it to the chickens.
I’ve heard you can dry duckweed and the protein content is amazing-would also provide fodder in winter. Can’t wait to try duckweed for my hens this summer!
Shoot the rats and feed your mealworms dead meat? If you don't want to shoot the rats, get a terrier, he'll have a lot of fun taking care of them for you.
Another insect to culture for chickens is feeder roaches. Many wood roaches are native to a wide range of places. They feed off of kitchen scraps, garden waste, and dried leaves, produce fairly quickly, and are often high demand for reptile keepers (another source of pocket cash if need be). They are less noisy, far less smelly, and easier than crickets. Don't use pest species like the German cockroach. Wood roaches won't infest the house if mistake happens
If we ate more whole grains we wouldn't have to eat chickens. Read "Diet for a Small Planet," published 1971, My chickens are part of my agriculture on a wildlife sanctuary where staying in balance is primary. They run free most of the time taking care of insects.
I’m curious about the nutrition provided by mealworms that have been conditioned to eat plastics and other refuse. The bacteria in their guts enable them to do so once they’ve adapted. Would the toxins be gone and the mealworms viable?
The grain in this world cannot run out. The Lord said, go forth and be fruitful and multiply therefore, it was the Lord’s plan for us to have many children and large populations. The Lord’s word and creation is perfect. Only people can screw it up.
I've heard about you but never really listened to you before. Yes indeed, nothing is free. Man, especially Americans, desperately wants to belive in free stuff but it is just delusion. I admire how nice you are while kicking them in the pants.
@@jacalli I have a rat problem in the storage area next to my coop. Have never considered feeding dead rats to my chickens, concerned about the diseases they carry. I use the BARLAS tunneled traps I bought from Amazon. They work great. As with any new trap or bait, the rats will be wary of something new. Their fear will eventually wear off and BAM! you'll be catching rats. I have caught at least one every day in the past 3 days. Peanut butter is my go to bait. The trap crushes their body cavities.
RATS? Live traps can catch a dozen or more daily and THERE is your mealworm food, and if you cook them up in a big pot in the back yard, the chickens will eat those too!!!
Yes. They eat bugs. When we have a squash that gets a leaf with some stinkbugs on it, we feed that leaf to the quail and they just pick each of those guys off and eat it. They'll eat from eggs up, but not the final adult stage.
The obvious problem here is that your chickens weren't eating the rats. One must have rat-eating chickens for that to be an effective, alternative source of protein.
I have my meal worm farm. I feed them organic carrots that I do not peel. Bell peppers that I slice up, apples sliced up, (I have an apple tree), butternut squash, which I grow too and store all winter long. Half a potato or sweet potato the mealworms eat it. Their bedding is organic rolled oats and wheat bran. Then my carrots start growing after the butternut squash runs out. I also hardboil the chicken eggs at least once a week and smash them to bits, and give it to the chickens including their shells. My mealworms have multiplied to the point that I can give my chickens mealworms daily as treats, and they love it. I am not worried about not having grains. During the growing season, I grow amaranth, quinoa, millet, black oil sunflowers, peas, beans, and dent corn for the hens. Each amaranth averages about 1 pound of grain. I also give them the leaves from the amaranth. I average about 300 pounds of amaranth alone. It seeds itself as well. Plus the sunflower seeds, quinoa, millet, flax and dent corn....I have plenty of food for the winter months for them. I freeze dry & dehydrate alot of my produce, herbs and flowers....kale, spinach, collards, swish chard, calendula pedals, marigold petals, Zinnia pedals, wild red and pink roses, hibiscus/Rose of sharon, oregano, parsley, basil, mint and more....all gets added into their feed too. I also grow sprouts for them during the winter, barley, rye, wheat, lentils, Flax, clover, amaranth, arugula, broccoli, sunflower, pea, mung bean....they love those sprouts as well. Usually have 12 mason jars on my counter daily in different stages of sprouting. You can grow fodder as well from these sprouts.
What area do you farm on?
This is awesome and a goal I want to reach! Last year was our first year growing amaranth. We have grown corn in the past but critters ate the cobs before we got a harvest. Even sunflowers the birds and chipmunks get them. This year I will set a good patch of land and grow three sisters style and fence it off with electric fence just during the ripening stage.
@@healthyfitmom I put the material tulle over my sunflower heads and tie them around the bottom of the head on the stem, birds and squirrels can't get to them but they still get sun. They look funny, but saves them. I leave a few exposed so the birds and the squirrels have something.
@@healthyfitmom you can put the tulle over the cobs as well. I usually by a bolt or two of tulle from Joanns, in their online store when it's on sale and have it delivered. I also put tulle over my tomatoes that I want to save for next year's seeds. And I use the tulle as hammocks for my tiger melons because I grow them on a hog panel as an arbor and they climb. Don't want the melons to break away off the vine. Any of my melons that I grow that way, or squash (acorn squash, butternut). I learned the hardway...you have to support them or they will break off. I didn't want to them growing all on the ground taking up ground space so I went verticle. The tulle also works great over blueberry bushes and raspberry bushes so the birds don't pick them bare. The bird netting, I will never use. Hear too many stories of birds getting entangled in that and die. At least with the tulle, they can't get entangled in it. You can so use the bolts of tulle to cover cauliflower rows or cabbage rows or broccoli rows or lettuce rows, arugula. Cheaper than the row covers that are sold in farm stores online. Get hula hoops from the dollar store, cut them in half and stick them in the geound to support the tulle fabric. Or you can use pvc tubes, but that will cost more. Let's in the sun and rain, and limits squash bugs or worms that would eat your ground veggies. Love the tulle. And it's reusable year after year. If you get too much sun and your tomatoes are scorching, tulle can be used as a shade cloth too. Just need poles and grommets for the tulle and caribeeners to hook them to the poles and make the shade for them. Have you seen how much those shade things sell for online? Insane amount. I try to always reuse everything I can. And find a cheaper solution.
@@TheRainHarvester east coast.
We have a feed garden, a kitchen garden, a bee garden, and a tea garden. Some of them overlap. We have beans, peas, squash, and field corn growing for the animals.
Plant comfrey from root propagated comfrey. Feed the rabbits. Make comfrey hay.
The grains or seed you buy, can be sprouted or even planted to grow more feed, and fermenting and feed, triples them in volume thus reducing food costs by 2/3...!!! I leave out a tray of wet grain and the flies lay eggs in it and in 3-5 days I just give it all to my birds...high protein feed...
Hello Heba where are you from?
Growing Comfrey to dry for chickens in winter and give them a compost pile to scratch on in summer for small flocks.
This is supplemental right now
We just found out our local organic feed mill got sold and they will no longer sell feed. Time to find an alternative.
Joel Saladin in a suit, holding a chicken is everything 🙌
I will sing the duck song all day long. They don’t wreck my garden like the chickens, so I can let them free range, so they’re able to forage for much more of their diet. I feed them very little compared to the chickens. The only downside to ducks IMO is they are better at hiding their eggs
And they’re terrible gossips and joke about you behind your back! 😆
Do'n't ducks require water for paddling/swimming though? I've had ducks and had to constantly clean the pool of water as they do like to bring mud into their baths 🙂
@@dsawake58 i use a kiddie pool, the smallest size so it’s easy to pick it up to empty it every day. Place it uphill from your favorite tree and watch the tree g r o w
They are also gourmet treat if choice for every predator
Agreed. Have several breeds and could not agree more.
I saw a guy here on TH-cam cooking up a pot of pinto beans, adding a bag of macaroni of any type to that, and feeding that to his chicken instead of grains!
And his chickens started laying again!
I saw that too, heck it was fit for human consumption too 😊 Personally I would just make sure the pasta label was at least verified nongmo.
I have done that with organic brown rice, lentils and navy beans. I no longer trust commercially packaged chicken feed after I read all the experiences people had with chicken feed this year.
Beans and macaroni are still grains.
Lead Farmer 73?
Growing some sweetpotatoes and white potatoes to cook for your chickens would be an easy way to get carbs in the winter for your birds. And if you raise your own BSF, mealworms and redwigglers it should be fairly easy to keep them fed. Our winters aren't really cold so hoop houses over my garden beds will keep them in greens. If not I can sprout grains or seeds inside my house to feed them
Growing extra winter squash/pumpkins is even easier. I just bake an extra one for them, when I do one for us.
I sprout for the winter as well for my chickens, plus my family loves sprouts in their salads & soups. Lots of nutrition in sprouts. I usually have 12 jars in different stages on my counter. 2 jars a day for my hens.
Folks, do remember that, because chickens are monogastric, white potatoes must be cooked first. I don't know about sweet potatoes.
@@sheilal3172 I cook my sweetpotatoes for my chickens due to how hard they are but I don't think it will make them sick. And my girls love cooked sweetpotatoes.
During winter my chickens love bacon grease with some bird seed thrown in it.
Yes... On the home scale, with our .37 acre back yard and garden, we haven't spent anything on chicken feed since they were chicks. All suet goes in the freezer for the winter, we don't throw out any of the imperfect squash or wormy apples... they just get cool storage to get thrown to the chickens throughout the winter. I also leave the last of the summer growth (not mature but blade grass) at full length, on the back half of the yard, until I need it, and then cut it as I need it to supplement the other stuff I have for them in the winter. I experience the usual "half in the winter" but no worse than the seasonal change if I were feeding grain. I acknowledge that not everyone has a 50 year old apple tree that gives our family 5 times more apples than we can press and use, .37 acres of grass over sandy loam, and an old 1962 deep freeze that just keeps on going and can hold all of our suit and such. I also am spending "depression era" time into supporting the chickens just to support the principle of not buying grain. If you count my time, most would say it is not worth it. I just LOVE throwing stuff in for the girls all through the summer as I am pruning, weeding, and harvesting (sorting) vegetables. Through all seasons, watching them turn it all into mulch and fertilizer while giving us those wonderful bright orange yokes... sorry for the nauseating monologue but it is just so much fun.
I barely want to share my bacon geese with my kids! You have lucky chickens! haha
@@Tugedhel I like your style.
On just a 'feed my family' scale, I'm already planning on scaling back the number of chickens we have to just two or three layers per person. We can feed that number of hens from kitchen and garden scraps, offal from butchering, and growing a few things just for the chickens.
But primarily we'll be raising animals that don't need any feed other than grass -- hair sheep, and a few geese. We have a pond, and if the guys can get the snapping turtle(s) out of it, I'll add a few Muscovy ducks, too. Animals like pigs and chickens that need a lot of grain may still have a place here, but only in small numbers.
Pigs don't need grains. Poor people used to often have a pig, which was fed table scraps and growing plants. They do a great job of tilling the soil too -- far superior to machinery.
@@judylloyd7901 This is true, to a degree. However, I know that I couldn't feed a pig on just the scraps from my kitchen and garden -- the poor thing would starve to death! Even poor people used to have a family milk cow, and at the time of year when they were raising a pig, they usually also had skim milk from making butter, and whey from making cheese, to supplement the pig food. They also generally had much larger gardens than most people do now, because they had, of necessity, to grow almost everything they ate. They may have had a surplus of eggs in the spring and summer. And often their pigs were turned out in the woods to forage part of their own feed. Most of us can't do that.
Most people raising a family pig now are purchasing most of the feed for it, and most of that feed is grains and soybeans. Someone who has enough land can grow those, but it does take quite a bit of land (and some equipment). People who live on a small property are going to have a hard time finding enough to feed a pig without buying at least part of it's diet. It's very important to both know how much feed an animal will need, and what kind of feed they need, as well as to be able to accurately estimate how much of their diet you can realistically produce from your own property.
@@kathleensanderson3082 I agree. I used to raise pigs when you could sell one for enough to pay for their feed. I'm having a hard enough time keep my small herd of goats fed this year. If I weren't feeding grain they'd be starving during the winter. Very little browse is left for them, and I can feed them for 4 weeks on grain compared to just 6 bales of hay. Grain costs me $14 a week; hay costs me $30. it's very important to me that they can get out and graze or browse.
I know the Idaho pasture pigs are a big heal right now, but they have certain mineral requirements that MUST be met, or they go to rooting to find enough. Minerals that you have to buy ! Pigs are omnivores; they don't have a rumin to help digest only grasses. They can eat many things and survive, but every chance they get, they'll eat grain, even in the wild. Grains, seeds, nuts, roots, eggs, and carrion.
Breed matters-I bought an AGH/kune cross piglet last summer. Between my husband and me, our two young children, and my parents, that pig has grown steadily eating mostly leftovers. Every now and then when the fridge is empty he gets some of the cattle ration but he certainly prefers what my kids leave him ;)
His rate of growth is slower, but the daily requirement for the pig to be happy is smaller. I never would have been able to raise a pig on just leftovers when I was keeping full-size meat breeds (even the heritage ones like red wattle).
@@lagoya exactly. I have mangalitsas, and they are very easy keepers, even if they do grow slower. But I also have jersey cows and chickens, so hay along with extra milk and eggs come easy for me. Even the chickens can do fairly well on the alfalfa leaf that fall from the hay and clabbered milk, and whatever meat scraps I may have (by which I mean meats scraps/meat bones from butchering or maggots from maggot buckets etc…). I also raise rabbits, so that is another protein source for the chickens. It is fairly easy to feed rabbits from things you grow (and preserve) on a small scale.
So, for me, it all boils down to this:
As long as I have grass/hay for my cows, I can support the chickens and pigs.
I have a breeding trio of rabbits and 10 laying hens. BSFL can eat the offal from butchering the rabbits, the hens eat the organs. This year I will be growing several beds of feed for them. I can't provide all of their feed, but every bit helps.
In the early 1900s a man named John Hershey collected and bred tree crops in Philadelphia area as a alternative form of agriculture. For feeding chickens he recommended serviceberry, mulberry, persimmon, pawpaw, mountain ash, haws and hawthorn, and cracked nuts for winter feeding.
I just planted 3 paw paws, 3 persimmons, 4 chestnuts and we have 2 big apple trees that produce a lot of apples (at least 100lbs each). Persimmons are sweeter in December and January. Never had paw Paw, but I have read that they are delicious, so we are giving it a try. We love roasted chestnuts.
feed your surplus to the chickens!
@@dictionaryzzz I do. They love apples. My hens get a lot of our garden produce and fruit. I have a bunch of rose of sharon bushes/trees....they get a lot of the flowers and leaves, they love it. They are not denied.
Had 2 pecan trees and my layers loved the pecans. Kept up to 20 layers with minimal feed cost on 1/6 acre back yard using large compost pile, garden scraps, and rotating them on the grass.
Sounds like great mealworm feed🧟
I grow sunflowers. Cut the heads and feed them to the chickens.
I've done this too. They're very high in Omega 6 fatty acids though, so, be aware... .
My hens don't like the size of the seeds. Do your chickens have a problem with how big they are?
I kept waiting for him to tell us his solution, and the video ended.
Mold is a HUGE problem in grains!! That's probably the biggest problem with grains next to glyphosates. Maybe chicken bodies can deal with it but many of us humans cannot.
Good video, I have about 20-25 chickens (layer hens and after 4yrs freezer) I DO NOT feed my hens and I never have a problems with eggs or meat. What they eat all our table scraps and what they forage in their yard, (it's better than 1/4-1/3 acers. We also have our compost pile in the center of their yard.
very cool!
How do you not lose them to hawks ect
@@toddshort5997 I Tend to lose a few a year to racoons but that's about it.
Maybe try to keep an active compost heap going through the winter for the chickens to work through.
Worms will stay closer to the surface where the warm compost is rather than go deep to avoid the cold.
Waterers sitting on top of or very close to warm compost heap will not freeze over. Yes, chickens will
happily devour mice, but rats are better killed by dogs... cats and chickens would rather not go for rats.
We have dogs here that love to hunt for rats. They don't bother the chickens at all except to occasionally
steal eggs from the nest boxes. But the dogs will eat whole cages worth of quail if they find the opportunity.
(DAMHIK)😧
I would not do the dead animal thing for my birds due to disease potential and possible bacterial buildup. Instead, I grow microgreens in big flats in winter and, once the greens are up to some size, I set the whole flat in their pen. That’s just a supplement to their feed and the dried mealworms. This summer I plan to move their pen around and let them forage safely within their pen which, again, is only a supplement to their regular feed. I have Japanese Quail which cannot free range because of two reasons: Predators such as hawks will kill them, and quail tend to wander, unlike chickens. I chose quail (for their eggs) because they are smaller birds and can be housed in the garage with heat lamps in winter. For those who use heat lamps: Be very, very careful, because if a lamp falls or is knocked down, your entire place will burn up. Bad enough to lose one’s home, but a terrible way for an animal to die. Make sure you add wire to help keep the lamp in place and test it well. Also, clean the dust off the lamps that can accumulate, as it is a potential source of combustion.
Excellent heat lamp advice ❤
I garden. I’m planting a section just for my chickens. Comfrey is a good source of protein for them. I can grow buckets of it in my greenhouse.
My chickens won't touch comfrey - I have it growing everywhere! Go figure
But it doesn't work in the winter in the north.
@@curiouscat3384 I wonder if you put: cheap natural sea salt, seaweed, rock dust near it that it might change it's flavor and be more tasty to chickens. Foliar feeding small amount of sea salt once a week might do it for a test
@@GriffenNaif Very interesting! I use Sea90 in my vegetable beds and it does sweeten and enrich them. Never thought I'd need to supplement comfrey because it's recommended as a supplement mulch for gardens because it pulls up minerals from many feet below the surface. But I'm just preparing a new "fodder bed" for the chickens and will use it there today - and do a foliar feed today for the emerging spring comfrey. Thank you! I'll try to remember to come back here with feedback.
Good morning from the Pacific Northwest. We can and need to cross this divide of urban vs. rural. If we begin to encourage our urbanite patrons to recycle their food scraps, then we begin to have the large-scale food source that is missing for operations like meal or compost worm harvesting. If we can create jobs to support the divide between urban and rural areas, that would be even better. Can you imagine if someone who lived on the outskirts of say the Raleigh Durham region of North Carolina had a business that collected food scraps from not only local homes but also restaurants in those metropolitan regions. They then would separate those scraps (meat vs veg scrap). Now they have the ability to create a large-scale meal worm operation as well as a food source for raising compost worms and just plain old magnificent composting. An operation large enough can be a regenerarive source of materials for small to medium scale animal and vegetable farmers.
Now is the time to heal this division of us vs them. We can help those in the urban centers by growing more nutrient dense food, helping them to detox off the industry sludge that is killing them. They can help the small to medium and large scale regenerative operations by purchasing our products, voting with the power of the almighty dollar that is idealized in this world, and lastly they can learn how to start doing their part i.e separating their food scraps and compostables in order to support new composting operations.
To those who may say this will never work, I say you don't see how desperate things are getting around you. I am currently a Critical Carr nursein the Seattle/Olympia region, Army veteran of ten years, and transitioning into farming. I can personally tell you that humans are getting sicker. I can tell you all the terrible things that will happened to your body if We the people keep going in the direction it's going in. However, I will spare you those gruesome images. Thank a nurse or a cna or an lpn or a lab tech or a doctor for having those images kept away. The fact remains that currently around the country the health care system is starting to crack. While rsvFluRona is not helping the situation it is the straw on the camel's back. We all (urban and rural) need to start doing our part to regenerate our health and our neighbor's health. When we can start to care about each other's well being that's when we can really start healing our country from under the ground up.
Mr Salatin ( I know that's your father's name). You have passed on so much info to so many folks and inspired people to live their dream of farming. I personally will be forever thankful. As much as you have taught us about incorporating Mother Nature cycles into our farms operations, I believe we can also incorporate the human cycles into our regenerative operations.
Positive begets positivity. Stay blessed and fruitful.
❤
Totally agree. 1 question... why do we separate veg matter from protein scraps?
It can all be composted... unless you mean give the veg to the chickens? Thanks for clearing this for me❣
Sweden (I think? ) just issued a free chickens to city dwellers and it reduced the amount of food waste going into the landfill immensely!
@@heatherk8931 meat scraps grow larva. Vegetables for chickens.
I know that’s your fathers name?? It normally is. What’s your point?? 🤔
Just experimenting with fodder using barely & sunflower seeds. Can be done large scale 🌻 🌾
Yaaay Joel and Sina!! It's great to see your TH-cam channel. Been a fan of the Poly Face Farm since the early 2000s when I did a report on your unique farming business practice. Twenty-some years later...I'm preparing for my first backyard chicken flock. Look forward to seeing future content. Best.
My wild chickens take care of themselves, but I am domesticating a few for my new flock, im using grain now just because its easy, but my father never bought grain or has ever had a coop, he was super old school, im in the tropics so keeping chickens without grain is easier here.
We only keep a few back yard hens and they free range for most of their food. In cold weather we boil up rice, oats, lentils and vegetable peelings from our own dinner and they love it. They'll lay in winter if there is enough sun so I know they are not going hungry.
In his story about the rats moving in to the rabbit poop/worm/sprout cycle during being winter had me thinking, why not trap the rats and feed them to the chickens. That would close the loop in the winter?
Trapping rats is problematic. Nice, maybe because they are stupid.
*mice. Mice are stupid.
There's a cool trap that involves a ramp to a 5 gal. bucket, a roller and some water where the drown.
Pigs would make better use of rats. Chickens can handle mice.
And then you have tapeworms too!
There are two main types of meat alternatives. That made from vegetable oil and beans. And that grown in a lab. It would not surprise me if they blended the two. We do not know what processing they are doing to the plant matter to get it to the texture required. Remember that processing vegetable oils into margarine generates trans fats. So just because something is vegetable in origin, does not mean that weird by-products won't form in the processing.
Lab meat is taking muscle cells and growing them in an appropriate medium. What and how the growing medium is prepared is one thing. But the second thing is that this tissue culture is not being conducted with any type of cellular quality control. Even if we ignore that the meat is being grown with essentially cancerous cells, how will we exclude misfolded prion like proteins from forming? At least if an animal is carrying something bad, behavioral responses will tell us something isn't right. And where is the B12 that is synthesized by cow gut bacteria going to come from?
So this entire enterprise is being driven by people who have no respect for the complex biological processes involved and think that we can synthesize anything in a lab.
... and think that a profit-centered enterprise WILL synthesize everything needed. Not a chance.
and remember that the folks funding this 'special' food-producing process openly embrace 'depopulation' of the planet. When you make that connection, you may prefer to avoid anything they concoct, especially when they say it's good/better for you. Their 'standards' and purpose aren't the same as the tried&true, tested by generations, concerned with Humanity thriving, historical standards. Awaken to the real purpose of Agenda 21/2030.
@@PatrickKQ4HBD I dream that one day we'd be able to synthesize everything we nees (maybe we get better at extracting energy, Dyson sphere perhaps?). But I agree, maybe they haven't considered these possible issues.
The description you provide is nauseating.
@@nunyabiznes33 you actually trust food factories to do this, when they've been killing us with junk food since the 70s? Do you eat fast food for breakfast, lunch and dinner?
Grains are not the problem, government is! No reason why grains can’t be grown and fed to animals. Growing grains is nearly akin to human survival and habitation of earth.
Where I live the government is a problem for back yard chickens, the by-laws are so ridiculous (only have Bantams is just one rule) The government is the reason we have so many problems with the food supply. They are like an invasive species, over taking and infesting every aspect of our lives.
Amen!
We made a 5 gallon fly trap, amazing how many flys we can catch not to mention maggots, chickens eat like sugar coated raisins
Does the smell attract predators?
Details please! I really want to get chickens, but only once I know I can feed them without being dependent on commercial feed.
@@sarahwong5592 you can buy the small plastic ones
With black top. I basically copied that using a 5 gallon bucket working great
@@sarahwong5592 not sure if you watch Lynette Zang, she’s got a channel “beyond silver and gold” they had one for Arizona
@@TeresaV predators not impacted by this, we have traps set for them used in the process cycle goes on. SSSHOVEL
I don't know if they're "meal warms", but I set up a double bucket compost system to collect the leachates of dead leaves mixed with kitchen waste, and it was teaming with white grub worms. A roaming chicken found out about it and wanted to hang around. Fruit scraps, veggie scraps, occasional bone or egg shells, occasional feeding of green grass and dried dead leaves, and occasional watering. They were so thick I could hear them moving around, and watch them flee as I pulled back the black plastic cover.
My flock of 35 free range all day. I feed them for about 2 hours before they go too roost.
I would never be so arrogant to say I disagree with Joel Salatin, but I think he is off the mark on one thing. He is talking about 'size of flock'.. but that is really misleading. What he should be talking about is ' overall profit '. Feed cost can be 60-70% of your operating expenses. So if you raise your own feed, in order to gain the same overall profit, you would need less than half as many chickens. If Joel makes $3 profit per bird and he wants to make $1000, he needs 333 chickens. If I make $10 in profit per bird because I grow my own food, then I only need to have 100 chickens.... this compounds itself also.. because I only have 100 chickens, I only have to clean 100 chickens and I only have to refrigerate 100 chickens, and I only have to market and sell 100 chickens. I took this approach for this very reason, marketing and delivery/transactions is a huge timesink and hidden expense. If you can make the same overall profit and limit your refrigeration, marketing and # of transactions, that is a good trade-off, and really it is a trade-off, because what I am trading is my time to grow food specifically for the chickens. (duckweed, BSFL, Buckwheat Fodder, and Fodder beats) instead of the marketing/transactions/cleaning/refrigeration.
I think he's talking about scale though. Throwing some mealworms or sending hens onto a compost pile or finding some roadkill is feasible to keep 20-50 chickens going if there's no grain. Harder to find roadkill for 2000 hens regularly.
@@SuperMrgentleman yeah, that is a strawman arguement.. nobody doing it on a production scale uses roadkill. You can easily scale bsfl production to feed a large flock using consistent sources. A micro brewery, a starbucks, spent mushroom blocks...and you ignored fodder beets, buckwheat fodder and duckweed ( grown in duckwater or tilapia water). And as i pointed out with math, you can make the same overall profit without scaling nearly as large as someone transporting in all their feed and wiping out their profit margins.
Even on a small scale, farming your own feed isn't easy, and isn't cheap. You might plant wheat, corn, peas, or whatever. How will you harvest, process and store it? None of that is easy or free without the right equipment, storage and processing equipment. Then you have the issues of acquiring enough seed. Most seed now, can't be replanted from last year's harvest. Either because of genetics or because of contract.
This possible issue is WAY more complex that you think it is. It's way more of an issue than "I'll just plant a few things in my back yard and keep my birds fed". Frankly, I think everyone should be thinking of ways to be self sufficient, and not think like Joe. IF grains were that hard to get, his eggs would be so expensive, people would not be BUYING eggs at the HUGE price they would command in that situation. Everyone should be looking for smaller scale, self sustaining flocks. So that means looking now, for a decent ration of feed you can grow and process yourself. That means getting the equipment you need to make that happen, and do it now. Become self sustaining NOW, not when you can't get stuff. Not when it's too late to act.
There is a guy that has a successful chicken operation and a successful compost operation , but I cannot remember his name... he made some TH-cam videos around 2012 so ya may be able to find him... dude had like 300 layers and fed them nothing ....they scratched through the mountains of compost piles he had ... pretty good p/l plan and scale time/ reward plan contingency.....
@@frankjames2880 Karl Hamer of vermont composting.
When grain becomes too expensive or unavailable, in addition to "alternative" feeds, there's the solution of eating less chicken. Historically, people didn't eat chicken twice a week all year long.
Damn that.
we're not talking about feeding meat birds, rather layers
Meat birds or layers, it doesn't matter. Historically, Dante is absolutely right. But the question here is one of innovation: how can we change things to get to the point that eating chicken twice a week(or feeding your layers through the winter) is feasibly sustainable?
@@bradsimpson8724 Depends whether you're talking about sustainable for a household or sustainable at scale. I'm in the Great Plains and we find that we can free range 70 birds on an acre with rotational access in the growing season, but would have to cull our flock down to 5-10 so that they could survive the winter just eating our kitchen garbage.
Or run fewer chickens total, grow alfalfa/corn/turnips/beets on reserved ground for supplementing the diet. Run a couple piggies on the corn stubble.
Crickets, worms, beef, lettuce corn wasp nest. Egg shells collect and freeze locus when they come out
Worms can be grown on cardboard and soil, fed with a small amount of hot material.
Hot material can be preserved in water with fermentation. The fermented material can be fed directly ( after aeration ) and the liquid can be used as an addendum for other plants.
A greenhouse heated with wood using a rocket mass heater can be used to grow fodder and promote worm growth. You just need a good supply of seed. That seed can be harvested in the fall from hardy plants like sunflowers, buckwheat and etc.
It's possible. We have the tech and knowledge to do it now, but it would take planning and care.
The feed is not just the problem growing herbs along with it as organic chickens need ,tumeric,basil,etc.neem
Black Soldier Flys is the perfect protein and fat for feeding many kinds of animals including poultry.
They need food. What will you feed them?
@@veniqerkitchen scraps
We grow our own oats 35lbs for us the rest for eggs & meat.
Just breathe. A fellow uploaded a video of him giving his big flock some boiled pinto beans and macaroni. The chickens loved it. Today I saw a lady watching over her
free-rangers. She said
she had seen one
carrying a mouse in
its mouth. Now you ‘re talking.
I heard from an English lady in the UKchicken register the register all your chickenregister you know I guess what you feed them. Remember they want people to register their garden don't do that. show up for the harvest and you don't get thing.
It will be the first step of eliminating homesteads and the rest of the stubborn farmers.if I just keep your prayer believe that your prayer that God hears it and that he's working it out for his children. And if you ain't got your child tell him talk to him. Read the word of God. And be under his wing of protection.
Thank you for your wisdom! May God continue to bless you and your family!🕊🙏🏻
You can freeze mealworms, actually. They hit them just as hard as live! That way you can raise the little suckers seasonally if you must.
Man, when grain runs out, do you think elecricity would be around?
@@samuelsamu8340 can also fry and dry the little suckers.
I tried that for a year or two. Mealworms and red wrigglers. I only have a dozen hens and it was impossible to keep up enough volume to give them any more than a treat here and there.
We grow corn, kale and zucchini just for the chickens.. Them feel the greens to black soldier flies and feed the larva to the chickens.
More for the backyard than the homestead, I guess, but FWIW...
Sometimes, when he was going fishing, my FIL would get hold of a large fish head from the local fish market. He would leave it out for the blowflies, wrap it tightly in newspaper, and bury it deep till the "gents" hatched. I can't see why that wouldn't work for chicken treats. Oh yeah, the Trouble and Strife just gave me a pointed stare and growled "He didn't do that in the backyard!" 😁 😇
In the summer we throw fish carcasses in the chicken pen. Flip them over every day and the chickens eat the maggots.
I throw my rabbit guts too the chickens and within a day there was nothing left
Interesting
That's very interesting. Why did you name your rabbit "guts" and why would you throw him to the chickens??? 🤣
@@MikeBius lol. If he dies without me culling him or her that's exactly where he or she will go. Lol
My question is where do the rats come from?
Out in the middle of nowhere a field I put a silage bag. And then a few rats showed up. Baffles me!!
That is the best thumbnail I've ever seen. Lol
Cook up some beans and pasta. Fills them up and they lay lots of eggs
Those are empty calories though. Where the rabbit or rodent or pork has proteins, amino acids, vitamins, minerals, carbon. It gives the body energy- calories. Empty calories are quickly digested and do nothing for the body. Our or the chickens. It’s good to give them occasionally I prefer beans and rice as a carb boost in winter. That’s the only time they may get rice unless we cook too much of it one night. The pigs get everything. Their pigs. Yo I want them fat but also lean. As close to 50/50 as possible. Chickens should have a good thin layer of fat.
How about sunflowers.
Wonder why he didn't mention acorns, hickories, beeches, or chestnuts as alternatives to grains as these can produce way more carbs per acre than most grains with much less inputs.
Black solider fly larvae is the best option if anyone is wondering. Mealworms and red wiggles don't even come close to efficiency.
Besides not in a cold region. Extra energy input.
Black soldier fly larvae need food.
beans = protein and carbs = win/cheap
Idk if this helps, but we cut down rows of unruly Johnson grass to use for straw, and the chickens ate the seeds. They seem like they've been fine.
Maybe focus on herbivores that don’t require grain in any way. Ruminants and Cecal digesters….. cattle, horses, bison, camels, goats, sheep etc etc etc
Thank You
What about beans ? So easy to grow & full of protein
Might be a good idea to soak/ferment them first
I think I've heard of people using sorghum.
Maggots or, fly larvae, are very different from meal worms/beetle larvae. Meal worms & super worms don't need dead carcasses, they can live fine in bin of oatmeal with kitchen scraps, decaying leaves.
Hell you can even keep roaches in a bin with a bunch of decaying leaves & kitchen scraps. Look into Pantanal "headlamp" Roaches, the unmature live under dirt and the adults live in the leaf litter on top of the dirt.
The word 'roach' causes some serious anxiety. I think I'll pass on this and stick to worms. But, all the power to you!
Use invasive species like that Asian Carp and kudzu vines. Dry and store it for winter. The carp, even dried, might produce a few maggots too, even in winter, if you wet or soaked it before throwing it to the chickens.
im feeding flathead minnows and duckweed grown in wading pools I have a small flock 20 birds or less. Duckweeds is about half starch and half protein
I’ve heard you can dry duckweed and the protein content is amazing-would also provide fodder in winter. Can’t wait to try duckweed for my hens this summer!
Geoff Lawton has the answer and it is called the chicken tractor on steroids
thats a fantastic thumbnail.
damn Joel gets it
Oh my gooodness Joel and the chicken 😂❤️😏
Shoot the rats and feed your mealworms dead meat? If you don't want to shoot the rats, get a terrier, he'll have a lot of fun taking care of them for you.
great he brought up meat. that is the way to do it.
Three words......Invasive Asian Carp.
🙌YES 🙌 YES 🙌YES
I can't find a good price for it. can you?
Great ideas!❤
ThankQ
Another insect to culture for chickens is feeder roaches. Many wood roaches are native to a wide range of places. They feed off of kitchen scraps, garden waste, and dried leaves, produce fairly quickly, and are often high demand for reptile keepers (another source of pocket cash if need be). They are less noisy, far less smelly, and easier than crickets. Don't use pest species like the German cockroach. Wood roaches won't infest the house if mistake happens
Well if the grain runs out. I see sum corn fields that still haven't been harvested & it's fricking April man.
Where the hell is the farmer???
If we ate more whole grains we wouldn't have to eat chickens. Read "Diet for a Small Planet," published 1971, My chickens are part of my agriculture on a wildlife sanctuary where staying in balance is primary. They run free most of the time taking care of insects.
I’m curious about the nutrition provided by mealworms that have been conditioned to eat plastics and other refuse. The bacteria in their guts enable them to do so once they’ve adapted. Would the toxins be gone and the mealworms viable?
Since rats are always breeding, or mice, or squirrels... have a pair or 2 and toss the every 21 days babies in...
That’s a good idea!! 🤓
If we are in real hard times I intend to trap the pesky invasive raccoons and feed them to the chickens.
Chickens eat grass and weeds almost like a goat
Yes but they need proteins
Giving mealworms meat scraps is :(. Carrot, pototoe and grain. Rolled oat for the mealworm and meal bug
The grain in this world cannot run out. The Lord said, go forth and be fruitful and multiply therefore, it was the Lord’s plan for us to have many children and large populations. The Lord’s word and creation is perfect. Only people can screw it up.
We may not run out of grain; but, we can run out of money to purchase it.
mealworms can live off of styrofoam, and they convert it to 100% organic material
Just grow your own grains... oats, wheat, corn, soybeans... it ain’t difficult.
I've heard about you but never really listened to you before. Yes indeed, nothing is free. Man, especially Americans, desperately wants to belive in free stuff but it is just delusion. I admire how nice you are while kicking them in the pants.
Does anyone feed rats to chickens? I trap them cut them up and feed to chickens
How do you trap them?
@@jacalli I have a rat problem in the storage area next to my coop. Have never considered feeding dead rats to my chickens, concerned about the diseases they carry. I use the BARLAS tunneled traps I bought from Amazon. They work great. As with any new trap or bait, the rats will be wary of something new. Their fear will eventually wear off and BAM! you'll be catching rats. I have caught at least one every day in the past 3 days. Peanut butter is my go to bait. The trap crushes their body cavities.
Stock up on pasta and beans ,good for chickens
Hello Dawn where are you from?
If you can grow cucumbers, watermelon s chickens and ducks love it
@@dawnpickard1052 Nice place I live in Oklahoma city but I'm currently working here in Syria,
Are you originally from Tennessee?
RATS? Live traps can catch a dozen or more daily and THERE is your mealworm food, and if you cook them up in a big pot in the back yard, the chickens will eat those too!!!
There will always be Monsanto's cash crop, i.e.. Corn.
I am convinced that my quail were carnivores, not vegans. I would remove the water bottle and hundreds of maggots would be there, ALL GONE.
Yes. They eat bugs. When we have a squash that gets a leaf with some stinkbugs on it, we feed that leaf to the quail and they just pick each of those guys off and eat it. They'll eat from eggs up, but not the final adult stage.
Quail need the animal protein. I had to buy high grade cat food to supplement their total diet if I didn't have anything else for them.
Let the cattle,chickens go free range problem solved.
I need pics bc I can't imagine. I understand but I don't get it
The obvious problem here is that your chickens weren't eating the rats. One must have rat-eating chickens for that to be an effective, alternative source of protein.
Azolla!
i use black fly larva, they eat anything that was alive before and if their feed runs out then we are doomed.
You'd better off feeding roadkill to the chickens.
That seemed like the most unorganized thing I have ever heard Joel say. Hard to follow.
Usually I like most of his stuff.
40 percent of corn in Iowa goes to feed..the rest goes to gasoline
Hemp seed
What do mean, what if? It's going to run out for sure. Agends 2030
Exactly!
Na the GMO& Roundup grain will forever be! it feeds the animals and the animals feeds people.
Well, I guess.... in wintertime, the rats need to become feed for mealworms and fly maggots......
Little Velociraptors!