Sorry... I didn't mean to be cold hearted. So I guess chicken soup for the ailing one is out of the question? Oops... I did it again didn't I? Sorry, in advance.
I would have never thought of throwing deer carcass parts into the pen until Christine mentioned it. That was the best chicken advice I got in the last year. We also give them grated cheese, cottage cheese, pasta (spaghetti mostly), tons of grub worms my wife gets out of the garden. They eat the dead frogs we throw in there and any snakes they can catch.
Wow, that is educational! Thanks; Bruce and Christine; I would have never known that. I did know chickens, turkeys, guineas and quail eat lots of bugs but I never thought they would eat a deer carcass or a snake.
When I was in high school I worked on Dairy farms,, but my 2 buddies worked just across the street from my street on a chicken farm. They had several thousand chickens every year. When they were gathering eggs the chickens would sometimes peck at them. A really unruly hen usually got her neck wrung and she was thrown in the corner. The hens would have all evidence of the crime gone in no time. They attacked and ate anything that was dead or dying.
I feed my chickens little toads, meal worms ( I raise them), grasshoppers, beetles, snakes ... whatever I find ... no veggie birds here .. I will throw meat scraps their way from now on tho .... good thought
You continue to insult me beyond belief! Chicken Soup?!?!?!? What is the matter with you!!! He is young!!! FRIED CHICKEN if he must go :D
Okay, I've had my fun... I did stop at a "Cock Of The Walk" restaurant in Pensacola this past weekend and they have a pretty cool chicken pen set up there that I thought I would be able to dupe pretty easily when I make my turkey pen. If I put a top mesh on it, how high do you guys think it should be? I am thinking anything taller than me (6'2") should be good... maybe 7 feet or so? Thoughts?
We raised 100 chicken each year back on the farm. Mostly for meat but saved some for egg laying. We wanted only the best meat and as such fed them grain based diets and blends to maximize growth, health and meat quality. (which is a product of their diet) At no time do we consider feeding them little toads, meal worms, snakes, grated cheese, cottage cheese, pasta, grub worms, deer carcasses or dead frogs. If we could not afford to provide them with proper food or were faced with feeding them garbage, I doubt we would have taken to raising chickens.
Simple question, if you had a few 5-10 chickens how many times a week would you have to feed them to keep them alive? Eggs and eating aren't important, eating ticks at the cabins yard is as well as just to have them
You could fill a large feeder and as long as it was protected from rain it would probably last some time. Depends on how much free range food they could find. More importantly they would need a source of water. But, if there is no secure place for them to sleep at night or if predators were about during the day then they probably would not last very long.
Depends on the size of your feeder, T .... I have a 7 pound feeder and for 23 birds I get 3 days ish before I have to refill it. My birds don't free range either. For 10 hens that free range, I am betting you would get a week before you had to refill .... water would be twice a week to keep it fresh .... ACVinegar will help the water from getting funky They would hammer the tics .
RC ....what the hell are you talking about?! What do you think free range birds eat??? This post makes me think you have zero experience with chickens as it is filled with ignorance ... :what:
We only raised penned chickens due to high numbers of predators. We did not let our birds roam free. We started the chickens in our entry way of our farm house with heat lamps in the spring. We fed them what was then called “Chick Startina” Its was a Purina Mills product. When they were big enough to go to the coop, we fed them a high protein blend such as that in the link I provided (although back then I assume there might have been more by-product protein in those blends). We had, meaty and good tasting chicken meat and healthy birds following this simple plan. We did not let them eat reptiles and garbage and carrion because at times we would have even sold some of the birds to neighbors but regardless, these were birds my parents were feeding us so carrion, garbage and reptiles would not have been a consideration in their diets . When you have raised one 1/10th of the chickens I have raised over many decades you will understand. I was raising, feeding, watering and butchering chickens back in the 70’s. I don’t know if you were even born by that time. http://poultry.purinamills.com/OURPRODUCTS/Products/StartGrow/default.aspx
So if the predators were not an issue, you would have let them free range ....and what do you think they would eat??? Do you eat pork? If you do, then you REALLY need to study on what,they eat and how fast it goes on their flesh .... chickens eat snakes, toads, carrion, frogs, grubs, etc ... they process it much better than a pig which will eat anything Your thoughts on chickens, no matter how many your momma and daddy raised are full of holes ...
No, they were to prized to let things simply go to chance. Yes, my father was a pig farmer first and foremost prior to getting into ag but we raised pigs, beef, chickens, pheasant, rabbits, etc. Ours was a working farm, not a hobby. Yes I know and we didn’t feed them garbage either although (and there is a good story in this) Pigs like to eat chickens and its really quite a sight to behold watching them eat a live chicken. But I digress. Wild, neglected chickens do. We were farmers not prone to getting by on the cheap by hoping our livestock could fend for itself. Actually, animal husbandry as it relates to chickens and the info I provided is quite sound and I dare say, the norm.
So chickens eat pigs, pigs eat chickens, people eat both pigs and chickens. And it all taste the same... like chicken. The more things change... the more they stay the same. Hmmm
