Farming and homeschooling

I should amend my post above that the pyrethrin doesn’t go on the chickens-only sprayed in the coop about 2x a year.

Oh, do be prepared that you may have to put one down (not butcher for the family) here and there due to disease.

Secondly, I forgot to mention that I keep the neck as well (for stock along with the feet and carcass) and give our dogs all the other edible organs and neck skin.

Other benefits to the family and the land:

pure enjoyment! You should hear us talking and yelling to them from our window and deck. You can’t help but talk to them everytime you go outside.

The coop litter goes onto the compost and any ground I need fertilized for spring, I lay it down now.

Also, if you place the chickens in an enclosed area over-top of ground that you want tilled up for gardening later, then they are the most excellent and efficient tillers – you get the healthy eggs and fertilizer and they enjoy th edigging and eating.

Things to grow for chickens to reduce food intake:

fruit trees – they eat what falls to the ground

mulberries – the fruit is high in protein

comfrey

sunflowers all over, letting them dry out and giving them the heads

sorghum – grows like corn

certain herbs and edible plants mine love: marigold (makes awesomely orange yolks), borage, nasturnium, basil, oregano, clover, buckwheat, young dandelion

If you grow other fruits, they will love the treats you give them from ones you find that are half-eaten by bugs or critters.

All of the rinds of your squash and melons (unless you make pickled watermelon rinds, which I do, so I have to manage how much I give them)

raise crickets and/or worms, esp. in the winter

grow extra greens (they don’t take up a lot of space) – mine love collards, lettuce, spinach, kale, and swiss chard; in the summer, orach; not to mention the winter cover crops of winter oats and austrian peas.

all other scraps

sprouting grains adds extra B vits., too, and the chickens love sprouted grains.

You’ll love the meat and eggs and as my husband remarked the other night, we all had a hand in raising and butchering the supper we ate.

Guess who the snacky lady is? Yep, I am! And the whole flock knows it. I get completely surrounded when I walk out there.

We did decide against goats since they are a lot of trouble.

Does your husband hunt? It’d be great if he does and if not, he can learn; that would provide ya’ll with wonderful meat, be it wild turkey or deer.

We have chickens and in case any out there are unaware, chickens love meat! It is crazy how they will attack fresh fish. Any way, we free range ours and feed scraps too. Work isn’t too much and most is very easy. We live on 70 acres and the biggest problem we have are predators. Our dogs do not attack the chickens luckily, but it seems everything else does!!  Funny story on how our Jack Russell was trained not to attack a chicken and not by us…nature is a wonderous thing. We have a chicken that repeatedly flew into the yard and would lay an egg on top of a bench that the dog could not get to, but the egg would roll and drop and break and the dog would eat the egg. after several days of this, the dog decided she liked the eggs and so the chickens could stay. That chicken has since died, but the dog still doesn’t attack. 

I am going to check out the net thing…sounds jjust like what we need. Our chickens roost in some ow ying branches and every evening we go out and lock them in the coop. They are so tame that I just have to hold my hand up close to their feet and they will grab on and go for a ride to the coop. We love the eggs and I recommend chickens for that purpose.

We do not have a milk cow. I buy raw milk from a local dairy along with butter so I get the benefits without all the work on that one and their prices are awesome. 

I think I will finally try my hand at a garden this spring. i am going to try the straw bale gardening….anyone here do that now? Would love to hear how it is going.

Rachel,

What success have you had with the herbal dewormer? And what species have you used it for?

Thanks

We’ve done alot of gardening in the past, and now we’re just beginning to get into animals as well.  Our new homestead isn’t livable yet, but we’re fixing up the house and have done a bit to the barn so far.  Our only animals right now are Muscovy ducks.  We plan to plant lots of fruit trees and other perennials in the spring and also get chickens and either sheep or goats.  My dh votes for sheep, I lean more toward goats to eat the poison ivy.  

Listening in on this thread…

We moved to a rural property last year. We only have 2 acres. We have 27 chickens. Chickens are not called the gateway farm animal for nothing. They are very easy to care for – my children enjoy gathering the eggs and tending to their food and water. We also had two goats for about 5 months. They are not easy! Or our inexperience with goats made the experience not easy. Owning them was very sanctifying for my husband and me! They got into everything (including my house!) and made general nuisances of themselves. We may get a mini dairy cow next year, but in the meantime, we are still recovering from our caprian capers!