Alternative Feeds

I have been working with a poultry rancher in Nigeria to develop an economical, nutritious feed for his "all natural" flocks of broilers. Everything I had studied in the past and everything I post here and in the YOUTUBE videos is based on traditional grains in a feed. I have done this because so very many that find my "stuff" are backyard poultry people and not moderate to large growers. Therefore many just want something easy that is nutritious. Lately though, I get a lot of interest about alternatives!

While I cannot find any real  problems with GM feeds in the mainstream, there are still a large number who do not want to use them due to fringe media and reports. Also, there is the monopoly factor with 2-3 multi-national agribusinesses controlling 95% of our feed supply........ so.....

I am going to share my research and new education about potential, alternative feeds with all of you, as well as create a new video about the possibilities. In these, I will cover growing insects, sustainable fodders where you will NOT have to keep buying seed to grow and alternative vegetable protein sources.

What I will NOT cover is fodder systems, because they require ongoing purchases of seed, sprouted seed, as it is more labor intensive than insect farming and more apt to spoil and fermented feed, which while nutritious, I consider a passing fad.

But what will be in my information will help us all and those interested in fodder, sprouting & fermenting can find really good articles about these in many other places. So it will be about a week before I get all this together.... watch for the post!

Another Great E-mail & My Response

I received yet another really good e-mail and provided a response that is of interest to us all. It is time that we, mankind, takes a hard look at the way we feed our livestock and find more sustainable ways to do this, as well as most everything else.

I want to share this with you and invite you all to look into what I say in my response and let's research and learn alternative ways to feed our birds and in turn, ourselves!

E-MAIL QUESTION: 

"I live in Canada, but I want to move back home Pakistan. My plan is to start broiler farming. However, feed is the biggest hurdle to get in my limited budget. I was searching youtube and all of a sudden found your lecture which was so practical. I liked it very much.
I watched few of your videos which were mostly on layers. I could not find any for Broiler. My target is to raise about 3000 broiler as one batch. Can you please let me know how can I make home mix feed for them > I am looking two main advantages of home mix feed. First , it is cheap. Second it is of higher quality as you are buy quality products.
please let me know"

HERE IS MY RESPONSE:

"Thank you for writing and for watching my videos! We raise our poultry for both meat and eggs at the same time. So we raise "dual purpose" chickens. I geared my farm and my videos for others with dual purpose flocks, so this is why I do not concentrate on broilers.

  

I do have firm opinions on raising and feeding broilers though and I will share these with you! First, here is the link to my feed mix recipe: http://eco-ranch.us/POULTRYFEEDMIX.pdf

One thing I have noticed in Asia, India in particular, is that the commercial feeds are expensive when compared to our commercial feeds. Also, many people in SE Asia have been taught that chickens must have commercial chicken feed to survive, or be the scrawny "village chickens" that many women tend. They are amazed at my "homemade" mix and that it works! I think that you, with some work and "entrepeneurism" can move well beyond this and perhaps even grow a "niche" product that will sell for a higher price.

My goal when I have raised just broilers, is to raise them quickly. Everyone feels this way! I used the same feed mix on my Cornish Crosses as I did for the rest of the flock. At 20% protein, it seemed to work great. My broilers grew to over 10 pounds, before starting to die of "flip-over". When the first one died, I processed the rest that day. This did take about 16-20  weeks though and the total feed conversion was close to 4-1. You and most growers want the turnover to be closer to 6-8 weeks and about 5 pounds and 3-1 or less. I achieved 5 pounds at 7-8 weeks and had a tender, dense birds with mild flavor. Incidentally, the 10 pound birds were the same, just BIG!

What I would recommend for a straight grain diet, is my recipe for 3-4 weeks, then increasing the protein to 25% for the rest of their lives. Substitute more corn, oats, or milo (sorghum) for wheat and be CERTAIN to use a vitamin/mineral premix.

Right now, I am looking at and hoping to work with growers in both Asia & Africa on moving away from a straight grain diet as it is costly and I think we can do far better with a little work! The moringa tree grows well in Pakistan and is a very excellent source of vegetable protein. Cultivating this could eliminate a great deal of the grains, as would growing a fodder. The down side to fodder though, is you still must buy the seed. Moringa will provide nutritious and viable seeds, so is self -sustaining.

The real way to provide excellent feed,  increased growth and flavor though, is through farming insects along with the chickens. Meal worms (darkling beetles) and black soldier flies can be grown on waste vegetation and even livestock manure. You can sustain your 3000 birds from a 20'x30' building, or less. Feeding these will further lower feed bills and a surplus of either can be sold for human consumption for extra income.

I am still working on this here, but I strongly feel this is the way we must go, particularly as grains go up in price and weather becomes more unstable.

Please stay in touch and let me know your progress!"

Diminishing Egg Production

I have been conversing with a chicken farmer in New York State for several months. He phoned me today with a problem that we are not entirely sure I handled, but gave the best help I could regarding.

Here is the situation: he has been using my feed mix (http://eco-ranch.us/POULTRYFEEDMIX.pdf) for several months with good results. I had recommended that he substitute an 18% hog feed for the corn and part of the soy in his mix, as hog feed will have a pre-mix already added which would save money. This worked, until one day the mill that grinds his feed had a substitute miller who assumed that the "hog feed" was a mistake and added corn & soy instead.


The farmer's egg production doubled! He went back to the old mix next grind and his production halved! What is the problem?????

I thought that his hens may be getting broody, or broody signals from their bodies and were laying less eggs, then they stopped being broody and changed. But this generally affects only 10-15% of our flock and has little impact on our egg production. Plus, his hens are "patent" hens, a hybrid developed for egg production and that trait is suppressed in patent breeds.

My next thought was wheat. Wheat will slow digestion and a lot of wheat will cause a significant drop in egg production. I looked and several hog feed mixes from mills around the country and about one-in-three does use some wheat....... but his mill did not and wheat is very hard for him to find in New York, so that is out.

I noticed that the sodium level in hog premixes is quite a bit higher that in most poultry premixes. Thinking I was on to something, I checked the one I used in Florida where I learned what little I know about feeds and yes, that mix was NOT higher in sodium.

This farmer also added barley to his mix instead of milo (sorghum), as milo is not available in his area. Barley is very hard and thus very hard to digest.... but he was using it when his production was up.

The only thing we did not explore, was sunlight/artificial light. I did not ask this, as I assumed he should have that handled as a current egg producer. But the length of the day always affects egg production and if he depended on natural light only this could have been the issue. We use artificial light all night long here. We do this not so much to improve egg production, but to discourage predators. However the result is good egg production year-around.

So all I could recommend was this: do not use a hog feed, split the corn and soy and add a poultry pre-mix. Stop using barley and carefully monitor the egg production now that the season is stable and see what happens. I did feel rather inadequate in not knowing exactly what his problem was, but life is a learning experience and this has motivated me to try to learn more, for the benefit of us all!

Protein Content Of Various Grains

Ingredient	Percent protein
Dried fish flakes	76
Dried liver	76
Dried earthworms	76
Duckweed	50
Torula yeast	50
Brewers yeast	39
Soybeans (dry roasted)	37
Flaxseed	37
Alfalfa seed	35
Beef, lean	28
Earthworms	28
Fish	28
Sunflower seeds	26.3
Wheat germ	25
Peas and beans, dried	24.5
Sesame seed	19.3
Soybeans (boiled)	17
Wheat bran and/or middlings	16.6
Oats, whole	14
Rice polish	12.8
Rye	12.5
Wheat	12.5
Barley	12.3
Oats	12
Corn	9
Millet	9
Milo	9
Rice, brown	7.5
Milk	3
Whey	29 - 89

I pulled this chart off of a web site that sells chicken waterers and other products: http://www.avianaquamiser.com/posts/Protein_content_in_chicken_feed_ingredients/

It is a good, handy chart to use as you develop your own feed mix. However, NEVER forget the vitamin/mineral pre-mix!

Hatching Duck Eggs. Specifically Muscovy Duck Eggs!

Debbie and I have raised ducks for nearly 15 years between our farm in north Florida and here in Terlingua, but we have NEVER successfully hatched many duck eggs until last year. Either the eggs were infertile, died along the way, or started to pip, then died. That scenario is the most heart-wrenching as there is a fully developed chick just a millimeter away from you and it dies!

Even our "successes" in the last year, have come from a 90% mortality rate (combined incubation, hatching & early days). This is hardly a success!

Still, we love our ducks, Muscovys most of all and we want to be successful at hatching them, so we can in time, have delicious Muscovy meat to eat. Nine out of ten eggs dying is not a ratio we can do this with!

We buy our ducks from Country Hatchery( http://www.countryhatchery.net), owned by Dr. Dennis Smith, now mostly retired having his son take over. Dr. Smith is a highly respected authority on Muscovy Ducks and has written an acclaimed article: "The Muscovy Duck" about them and their care.

So at the risk of being called a "duck killer", I wrote him today asking for help. In this article, I will detail our problems and his solution, a simple one.

What seems to happen with our eggs is twofold, one problem is that most Muscovy eggs have been infertile and there is not much you can do about that, except give the parents time to mature and/or change their feed. The other problem is the one that had us perplexed: the eggs would go full term, begin to pip, then stop and die. even helping the ducklings out of the shell, did not help any, they died. In fact, only one I helped out of its shell ever lived. The ones that died on the way out, had the internal membranes dry to their feathers after pipping. The chicks could not turn in the shell.

I bought a very nice, high tech incubator that keeps the temperature rock solid, automatically turns the eggs and has a circulation fan so the issues are not caused by the incubator directly.

Dr. Smith found the cause right away; HUMIDITY!

We live in the desert and the incubator cannot create more than about 80% humidity. Most of the time and especially with the other hatches, it as running around 45-50%. This is far too low for hatching ducklings. It needs to be at least 80%. Dr. Smith suggested having a spray bottle with warm water in it and spray the hatching eggs several times a day. There is one row in the incubator that has no eggs in it from me removing the infertile or dead eggs. I soaked some old (clean) socks in water and placed these in this row. As I am writing this, the humidity is 79%.

There are ten, fertile chicken eggs in there with the Muscovy eggs. I tried to time them to hatch on the same day as the ducks, but they are pipping right now, two days ahead of the ducks. But this will give me an opportunity to watch how the increased humidity works on the chickens. We have had some issues with the chicken eggs as well, though not at all like the ducks!

The next two days are busy, of course, with my having to go out tomorrow and deliver eggs and sausage to our customers and Saturday I will be gone most of the day picking up building supplies. Debbie will have to wet the socks and spray the eggs. But Sunday is "D-Day" for the Muscovys and I will be here all day.

Hopefully, I will have some new chicks to photograph and post here, but for all you that are hoping to hatch eggs in an incubator, remember that humidity is equally as important as temperature, particularly during the hatch!

More About Nutrition, From A Follower & Myself!

Hello! Sorry for the long time between posts here, it is Spring and we are BUSY!

Once again, my YOUTUBE channel had a great comment posted and I wrote a long addition to that fine comment. Both are quite informative and I am posting it here for you all to read! We had been discussing making sure young chicks received enough daylight, or a good premix in their feed, supplemental or integral, to insure proper bone development, when the viewer added these great tips:

Good points about the Vitamin D!!! The neat thing about kefir is that you can let it sit on a shelf and sort of forget about it for a couple days. IT can be done in water too, so you don't have to use milk. The kefir cultures keep the milk from spoiling. I live where it gets to over 100 degrees in the summer and I just chuck it in the fridge for part of the day, it just takes a second. The birds love it!!! They really seem to like bitter stuff and it's full of active cultures and vitamins and stuff.. Forgive me for sounding like an infomercial, that's not my intention,,,, I just figured there was a way around the pre-mix, which sort of makes you at yet one more feed companies mercy... The point of making your own feed is to know everything that goes into it, right? Speaking of which, have you ever looked into growing protein rich plants like duckweed or azolla? I just got some azolla (this afternoon actually) from J&J aquafarms in California and I am eager to try it out once it begins to grow. Speaking of bugs... There are two protein rich bugs, mealworms and dubia roaches (they don't climb and love the heat) that are super easy to raise off of kitchen scraps. They literally don't cost anything to raise once you have made the initial investment and the chickens can't seem to get enough of them... The cost of dubia roaches has really come down in recent years and mealworms should be able to be purchased locally... When I clean out the dubia bin, I will feed the chickens the "extras" and afterwards the chickens will come to the back door and make a lot of noise, begging for more.... The dubia's especially breed like crazy in the heat (they just need a little humidity which a piece of carrot takes care of and they eat it as well). They do slow down in the winter unless you supplement them with heat, but it isn't necessary. It just takes them a little while to get their numbers back up once it warms up and they start breeding again. The same goes with the mealworms. The only drawback with the mealworms is that they go through stages, from larvae to pupa, to beetle, all of which don't climb or fly. The chickens only seem to like the larvae. The bins do have a slight smell (it's not bad, it's unique) but honestly you have to stick your nose in them to notice and the mealworms or dubias don't make any noticeable noise. Sorry to write a novel but I love this topic!!! They say it's best to give your animals a varied diet and variety is the spice of life!!! Thanks again for posting the videos.

This is what I added:

I make the mistake of letting people think that we are anti-society & civilization. Yes, overpopulation is THE biggest problem in the world, but we cannot speak to it without cries of racism since the developing world is primarily not "European white". What we are actually doing here is showing how, with some ingenuity and small sacrifices of "stuff" (which we really do not need anyway), we "New Homesteaders" can led the way into a world that we can groom to sustain the nine billion multi-colored inhabitants I will see here before I die.

That being said, we are NOT anti feed stores, or any company that provides us with things we need. We are anti-MONOPOLIES, like "Urina" (chessboard people), WalMart, Cargill, Monsanto, Exxon/Mobil, BP and so on. The pre-mix I recommend, comes from a small, organic company that specializes in a few high quality products. They, and the small regional feed mills I deal with, do not have "contracts" and "contests" with independent feed stores that either force or lead the small guy struggling to make a living, into carrying the high cost, low nutrition crap the monopolies are constantly trying to tweak a few extra pennies out of every bag.

The feed mill we now get our "layer feed" from....... the corn & soy portion of our mix, gives us the entire kernel of corn ground into their mix. They don't strip away 15-50% of the corn germ for other products, leaving chickens with  the same 16-18% CRUDE protein, but less USABLE protein. THIS and the higher cost of the "name brand", are my major objections to the chessboard and others! Incidentally, the really inexpensive brands of poultry, dog, cat and other feeds do the same, but even worse! That word "crude" in front of "protein" can be VERY misleading and many dogs & cats are eating non-digestible chicken feathers and steer hair as 50% of the 25% of the "crude protein" in the super-cheap feeds!!!

So if you are able to provide adequate vitamins & minerals without a premix, great! But if not, just choose your supplier carefully and always support the little guys who are in this to provide a superior product AND make a living, not eliminate the competition and set lower & lower standards. 

Everything that you addressed in your comment, is geared toward the small to medium flock owner, same as my information. I trained at a large operation and brought that knowledge to the smaller flock holders. So what you and I say is great for our "target audience", the Tyson's out there cannot "afford" to use our methods.

I try to avoid "fad feeds". I feel fermented feed is a fad, so I don't like to discuss it. However,  sprouted grains, fodder, all types of insect farming, pasturing and so on are fantastic in my opinion! One new thing..... new to me that is....... that we are going to try here, is the moringa oleifera tree. We will use it as a fodder for the birds and try some ourselves. We should always be open to trying new things, just use our brains to determine whether it is an unnecessary fad or not!

We have a huge, working meal worm farm and feed our young birds from it. I am going to hang a couple of "maggot traps" in the chicken yard in the next few days as well. This seems to be both a great source of protein AND fly control for the farm. I am also constructing "chicken salad bowls", since we live in the desert and do not have grasses and sprouts for the flock to forage from. I think these "bowls" are a great, simple & inexpensive way to provide fresh greens.

Writing a "novel" here is welcome, particularly when the information is good and accurate, please stay in touch!

Long absence, lots of work here and a few small problems that needed attention, so this blog got neglected, sorry! I did get a great question from a YOUTUBE follower that I though needed to be posted here.

Please post anything you would like information about here so others can benefit from the experience. I will answer as soon as possible!
Here is the question:

My 10 broilers now on their week #3 with crumble starter feeds on a 24/7 basis. My queries are: 1. When do i need to change from starter to grower? Crumble or pellet grower? 2. Is it necessary for a 24/7 food ration? Until what broiler age? Need your recommendations and advice.

You did not say what breed you have and that can make a big .... huge, difference. Assuming they are Cornish crosses or the like, the recommendation is to NOT have feed available all the time. The hatcheries say feed them all they can eat in about 20 minutes, two times a day.

That being said, we always feed our flock free choice and had no problems, even from day one. Since we only grew our broilers/Crosses for our own consumption, we raised them a bit differently than if they were for profit. We kept them for 12-16 or more weeks, right up until the FIRST one died of "flip-over", then we killed the entire batch that day. We would end up with carcasses in the 9-12 pound range that way, ideal for our use.

If you are feeding a commercial feed, I would change to the grower at 4 weeks, layer at 4 months. If you use my mix, feed at 28% protein for four weeks, then drop to the 20%.

Pellets to crumbles is the farmer's choice. However, the finer feed is ground, the easier & faster  it is to metabolize. This fits into the "20 minute twice a day schedule". Since I came up in the commercial end, I feed a crumble mix, particularly because  the grains in my mix are that size. 

The caveat here though is that since I found a great feed mill that supplies an acceptable layer mix with corn, soy, pre-mix & alfalfa in it, I buy the pellets, as that is all they sell and add my extra soy to this to bring up the protein level. The flock gets the other grains from around the bird feeders where they scratch and socialize all day long.

Sorry for the long absence! We are very busy with our construction right now and that has taken all our time! We did rewrite our web site and invite you all to look at it: http://eco-ranch.com

I just received this question from a very nice follower in Uganda who has been discussing poultry with me and I wanted to share my answer. I am positive this is the way to mitigate against most poultry disease! Here is the question & answer:

"Poultry in Uganda is so challenging mostly when it comes to feeding them and even diseases that attracts the birds how do you overcome those challenges on your ranch???"

Eco-Ranch.us

Mar 1st, 8:19am

We don't have issues with disease. I don't hear of others having any either..... I have a theory for that.

Of course most hatcheries and production operations not only vaccinate, but use large amounts of antibiotics and precautions against disease. Chickens will LIVE in tight, cramped quarters on poor quality feed, but they won't THRIVE under these conditions. My theory is that the tight quarters, lack of natural light and normal air flow, weakens the birds.

I mean it weakens all the birds physical systems, but it also weakens their emotional systems as well. This weakness of mind & body allows diseases that may pass unnoticed, to take hold and roar through a flock, killing when it would not have been noticed in a wild flock. However, in Asia, semi-wild birds suffer from disease, most notably HPIA. I attribute that to poor diet that also weakens the birds.

Simply because laying hens will lay on a 16% protein diet, does not mean they are in excellent health. When I was in the commercial egg business, we rotated out hens out at 18 months. These 18 month old birds were listless and had little meat & ZERO fat on their bodies. If not for the antibiotics, they would have been susceptible to rampant disease.

By contrast, my flock, at 20-28% protein, lays eggs (except during the molt) for years, many dying naturally at 5-6 years of age AFTER laying eggs the entire time. When I do slaughter an old hen, she has muscle meat and loads of fat in the abdominal cavity and around the liver. To us, THAT is a healthy bird. Too many flocks are very thin with no fat to protect them if they contact a disease and lose their appetite for a while. This allows the disease to progress into something deadly!

So, my bottom line is this: spend the money on feed, NOT antibiotics, or "cost savings". You will have less disease, better quality meat & eggs, longer, healthier lifespans and much less work! Remember though, that sunshine, fresh air and SPACE TO ROAM is an equally important factor. This is not conducive to the way people have been raising birds these last decades, but I feel it is the correct way!

Our Feed Mix

It is probably worth putting our feed mix recipe in the blog for those who would like to try it. It can also be downloaded at: http://eco-ranch.us/POULTRYFEEDMIX.pdf

Eco-Ranch.us Poultry Feed Mix & Customization

A poultry vitamin/mineral premix is ABSOLUTELY required for all birds that do not range free! Here is the one we use, but others are equally good: Advanced Biological Concepts, URL: http://www.abcplus.biz/abc2.aspx?Id=Poultry_All_In_One_Premix
Approximate protein content in grains used:
 Corn = 7-9%
 Soy meal = 44% (note: each mill grinds soy differently & roasted soy will have LESS protein than raw. CHECK & adjust your formula)
 Wheat = 12%
 Milo = 9%
 Millet = 12%
 Rice (uncooked) = 7%
 Oats = 12%
Approximate protein requirements for poultry:
 Chickens up to 6 weeks = 28% (hybrid “meat” birds such as Cornish crosses require less)
 Chickens 6- 20 weeks = 20-25%
 Chickens laying & meat = 16-20% (we use 19-20%)
 Ducks up to 20 weeks = 28%
 Ducks, both laying and meat = 20-25%
Feed Mix Ratio For Our Combined Flock (given in “parts” not weights)
 Soy = 2 parts
 Cracked or ground corn = 3 parts
 Wheat = 2 parts
 Milo = 1 part
Millet is highly recommended, but the price can be high. Millet or any other grains can be substituted for the grains used here, but NEVER substitute for soy. Check your percentages by adding the protein per part (e/g: 3 corn @ 7%=21) and dividing by the number of total parts to arrive at the protein percentage in your mix. We do not feel sufficiently qualified to comment on other breeds of poultry than listed.

What About Fodder??????

I feel very privileged to have people call or write me for my opinion of all things poultry. While the caveat there is that I have NO university degree on the subject, I do, WE do.... have 16 years of practical experience in all phases of poultry husbandry, butchery and egg production. So ask me anything, but do your "due diligence" as well. I don't know everything and often make mistakes, mainly in my construction though!

This morning, I got a great question asking for my opinion on feeding fodder. This is something down the line for us, as here, we have to have to greenhouse built first or we could never hold enough humidity to grow fodder. Still, I wanted to do the research, learn and try to help my new Australian friend! Here is the question and the answer (I cannot seem to format it correctly, but it is readable):

"I'm just writing to pick your brain about barley grass fodder, I've been told that it's

about 20% protein at five days optimum growth.....how would I work out what to feed

our girls if we wanted say 17% protein laying mix. I hope you don't mind me asking but

I'm at a loss myself and just thought I'd ask you seeing as you worked in the industry."

Well, I did a LOT of research on barley fodder, particularly on the protein content at the 5-7 day range. It seems that those promoting fodder and selling the equipment are the ones who spout that 20% protein number. I read studies from five A &M Colleges (Agriculture and Mechanical or many things that begin with an "M"). The protein contents they have analyzed, fell in the 12-17% range. This is a big departure from 20% when you are trying to run a production poultry operation!

That being said, the other benefits from fodder are wonderful: minerals, amino acids, vitamins, moisture and ease of digestion. After reading through about 50 pages of information and with NO practical experience with anything more than a small sprouter, here is my opinion on using fodder:

IF you are able to grow it easily: low labor, nominal mold and can afford to use the water, it is fantastic to have AS A SUPPLEMENT. Feed it at certain times of the day, while maintaining the grains as "free choice".

Feeding it WILL lower your grain feed consumption, but my thought is that the costs, when you total the structure, water, seed and labor, will figure out to about the same as if you used an all grain diet. The thing NOT discussed is something we know well and THAT should be the determining factor for both of us....... fresh fodder and pasturing positively affects the taste of the eggs and the flesh of the birds. In fact the difference is so much that you can command a premium for your eggs and meat products.

I would continue with a 17-20% (17% for you and 20% for me) diet of mixed grains, including the premix. Use a premix and think of it the same way you think of vaccines, as insurance. What the birds don't need, will become "expensive urine", same as in humans, but that urine is on your pasture, improving it and attracting tasty bugs!

Commercial poultry operations have been using all grain diets for 100 years. Many breeds of birds have been developed using this feed system, so all grain is not bad, just not what wild chickens eat.

However, the semi-wild Anseel chicken of India grows to maturity in 9-12 months and lays 50-70 eggs a year. So a 100% wild diet is not the answer for semi-intensive poultry and egg production.

I think fodder or pasture AND grains is the way to go....... and we LOVE meal worm farming and maggot traps as well! Maggot traps are a good way to recycle dead birds into 80% protein food!

Winter Chicks Moved To New Quarters

The weather gave us an opportunity to move the "Winter Chicks" to their new home outdoors this weekend, so we took the opportunity to put them in the transition pen. This is the pen where the ducks spend the night, along with several of our younger roosters and hens. The rest of the flock can spend the day, today, looking at them and talking to them through the fence. Then tonight, the ducks will waddle in and hopefully spend a peaceful night with them. In the morning, the gate will be opened and the young ones will be free to roam if they wish.

This is always a scary time for the flock owner, as you won't know until the evening if they all come home, or if some are out under a bush, frightened. So far, every group we have put out in 16 years, has come in that night...... but it is still scary until they are all in!

Not only was the weather right, but new hatches forced us to make room! Right on schedule, Muscovy duck eggs have started to hatch. There have been three new ducklings since last evening. So we needed to play "musical brooders" and kick everyone up one room, so that the ducklings had the warmest brooder. These ducklings are our first successful Muscovy Duck hatches so far. All the others died in the egg, or shortly after coming out.

I have been watching, when I have time, some of the videos from "50 Ducks In A Hot Tub" on YOUTUBE. It is very interesting and while he has less experience time-wise with ducks, he has HUNDREDS more ducks than we have ever had, so I trust his information. He says that many ducklings run into trouble as the try to pip out and need help. Chickens are just the opposite, so we would let the ducklings struggle until it was too late. Two of these three needed help and got it, so now there are three little fluff-muffins sitting in the warm corner all cozy!

Over the next five weeks, some 50 more will be hatching, or at least trying to develop and hatch, so we need to keep the brooders ready!

Anyway, enjoy the video! The last 9-10 minutes are just the chicks scratching around!

Winter Chicks

WINTER CHICKS

For hundreds of years, people had a rhythm to poultry keeping. In the Springtime, they set eggs to hatch, raising them during the time they needed the most nutrition in Summer, when there was lush grasses and plentiful bugs to eat. This kept the feed needs low. The hens would start to lay in the Fall, about the time when the roosters were distinguishable from the hens. The young roosters became food, while the hens PROVIDED food in the form of eggs. A laying hen was worth feeding through the winter, so she got the feed.

As grass & bugs dwindled in the late Fall, the oldest hens, the ones who ate the most because they were the largest, also laid far fewer, albeit larger, eggs, or none at all. These were "spent hens", or what the grocery stores used to market as "stewing hens". They were big, but tough and had a LOT more flavor than young, tender birds. Buying these in the old days, or killing yours now, gives you a tough, tasty bird that is suitable for stewing, fricasseeing, turning into soup, or any cooking method that was low & slow. Cooking in this way also saved fuel, as the meal would cook throughout the day, heating the house as well. We do this here on those days when we have to keep a fire in the wood stove all day!

Come the next Spring, the laying hens would either get broody, or the farmer filled the incubator and the entire process started again! An entire food movement has been created over these cycles in all potential foods. Those promoting it have trendy new names for it, like: eat local, or locally sourcing, but it is actually a return to the way people lived before fast transportation gave us produce year around. It is also, a better, less resource dependent way or eating!

Our ducks & chickens always lay eggs year around. With the big new incubator, we thought we would get a jump on Spring and hatch eggs all through the Winter. So we set eggs non-stop beginning in October.

Now you would think that the eggs would not know it was Winter, but you would be wrong! We have learned that fertility is low in these Winter eggs and viability is also very low. We have been getting around a 60% fertility rate, a 50% viability (live hatch) rate and about a 25% mortality rate (closer to 75% in the ducks). So it is not a real good way to produce birds, but if you have the eggs and can stand seeing the dead chicks, it will give you some birds for the next year.

Thus far, we have hatched out 20 chickens and five ducks, though one duck may not survive to adulthood. Four ducks are out in the flock now and the first 14 chicken chicks are being put out in the dog's yard every day and brought in at night. It is still too cold for these 5 week old chicks (pullets & cockerels) to stand the 30ish degree nights. Above, is a photo of three Leghorn/ Dark Cornish crosses about 10 days ago.

There are some 65 duck eggs in the incubator now, at various stages of development. I candled one duck egg two days ago and say the chick moving it's beak around. Soon it made a small crack in the egg. But it started about two days early, so it is alive, but resting now, waiting for Nature to cue it to finish the job. Once a duck starts, it can take two days, or ten minutes to break out, so this one is doing fine now. If my numbers are correct, I should get only 15 ducks out of this hatch. But with ducks going for $7-15 each from a hatchery, it is still a worthwhile venture, but we will see!

Duck Day

One of the scariest days for a poultry breeder, is the day when they release young chicks into the main flock. As breeders, we have watched the eggs in the incubator develop into chicks that painstakingly break their way out of the egg. The wet, clumsy, helpless chick must rest as it dries out, sometimes after a two day ordeal of breaking out of the shell. A few do not survive after the effort.

After that, the tiny chick seems to take forever to grow. Then one day you look at them and they are "teenagers" and nearly as big as their parents! Soon after this, the day comes when they have to be introduced to the main flock, covey, gaggle or whatever term is appropriate to the species.

Today was THAT day for our young, fawn Indian Runner Ducks. Less that a year ago, their parents arrived here as three day old chicks.

Shipping poultry here is a horrible ordeal, most likely..... though unproven..... due to poor, careless handling at the El Paso, Texas airport. THREE shipments of Muscovy & Runner ducks were sent before WE gave up on getting the number of ducks we paid for. We had an unprecedented 70% mortality in the shipments..... normal is below 5%. Debbie & I could not bear to see the duckling the hatchery had fussed over, die due to some machismo idiot's tossing the cases around on the Mexican border!

The ducks that survived to adulthood, FIVE out of TWENTY we ordered, have been wonderful, animated additions to our poultry flock. We keep Runner Ducks as "yard ornaments". We do not eat them, though we collect their eggs to eat and hatch. It is always an odd, funny sight to see a line of these ramrod straight ducks running across the yard!

Despite being less than a year old, our three hens laid fertile eggs and we were able to hatch five of them this Winter. One is still very tiny at just three weeks old, but four others have made it to young adulthood.

For the last four days, we took them outside after the morning chill was gone and put them and 14 chicken chicks in a large livestock waterer for the day. At dusk they all came back in.

But there was just something about the ducks that seemed to tell me that they needed to roam, to be free. This morning, we took the four ducks out to the duck pond. The other ducks were off foraging, so I put them on one of the steps. One by one they first jumped into the pond, swam to the other side and got out and started "discussing" this new experience.

After a minute or so, one of the two mature drakes, maybe the sire, waddled over and sort of herded them around a bit. Soon, the other four adults joined him and one hen gently urged them into the pond, where all nine frolicked for the rest of the day, climbing out only to allow the youngsters to dry off and rest. Instinctively, the adults knew the young ones did not know to use their oil gland to waterproof their feathers. However, we soon noticed that the dominate hen & drake would grab the youngsters one by one and pull at their chests where the oil gland is located, as if to try to educate them as to where it was and what it was for!

Like all magical days, this one had to end. At dusk, the adults were reluctant to leave the pond. Every other evening, they would walk, absolutely straight upright, into the pen for the night. However today, the youngsters, who had no knowledge of the pen, were trying to sleep on ground outside of the pond, which is vulnerable to predators right now. But the dominate drake was NOT leaving the babies and the others were NOT leaving the drake.

Debbie & I made a line and started herding the youngsters. The adults followed, then ran to lead and in a matter of seconds, there was a line of well-postured little "soldiers" heading for the pen, led by the dominate drake.

Once in the pen, the children played in the mud, of course, for a while, ate, drank and then explored the pen until they got bored and laid down for a rest. As I write this, they are all nine snuggled into a half of a clamshell dog crate for the night, safe and happy to be a flock of desert ducks!

NOW, there is the baby still inside in the brood pen and some 40 more duck eggs in the incubator to have to face "duck day". Still, I would rather plan on releasing the chicks into the flock, than worry over a golf tee time, ski lift, stamp collection, or where we will eat dinner (at 3 in the afternoon), as so many retirees do!

"Processing" Chickens

Here at the Eco-Ranch, our poultry serve three purposes. Of course we love to watch them and we collect, eat & sell the eggs...... but we also kill and eat the poultry. With so many people now keeping chickens, mostly hens, eating the birds is a decision that each owner makes, depending on their thoughts on "processing", butchering, the birds. I would never fault someone for keeping their poultry as pets and pet birds, at least hens, will not only provide you with hours of pleasure to watch, but tasty, nutritious eggs as well!

We will eat meat and since we will, we either try to raise what we will eat, or buy/trade others with the same feed ethics we have for their meat. This is what we did last Fall with three hogs that I butchered here and was able to have some 300 pounds of handmade sausage to sell to our friends locally.

Most Westerners are disconnected from their food source and have little idea of what is involved in butchering an animal. Most who have experience, have it from hunting deer and the overwhelming majority of these folks "butcher" the butchering!

Again, killing and butchering your livestock is a personal decision. However, we have found that the way we raise our poultry not only makes it an inexpensive way to obtain our protein, but the entire experience is a fun and rewarding one...... at least until the "moment" arrives... I hate killing anything!

Anyone who has watched any of my videos (http://youtube.com/ecoranchusa), has heard the incessant crowing in the background. We had far too many roosters for a while. I did this on purpose though, because you cannot tell the quality & temperament of a rooster or hen, until they are nearly a year old. Since we are hatching our own chicks now, it is important to have not only good looking & producing birds, but good TEMPERAMENTS as well!

I killed about 15 that were obviously not going to make the "cut" a while ago. Today, I set out to get rid of the rest, give the hens a break from the "gigolo parade", lower the Winter feed bill, put food in the freezer and most importantly select the best roosters to propagate our flock! We had counted nine that needed to go, particularly three that had developed the nasty habit of raping the duck hens (a fairly common thing). There are probably 3-4 more that can go as will, but these nine were the goal.

I was able to process just eight of them today. Debbie does not ever eat the chicken skin, so I don't bother to scald and pluck, unless I am smoking birds, or preparing a Holiday bird. One big problem with a mature bird, is that the skin does NOT want to come off easily! 6-10 week old Cornish Crosses will skin in seconds, but an 11 month old DARK Cornish peels like a coconut! That is why I could only process eight today.

However, from those eight, here is the breakdown of cost, versus amount of food provided. One note too, many people are not as fussy as we are regarding what the birds are fed and other things, so their cost of raising the birds will be a bit less than ours....... but I say the quality and quantity of the meat will be less too.

At any rate, the eight roosters laid no eggs of course, so they were a complete cost liability. The cost of feeding them for 11 months came to $14.00 each; some of the birds were hatched here and some cost us $2.75 each as day old chicks, so let's say this batch cost $15.50 per bird to raise. Each bird probably gave us at least three new chicks. That reduces the cost some, the same as culling a hen that is laying, is cost-reduced by the profit from the eggs she laid before culling...... but to keep it simple, let's say the roosters cost me the $14.00 each to raise.

I am retired, so my labor has no value subtracted, but if you were figuring the cost, allow 30 minutes per bird in total handling time, at whatever rate you assign yourself. Most chicken house employees earn around $8-10.00 an hour.

Each bird provides us with meals for two from the legs..... which are huge when the bird is this size, thighs.... same size, breast and the broth for soup is another entire meal. The wings are 1/4 meal and the breast tenderloin another 1/4 meal. So we get 4-1/2 meals from each rooster. That brings the cost per meal to $1.15 (for each of us) for the protein source for the meal. Additionally, there are NO steroids, antibiotics, hormones or 20% "broth" added to these birds. They are completely natural!

Now, we couldn't raise and sell THESE birds and make any profit, but that is not always the goal. You need to feed yourself first! These older birds are larger and far more flavorful. The age, coupled with the exercise they get, creates a very dense meat that you cannot eat as much of as you can a grocery store "frankenbird that has been shot full of "broth". You eat less and the bird goes further!

We can however, raise chicken that cost us less to bring to market size. For our system though, the per bird profit would be around $2-4. At my age, it is a lot of work for the money, so we primarily are feeding ourselves, selling the eggs and on rare occasions, chicken or duck sausage.

However, as more people start this "New Homesteading", many avenues open for bartering farm goods between farms. I have chickens, Joe has pigs, Sally has steers, Sam has vegetables and so on and we all swap foods and farm products around, eat better and save hard cash!

By the way, we don't eat any organ meats, but the hearts, gizzards, livers, lungs, testicles and meat removed from the bones of the soup broth all get cooked with rice, run through the grinder and each rooster will provide our 8 small dogs with a day's dog food for another $2.00 saving!

I am tired tonight, but quite happy knowing where my food comes from. Try it!

 A GREAT FEED QUESTION!

 On my YOUTUBE channel (http://youtube.com/ecoranchusa) someone asked a really great question today and I wanted to share my response with everyone, so it is below. By the way, if you like this blog, please send everyone you think may be interested the link! I don't get ANY money from more views....... but that is why the information I provide is fair, honest and accurate. Everyone needs access to it!

"When will you be doing a video on feeding chicken fodder? I'm seeing a lot of videos where people are feeding their chickens wheat or barley fodder almost exclusively along with providing the Oyster shells. Many of these chickens are only eating 10%-20% of grain mixtures, if any at all. Is this safe for chickens since there is little or no premix vitamins and minerals in their diet?"


Here in Terlingua, our main store sold "chicken scratch" as "chicken food". The employees did not even know they were not selling a proper diet! Only recently did the store finally begin to sell a more balanced, if cheaply made, "layer feed". Area flocks survived, but several people marveled at the fact that our birds laid eggs all winter with no appreciable decline.

So poultry can be "starved" and still produce eggs and marginal meat. However, the lack of premix, or vitamins & minerals will catch up to the flock owner in reduced egg production, poorer quality eggs, bone development issues, lack of fertility and chick mortality.

There are vitamins & minerals in fodder. However, if the ground the flock lives on has minerals, or the birds range outdoors, they will in most cases get enough vitamins & minerals to be healthy. Problems arise with coop-bound birds, or birds in areas like this desert, where there may well be a shortage of minerals in the soil AND little greenery with vitamins. Grains should always be available, as this provides a balanced, varied diet! Look at pre-mix as an inexpensive insurance policy for healthy development!

I would say that if a flock owner raises live chicks to maturity with less than a 5% mortality rate, the diet is safe. Anything over 5%, even 6% is too much and there is a problem. Poor leg development will be one indicator, but also, healthy chicks dying for no apparent reason is a HUGE indicator. Rather than wait for expensive, cute chicks to die or have to crawl around, it is best to add a premix. It is NOT very expensive at all! One bag of ABC pre-mix cost about $50 with the shipping and will treat 1000 pounds of feed.

I won't do a fodder video until I have a facility to grow fodder in: our greenhouse. However, I am a HUGE believer in fodder and/or pasturing chickens! This is how they evolved and this is what they need!

As I have repeatedly said as well, maggot traps, mealworm farms and soldier fly larvae farms are excellent and should be part of EVERY flock owner's feeding regime! We had some of the healthiest poultry I have ever seen, when we lived in north Florida. But our birds free-ranged and ate HUGE amounts of insects ( we lived in a hardwood swamp) and had over 15 acres of Pensacola Bahia grass to graze on, in addition to my grain feed mix.

In addition to oyster shell or other calcium carbonate, a real grit like granite or ground limestone (which is calcium carbonate, but yours may not be what poultry needs) MUST be available to the birds. The better they can grind up their food, the less PURCHASED food they require. In fact, we fed a 100% ground diet to the birds in the commercial houses, mainly because the finer the grind, the less energy is required to process the feed. Same goes for every flock of every size, the finer you can grind the feed the better it is digested! Investing in a grist mill ($400 and up) is one of the best investments you can make for your flock!

I hope this helps!!!!

Spring Is Chick Ordering Time!!!

Spring  is normally the time when people order their chicks for the year. Here, we are hatching chicks all Winter and really don't need to order more chicks, but as a help to area residents who really don't have a lot of money to meet the minimums of 25 chicks, we offer to combine their orders with ours. It works out good for everyone.

We really wanted just some Mallard Ducks, Chinese  & Dewlap Toulouse Geese this year. However not so many people ordered chicks through us, so we ordered a few exotic chickens for "yard ornaments" in order to meet the minimums. So we will have a few Phoenix and Golden Laced Wyandottes strutting in our yard this Fall!

Years ago, before agribusiness changed well, EVERYTHING, folks would order chicks in the winter from a hatchery (unless they hatched their own) and raise them through the summer on bugs, grasses and young plants. Come Fall, the chicks would start laying and would lay for roughly a year before they went into their first molt. The chicks would molt in the Fall of the second year. Flock owners would then decide who lived through the Winter (and the 2-3 month molt). The lucky ones would start to lay again in the Spring, roughly and their eggs would be fewer, but larger eggs. They would get to live for several years before being culled.

The unlucky hens became "spent hens", or hens that were of no real use while in the molt AND on Winter feed of expensive grains. Some of the old girls would fall into this category as well, depending on many things. The spent hens became "stewing hens". If you are under 40, this means little to you unless you grew up on a farm, but when I was young and up to the mid-70's, stewing hens were in every grocery store! These were very large chickens and usually cost a bit more per pound than the fryers They were quite tough if you tried to fry them, so you stewed, fricasseed, or made soup out of them. Same by the way, with mature roosters. These birds were large, but tough. However, the flavor was like nothing you youngsters know as "chicken" today!

Well now, "spent hens" are sold to commercial soup makers, TV dinner makers, bouillon makers, MacNuggets and a host of other commercial "human chows". Stewing hens are rare!

But "in the olden days" Fall and early Winter meant chicken soups, fricassees, stews and an assortment of chicken dishes that called for low, slow cooking that would render the tough old birds, tender!

Come Spring, the new chicks arrived with the bugs and fresh grasses and the cycle continued! Here, we are trying to do exactly that again and use the cycle of new growth and bugs to lower our feed bill. However, as old, retired people now, we do love to watch the poultry in their yard, so I could not resist getting a couple of "yard ornament, eye candy" birds!

If you are serious about having an operational poultry, or just chicken operation, you need to learn this cycle and follow it in order to get the best return from your poultry expenditure. Culling is tough! Selecting birds to die, that you have interacted with for up to a year, or more, is hard. Harder still to kill them! But such is the farmer's cycle of life. These birds exist because YOU brought them to your farm. The way to feed yourself, is to honor their lives by being as humane as possible with them, particularly when it is time to kill them. Watching a couple videos of how commercial chickens are treated at slaughter, helps you to understand, and to follow through.

Since I mentioned the commercial processors...... yes, much of the time the animals are treated barbarically! Poultry, sheep, cows (steers), fish and hogs sometime suffer or are treated horrifically..... chickens and hogs particularly.

We have to remember though, that there are some 320,000,000 people in America alone that need to be fed. Through the 20th century, we allowed AND this was required to occur, in order to provide enough meat for us all. There is a better way. Provided enough of us undertake the task of animal husbandry AND provided that agribusiness does not buy your local politicians and "convince" them to pass MORE laws restricting our ability to provide our neighbors with quality animal products! 

For now, order your flock and start your cycle! No one can stop you from growing your own food.... yet!

CONTINUING WITH FEED.....

When I was talking to my new friend in Cambodia about poultry feed, he said something that surprised me. He stated that the villagers he knew, did not know that poultry could eat "greens". He thought they had to eat a prepared feed mix!

At first thought, this IS shocking, but think about bottled water and the huge, inaccurate and expensive snow job the bottled water sellers have done on the entire world! Sure, in much of the under-developed world, most of the water is not safe for those of us from developed countries to drink, but for a New Yorker to be paying essentially $3.00 a gallon to be drinking bottled water that is nothing more than filtered New York City tap water poured into a plastic bottle is absurd! Yet one major bottled water seller does exactly that and "savvy" New Yorkers shun the free drinking fountains for this $3.00 a gallon treat!

So for agribusiness to convince virtually uneducated villagers in Cambodia that poultry needs bagged feed is not much of a stretch and begs my favorite paraphrase: "Shame on you --------" (fill in the blanks with the corporation of the hour)!

So, poultry can eat greens, which is probably how the surviving dinosaurs managed to evolve into today's birds in the first place! Joel Salatin at Polyface Farms is one of the champions of the pastured poultry movement. We personally think that is the very best way to feed your poultry. However, many poultry flock owners do not have the time, space, resources of climate to pasture their poultry all the time. This is why I developed our feed mix. I never will advocate feeding a prepared mix over what Nature provides, so long as She IS providing it!

So greens of almost every kind can be eaten and nutrition derived from it.

I also discussed with my Cambodian friend, using maggot traps. These are essentially buckets with some kind of rotting, or soon to be rotting animal, animal parts, fruits, or vegetables placed in it and hung in the poultry yard. Soon, flies lay their eggs in the "fly food", maggots hatch, burrow out if the holes in the bucket and fall on the ground, where they are eaten eagerly by poultry!

Again, he told me there is almost nothing left of animals used for food (nose to tail cooking), or fruits for that matter! Well, there is always SOMETHING humans won't eat, but the flies will, so I suggested THAT is what be used in the maggot traps.  Maggot traps are not only an excellent source of cheap, easy to provide protein for your flock, they are also great fly control devices! Flies lay eggs, hoping to reproduce, but the maggots get eaten by the flock and as the adult flies die off, the overall fly population decreases.

As far as greens, fruits and vegetables go, some will always have inedible (to humans) parts, or will spoil. THIS is poultry food. Cut grass (not sprayed with pesticides), vegetable tops, leaves, stems and so on, all is great poultry food supplement! Even the stalks of the rice plants in Asia and elsewhere can be chopped small and fed to poultry. What they do not eat, gets raked into piles to ferment, or compost and the poultry will root through that looking for new bugs, sprouts and larvae. They do it here in the desert, so the Asian tropics would be a breeze!

People need to re-educate themselves away from the dis-information that corporations and agribusiness have conditioned us to over the last 50 years or so. We need to question everything and help those too ignorant of things, to begin to question as well.

When I see Mexican mothers feeding newborns Coca-Cola because some unregulated ad campaign told her that she should........ or an American "stocking up" on bottled water because a tropical storm threatens, instead of filling the bathtubs, sinks, pots and pans with water that in many cases is superior to the bottled water and 1/100th of the price...... small poultry flock owner loading up on "Crapolina" feed, walking through acres of grass and wildflowers to carry the bags to his coop....... it angers me!

It angers me not because they are doing it, but because they have been conditioned to do it! In her heart, every Mother is being told that her child should not drink a soft drink as a newborn....... every American over 40 made it there by drinking tap, hose and even lake water with no ill effects. The water is SAFER now, so why the $3.00 per gallon sippy bottle? AND..... every bird got to 2016 by eating seeds, grasses, bugs (and in the case of chickens everything they could get their beaks on), so why now do they need bagged food with a checkerboard design on it?

THEY DON'T! But we need to re-learn many things to survive what is coming from the combination or groundwater depletion, climate change and the stresses from NINE BILLION humans (2050). Hopefully, this blog and others, can help!