Hunt and Peck: Putting Natural Foraging Behavior to Work
ONCE WE GOT OUR FIRST DUCKLINGS, shortly after our first turkeys arrived, we added up the score: Over a hundred chickens, twenty-one turkeys and now nine ducks. As you can imagine, all those birds were going through a fair amount of feed. I’m sure being on pasture and having lots of bugs and other tasty things to eat was making a dent in the feed requirements, although this seemed truer of the older birds than the younger ones. The youngest, those in the brooders and the Deuce Coop (the “halfway house” where they learned to roost before making the transition to “big kid” coops), had their own higher-protein starter feed for their first six weeks. Then they switched to poultry grower mash, and the young turkeys had their own grower formula. It was a lot to keep track of, especially since our feed was delivered about once a month from a company in British Columbia, so we had to order ahead of time.
Early in our third year of poultry farming, it occurred to me to try growing some grains. I wasn’t thinking that this might make a huge difference in the amount of grain we had to buy for feed. Heck, I didn’t even know if it was going to be possible to grow things like oats or sorghum at our elevation of a thousand feet. Also, since most available pasture was already being grazed by a whole lot of free-ranging birds — and deer — I didn’t have much space available for experimenting.
Six-week-old Midget White turkey.
Once again, I started reading. And planning. I was surprised to find that much of the really practical information about growing grains was in seed catalogs, such as those from Bountiful Gardens and Territorial Seed Company (see Appendix B). And once again, eventually I got to the point of putting the books down and giving it a whirl.
It was quite an experience. Not only were we fairly successful the first year, on that oh-so-familiar learning curve, but it was a whole lot of fun taking down the fences (put up temporarily to protect the crops as they grew) and watching the birds excitedly harvesting their own lunch. The turkeys are tall enough that they could easily reach the grain heads on the oats, but the chickens had to jump. Presumably they were blissfully unaware of how funny they looked doing this. I’m not sure if they ever figured out that, if they just let the turkeys have first crack at it, enough of the grain would fall to the ground that they could come in after the turkeys and simply clean up the fallen grain. It was entertaining, though.
As time goes on, I certainly hope that we can gradually begin to grow more of our own feed grains. The drought in the Midwest in 2012, which resulted in a shortage of corn and correspondingly higher feed prices, has brought the subject back to the table for us. We have limited space to devote to growing grain, and we continue facing the challenges of a short growing season and our elevation. But in order to begin to meet our long-term goals for self-sufficiency, we feel we simply have to put more effort into it.
Soaking Grain Mash for Poultry
Just this past year, I had an idea, one that, in retrospect, I wondered how in the world I hadn’t thought of it before. We have been feeding our birds various kinds of organic grain mashes for years. (Note: formulated pellet and crumble feed is commonly referred to as ‘mash’ or ‘grain’. By ‘grain mash’ I mean a mixture of ground pure grains and legumes.) Often this feed has a certain amount of very finely ground particles and lightweight chaff. The problem was that the birds would eat all the larger pieces and turn up their collective noses at the more powdery leftovers. Also, no matter what kind of feeders we used, the birds always seemed to fling a fair amount out onto the ground. In the winter, especially, when the ground is often wet, this feed would quickly go mushy, the birds wouldn’t clean it up, and it would get to be a smelly mess.
The solution came to me one day when I was mixing up the mash for our pigs. We always soaked their mash and corn in water for several hours before feeding them; they did a better job of cleaning it all up, and I suspect they may also have found it easier to digest that way. (David endeared himself to the pigs by soaking their morning mash in hot water; “hot cereal,” he called it. “Fine,” I grumbled, “Just as long as the things aren’t getting spoiled or anything.”)
Anyway, it finally occurred to me to soak the grain for the birds the same way. It took a bit of experimenting to find the right amount of water to add to the grain — too much, and the mash was runny and the birds didn’t like it; too little water, and it was hard to mix up and didn’t solve anything. Once we figured out the proportions, though, it was great. The birds ate up all their feed; even the tiny particles soaked up the water. The feed wasn’t getting kicked out on the ground. With feed prices as they are, I was pleased to no longer see so much feed getting wasted. A
Another thing I noticed after we started soaking the feed was that the size of the eggs was increasing a bit. We keep production records, so it’s easy to spot trends. We started collecting more extra-large eggs and fewer large ones. I wonder if soaking the grain is somehow making more of the nutrients available to the birds. I do know that the extra effort of soaking the grain before feeding it out has had excellent results.
(Note: I wouldn’t recommend you try this with pelleted or crumble-type feed. I suspect you’ll end up with a mushy mess. However, if you do try it and your birds love it, do let me know.)