Homemade chick starter feed?
Rather
than braving
the raging creek to
carry in the milled grain we bought for our chicks, I've been
tantilizing their budding appetites with hard-boiled eggs.
Technically, I could have just waited until the flood waters receded
--- after all, chicks can go for three days without food or water after
birth. But they'd already figured out how to drink from
their chicken waterer within hours of landing in
the brooder, so I figured they could handle some solids as well.
I can't help wondering
whether we couldn't get chicks off to an even better start by feeding
them real food for the first few weeks, while their appetites are small
enough that the fancy foods won't break the bank (or wear us out
foraging). I've seen a mother hen pecking apart worms for her day
old offspring, which makes me think animal products are the way to go.
What's your favorite
homemade chick starter feed? Have you ever raised chicks on
non-storebought feed?
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About us: Anna Hess and Mark Hamilton spent over a decade living self-sufficiently in the mountains of Virginia before moving north to start over from scratch in the foothills of Ohio. They've experimented with permaculture, no-till gardening, trailersteading, home-based microbusinesses and much more, writing about their adventures in both blogs and books.
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First off, that picture is a beaut. I actually am growing to believe that arts, photography and writing included, can seriously improve with work and practice. This fact means a lot to me - it is what I hope I can achieve myself.
Secondly, I don't really like eating chicken. Do you believe blood types have anything to do with people's appetites for different kinds of meat.
Maggie --- Thanks for your kind words! Mark took that photo, but I totally agree that practice makes perfect. I know I honed my skills a lot with all of the writing I've done this year, and I've got a long way to go before they're really polished!
I'm not sure about blood types influencing whether you want to eat chicken, but I do know that how the chicken was raised and how you cook it have a huge influence on taste. Supermarket chicken with the skin removed is pretty much tasteless, in stark contrast to chickens that have eaten lots of bugs and greenery, which imbues their fat with a rich, delicious flavor (as long as you leave the skin on.)
Heather --- I know, he does look a bit pissy.
That white spot on the end of his nose is his egg tooth, used for chipping his way out of the shell.
Brian --- I'm not sure where I read that originally, but I just saw it again in a turn of the twentieth century poultry manual. They were recommending feeding chicks hard-boiled eggs and soaked bread as part of their ration for the first three days.
Our chicks loved their eggs (the yolks more than the whites) for the first day and a half, but when I carried in the grain, they liked that too. So we're taking the easy route at the moment.
of soylent green?