Fish Soup for Chickens

     As I write, this is cooking on the stove.  Fish (perch) heads, fish spines, fish eggs, duck eggs, and corn meal.  Looks appetizing -- no?  The chickens will go crazy for it.

     When my husband goes fishing, I scrounge the left overs.  This is a small pot, and I will end up feeding the whole thing to my 10 hens and 1 rooster today.  When they eat this, they don't touch their regular feed. Can we say saving on the feed bill?  I will throw them some scratch feed to balance out all this protein.

     I have an over abundance of duck eggs this winter.  (Such a warm winter?  I don't know why.)  I can't bake that much.  They may as well become a protein source for the chickens.

     I have found that if I add a little corn meal to the pot, the whole house doesn't end up smelling like fish -- I have no idea why, ....it just works.

.....dr momi

Linked To: Farm Girl Friday Blog Hop # 43

Foraging Chicken Food

       I make a special effort to forage some chicken food just because I like to see how happy it makes the chickens in the middle of winter.  I also like to think that a varied diet makes them healthier.  In late December and on, I'll start feeding them a handful a day of something foraged and stored up just for them.  I'll dry pig weed and clover all summer long in small bunches.  It helps keep my egg yolks a deep orange in the middle of winter.

       A couple of days ago I walked our recreational trail (a beautiful walk!) with a 5 gallon bucket looking for berries for the chickens.  I found: (excuse my fuzzy pics!)

 Highbush Cranberries. 
 The chickens love them (as do wild birds).
I made jelly out of them a couple years back.  I did not like it.
I understand that some varieties of  highbush cranberries taste
better than others.  The chickens don't care, they seem to relish them.
The leaves look like currant leaves.



...and I found some winterberries.
These aren't the flavor winterberry, but that is what they are called here.
Chickens love them.  (as do wild birds)
They also make a beautiful dried berry for holiday arrangements.
That's another post :-)



The Virginia Creeper was a beautiful red everywhere.......



And the Virginia Creeper had berries.
I DID NOT collect these!!  Can we say poisonous?
 (you knew that -- right Mama Pea & Erin?)
They look just like wild grapes, and in fact grow right in with
wild grapes!  The only way to really identify them especially after the leaves drop, is the red stem. 
Grapes do not have a red stem.  If someone offers you some wild grape jelly....ask them if they know
 what virginia creeper berries look like.  If they don't...I wouldn't eat it. :-)


     Any berries I collect will be air dried in the garage and then just stored in a bucket.  Highbush cranberries, winterberry, wild grapes, & rose hips, will all be dried for their winter buffet.  A good field guide for your area is really needed if you decide to go foraging.....but you should do it just to see the happy chickens!

.....dr momi

Linked To : Homestead Barn Hop
Linked To:  Frugal Day Sustainable Ways

Saving Asparagus Seed

   I save asparagus seed more for learning a skill than anything.  There's something in me that loves to save the seed, plant it, and watch it grow.  If your goal is to start a nice patch of asparagus, you might want to buy 3 year old male crowns in the spring.  They are perennial, and will last many, many, years.  Asparagus seeds form on the female plants.  Female plants are thinner, and I think tougher when eating, than the males.  So really, a bed full of the male plants is your ideal, especially if you have limited space. 

     The seed that I am gathering from female plants is from our "wild" patch.  All along our old horse fence, at every t-post, there is a few asparagus plants growing -- planted by the birds.  If we never get a formal asparagus bed going, Rick and I would have plenty for ourselves.  But, I'd like to have enough to pick for our big family meals.

     Every year I look at the price of asparagus crowns and just can't get myself to buy them.  So, now what I do, is every year I plant a big pot of seeds that I grow all summer, just like they are some of my flowers, and then transplant them in the fall.  You have to wait 3 years to be able to harvest.  These will be an old variety now unknown -- as opposed to the new hybrid crowns you would buy.  There will be male and females.  Some people pull the females as weeds.  I won't.  I consider the berries excellent food for the chickens.  I will air dry them, and feed them over winter.





Pick the berries when they are red.






Squeeze out the seeds into some water and gently work them clean.






Air dry them well.  Then gently clean off any remaining pulp before storing.



      About 6 weeks before you want to plant them, put them in a  bag in the freezer for stratification. (a pretend winter)  I start them in organic potting soil, outside.  No need to start them in the house.  They grow easy!

Linked To: Farm Friend Friday
Linked To: Farmgirl Friday Blog Hop
Linked To: Homestead Barn Hop
Lnked To:  Frugally Sustainable




.....dr momi

I'd say.....Half Grown

     The pigs are growing exponentially. 

    They have long out grown their "doghouse",  and we were trying to figure out how to shelter them.  The problem is, that moving the dog kennel every week has worked out so well, we don't want a shelter that would stop us from doing that.  Now I think, because it is (finally) summer, if they are protected from the sun and rain with some tarps, that they will be just fine.  The plan is to butcher in late Aug. or early Sept. anyway. 

     Rick built a shelter, but it is too big and heavy for inside the kennel, and using it outside the kennel with some pig panels makes it too hard to pick up and move it.  Guess what, the pigs have no idea we are having this conundrum :-).  They are still way happy pigs.  Extra duck and chicken eggs,  last years venison (from a nasty big buck -- shall we say a bit strong tasting), fish head and roe soup, and weeds from the corn rows are all supplementing their feed right now.  When they see me in the garden, they beg like little dogs for food.

     On the "cleared land" after we move the pen, we ended up planting oats.  We now have 6 successions of planted oats.  The first plot is just heading out.  There is some weeds in it, but not quack grass!  I doubt we will get grain on all of it, (probably planting some of it too late) but it is fun experimenting.  The oats will be for feeding the chickens this winter.  We will dry it and leave it on the straw.  When I throw it to the chickens, it becomes bedding and scratch all in one.




Oats are just starting to head out.
We're working the pen back this way,
should end up with a 48' x 24' new garden space.
Check out Happy Growing Pigs to see how
we started out this adventure.





You KNOW what I'm thinking......  :-)

   
.....dr momi