An invitation to participate in
The Home Feeding Project
Out of concern for both greater food security in uncertain economic times, and for the mediocre quality of commercial poultry feeds, I am getting more serious about providing more of my flock's feeds from home resources. I am actively experimenting with ways to produce more of my birds' feed here on the homestead—from taking advantage of existing resources like pasture or woods; to raising small grains and other seed crops myself; to working with decomposer organisms like redworms and soldier grubs (I like to call them “recomposers”) to convert organic “wastes” to feeding resources.
Are you experimenting as well with ways to increase the amount of your flock's nutrient needs that come out of the resources of your own home place? If so, I would love to hear from you. If we share ideas—both those that have worked and those that have failed—we can learn from each other and get back to “local food” for our flocks as well as for ourselves.
Before sending in your ideas, please read the three-page article “Feeding the Flock from the Homestead's Own Resources” for ideas I have published and have put up on the site. (Note as well that I will have an article on this subject early in 2010 in Mother Earth News.)
Please send me your thoughts at feeding@themodernhomestead.us. When you write, keep these points in mind:
- It is as easy for us to grow seed crops like corn and small grains as for farmers, though harvesting, threshing, and storing such crops are likely to be obstacles. Are there ways to make such options more practical?
- If you do advocate growing particular crops for home feeds, please specify type (e.g. single-head sunflowers with large seeds, or multi-headed types with smaller seeds) and/or varieties you have worked with.
- Remember to place your practices in context: species of fowl you are feeding, size of flock, management model, etc.
- If you have kept statistics that demonstrate the effectiveness of your practices, please include them.
- Certain strategies are so obvious and commonly used—“Feed kitchen scraps to the flock”—they don’t need to be mentioned. But your unique twist on such ideas could be useful: “I've arranged with a nearby sandwich shop to save me their food scraps.”
- Some bright ideas that failed to work out in practice may be worth sharing as well.
- Remember to include your location, and (if you know) your climate (plant hardiness) zone.
Thanks so much for participating so that we can all find our way to more independent poultry feeding. ~Harvey, September 27, 2009