Dave Roades

We've been struggling with transitioning away from the big city corporate world and would like to create a local economy with like minded people based on what we can produce with our time and energy with the land.  Sounds like this book may give some guidance and tips on making that a reality.  Thank you for this contribution and congratulations on self-publishing it!

One of the two chicks was found dead in the box yesterday so we are down to one chick.  Mom has essentially stopped sitting on the unhatched ones and is devoting her time to showing the remaining chick how to be a chicken.  We have removed the remaining eggs at this point for disposal.  Looked yesterday for any available newly hatched chick locally to try and sneak a couple more in for her, but no luck.  

We had a hen go broody and got her some fertilized eggs to set on.  At one point during the process she changed boxes and sat on some new eggs from the other laying hens.  We moved her back to her eggs that night and she stayed put.  We had two chicks hatch Friday from the clutch of eggs and moved her and the chicks and eggs to a new box in a small enclosure.  She still has 5 unhatched eggs, but is spending more time showing the new chicks how to go about getting food and such.  She still goes back to the eggs and sits on them for the majority of her time.  Any chance more will hatch out or should we get rid of them and let her focus on her new chicks?

Any chance they are laying somewhere other than your designated spot?  We found eggs in all kind of random places before our girls learned to use the nesting boxes we provided.  

It's just the remainder of the last 50 lb. sack I opened, perhaps 35 lbs.  Between chickens, BSFL, and compost I can spread it out and dispose of it pretty quickly.

I'm in east Texas and get 40+ inches of rain a year so sounds like the salt will not be an issue.  Good idea on feeding to the chickens in limited quantity too, hadn't thought of that.  They get calcium from BSFL and egg shells so shouldn't be a problem.

I have leftover feed from our last batch of pigs and would like to dispose of it.  While composing seems like the easiest and best option, I'm not sure if the salt will be a problem.  I have worms, BSFL, and hot piles to choose from if that helps.  Anyone out there have thoughts on the salt issue?

Looks like the flies laid eggs and you now have some maggots eating the food waste.  Not sure if its a problem for your worms.  

Welcome and thanks for being here!

Like Deb Mills above, my family just purchased a small piece of land with about 7 or 8 acres of pasture.  We would like to raise beef for our family and have extra to sell.  Dexters seem like a good option for our needs.  Any tips to avoid beginner mistakes would be greatly appreciated.  We are thinking about starting with a couple of steers to start slow, but would like to breed our own one day.