Robert Neal

Matt McSpadden wrote:Hi Robert,
98% of my experience is with egg layers or dual purpose, so I am flying a little blind when it comes to meat birds. Generally they say about 1/4lb per bird, so that would be about 11lb per day for your flock without extra food sources. So 4-7 sounds like a good amount to make them hungry and go for other food.

Do you notice them scratching around other places?

Perhaps spreading their food on top of the compost pile would help?

Since they can get out of the electronet, they end up going and looking around. Which is great. They aren't bad foragers that's for sure, but not as good as my egg layers. Once I add the plastic mesh and clip their wings, they will be forced to stay in there.

I did sprinkle food on top of the piles, and that does help but not enough. I really need them to get aggressively hungry and tear the piles apart to break up the clumps. Maybe it's just a matter of confining them to that area and making them look at all the compost pile as the only option available

Matt McSpadden wrote:Hi Robert,
How new are the piles? It sounds like they are old enough to have life in them, which is good. A fresh pile will take some time to attract the bugs and microbes that chickens like to eat.

How long have the chickens been exposed to the piles? And is this their first time? Chickens have a lot of learned behavior. They are also tentative to try new things. Once they try them and are exposed to them enough, they will get more used to them.

How much food do you give them? A chicken can be quite lazy. If they have an easy source of food, they will not often work hard to get different food. I might suggest feeding them less regular food... or perhaps feeding them at a different time. Maybe give them the morning to be hungry and go scratch around, and then feed them in the afternoon?

Lastly, I have not raised Freedom Rangers before, but I do understand they are a meat bird. Meat birds do not seem to have the same level of energy and drive that many dual purpose or egg laying breeds have. That is my own opinion with very little to back it up scientifically :)

They are somewhat new. I set them up probably a week and a half ago. They may need a little more water too.
When I turned them, it was warm and wet inside, so there is activitiy
Some of my medium was old hay that was sitting around, LOADED with worms

As for feed, I will feed between 4 and 7 lbs of crumble a day for ~45 birds.

I already have a few action items that I need to take
1. Clip their wings
2. Put plastic mesh at the bottom of my electronet to stop them from getting out, and holding them in that area

Compared to CX, the freedom rangers are amazing. But I'm seeing the downside in their behaviors VS my laying flock. I have to say that my white leghorns really have things figured out.
Worst case, if this system doesn't work with the freedom rangers, I will try another breed like australorp, one of the rock breeds, etc.

I'll tell you what though
I was given a bunch of freedom rangers for free in 2021. These were our first chickens and gave a good medium to play with.
I made tons of mistakes and learned alot
I slaughtered all of them except for two
I kept one rooster because he was beautiful and I kept a hen. The hen actually went broody on 11 eggs, hatched them out, raised them for me. I fed them for a month or two after then processed them. They were smaller than a Cx, or a freedom ranger, but damn, they had a ton of meat considering their size. And they were excellent tempered, great foragers, and overall a joy to have. It was actually sad killing them. That hen still is around and she continues to be my best egg layer. Go figure

William Bronson wrote:Unless it's crawling with insects,  there's nothing in those piles for a chicken.
You could soak some grains or beans and dig them into the pile.
When they sprout you should get some interest.
My chickens compost food waste, with healthy doses of autumn leaves added.
They get tree hay and weeds as well, but I don't count on them eating that I just count on them shedding it.
The coop bedding goes in with the rest, but it's not something that feeds them directly.

True. I understand that. When I turned rhevpioes yesterday for these lazy birds, there were all kinds of creepy crawlies in there. Im sure it will ramp up. But they just still don't seem interested in finding them

Its well documented on YouTube that people raise birds off compost pikes. Billy bond of permapastures, and Justin Rhodes are two people that come to mind. It works for them, not sure why it isn't working for me.

Hi everyone
I am trying to reduce my feed store intakes this year
I have setup a mobile chicken coop for ~47 freedom rangers. I have them setup in an paddock with a 100' poultry net. I have two compost piles that I want them to work.

The chickens are still small enough to escape the fence, so I am going to put plastic mesh at the bottom to stop that.
But besides that, they don't seem to terrible interested in tearing apart the compost pile.
I sprinkle on a bit of crumble and they will work the pile for a bit, but not enough

The pile is made of bedding from the chicken coop and duck coops. Poop mixed with hay. Kinda clumpy. Was hoping the chickens would tear it apart no problem

How can I encourage them to work these piles more?

Thanks!

paul wheaton wrote:

Robert Neal wrote:Hey guys
I ended up having a problem with my payment method. I just fixed it and need access
Kickerstarter email is the same as my email here.
Thanks!

I thought I would pop in and do a quick lookup.  Unfortunately, the quick kickstarter lookup tool no longer allows us to look up people via email.  Only name and backer number.

I learned that you did not use the name "Neal" in your kickstarter name.

Backer number?

Sorry for not following up sooner
It looks like the issue was resolved about a day after you asked for this info. I have access now
Thanks

Hey guys
I ended up having a problem with my payment method. I just fixed it and need access
Kickerstarter email is the same as my email here.
Thanks!

Hey guys
Zone 5b, southern New Hampshire,  USA.
I'm still a novice gardener. I want to grow a patch of various pumpkins, squashes, and others. I am looking to figure out ways to fight the two biggest pests in our area: vine borers and squash bugs.
What can I do to keep the whole thing organic or better? Very very open to polyculture but just not sure what to plant and how yet.
Thanks

Phil Stevens wrote:We have a similar amount of grazable area to you, it seems. Maybe a little less tree cover proportionally, and our climate is milder than yours. Our pasture pretty much stops growing for winter and we are subject to summer/autumn droughts that bring everything to a screeching halt. With that, we're currently grazing four sheep and an alpaca and at the moment have an almost ridiculous feed surplus. I've already cut and baled this year's hay crop and we keep getting just enough rain to keep things lush, which is unusual for the height of summer.

In a more "normal" year I think we'd be right at the nominal point feedwise. However, the pasture productivity is on a definite upward trend since I changed the grazing rotation to smaller paddocks and move them more often. The legumes (clover, lotus) and broadleaf species like chicory, plantain and burnet are showing a lot of resurgence since I cooped up the chickens. Overall it is about twice as abundant as it was 2-3 years ago, but this mad be partially down to the incredible excess rainfall we've had.

My interventions are mostly in the form of oversowing bare patches and throwing seeds around pretty much at random. When mowing with the scythe, I always leave patches of legumes in the hay paddock to carry on flowering and set seed, then use those to scatter around the property. I've also been topdressing with biochar, using uncrushed material and letting the animals walk over it to break it up and tread it into the topsoil. This appears to have really helped out one section in particular that got turned into a mud bog last winter. We no longer have problems with standing water even after torrential rains...it all soaks in within a day or less.

Wow. That's insane. The pretty much busts all of the "conventional" wisdom for acreage per animal.... Seems like I can do way more than I think with the land I have. Maybe even raising a beef cow if I get as much pastured developed as I'de like..... Good share, thanks!

S Bengi wrote:My idea of a silvo pasture/savannah/prairie is one that is at most 25%, but there isn't some legal definition of what a silvo-pasture and even if there was so what, lol.

I think that some diakon radish/tillage radish will help de-compact the soil. And then a nice foundational layer of 80% legumes. I think that rotational grazing will help improve the pasture too, and for that you could just get some portable electric fencing/netting, and move it daily, so that you have 28-49 mini-pastures. With that many "mini-pasture" you will be able to give each one at least a months rest that will help the "herd" with worms/etc and it will also give the "grass" enough time to recover and grow back.

That is a very good idea. The area in my pictures is probably 1.4 acres total. I'm not looking to support 6 or even 4 sheep on that area, maybe 2 with a little supplemental feed. If I could run a flock of geese or other smaller "mini rumanent) alongside the two sheep, that would be perfect.

I have been recommended Daikon raddish, and I definitely need some of that to decompact the soil, and increase water infiltration. I have an area on the left specifically that has almost no water infiltration and turns into a mud pit. Might be a good area to introduce ducks into though!

The center line of the middle area is actually a sort of driving path. Looking at older pictures on google earth, the previous owner drove down there a lot more than I do. Now the grass is taking over that area, and in summer of 2021 when it was very wet for the second half, it was a beautiful green sea with just a vague rock path. That makes me think I need to take more pictures as I go along.

Phil Stevens wrote:All the machinery is there. You just need to oil some gears and a way to set it in motion. Sheep are great for breaking in rough pasture and you could follow them with chickens in a tractor. Careful with free-ranging poultry, as they will preferentially eat all the herbaceous stuff and leave you with a grass dominant sward. You want a good mix of legumes and forbs for N fixation and deep taproots to bring up minerals, and chickens in particular are really rough on the forbs.

I noticed what my free ranging chickens did this past year and I'm not very happy about my lack of management of them. They ate my back field (the center area) clean of clover which I didn't really think they would do.
Those were freedom ranger meat birds, though. This year, I am probably only going to free range my layers, and I already have a maggot bucket setup for the spring, plans to get a small compost ring inside their (massive) coop (one side of the barn for 11 chickens), and hopefully I can find a food waste stream locally. I didn't really know what I was doing and was trying to keep feed costs really low without understanding the bird in a holistic sense. I've learned a bit and this year I'll do better.

On the bright side, once they exhausted the clover and what not, they moved to a weird dirt patch that got taken over by burdoch, feral lettuce, etc, and found a ton of snacks in there.

If sheep are a key here, I may bite the bullet and add two.... I already have fencing in place and a place for them to sleep.