Looks like a great video on free chicken feed

The YouTube gods sent me to this thing, I thought it was actually very well done and also very poetic.  

Mulberry, Comfrey, Siberian pea shrub, Hawthorne, worm bin, and tree hay from either mulberry or willow. Cold climate specific. Thoughts?

I think these videos are made with AI, and there’s another series with a guy in America who claims to be a ninth generation farmer and uses exactly the same turns of phrase and is more obviously AI generated.  

That being said, there’s some good information in there. I am going to do my own experiment and see if my birds will eat willow tree hay, but my birds aren’t chickens so it’s not the fairest test.

I’m trying how to relate to these many AI videos about homesteading that are coming out now. They may not actually be any more inaccurate than the ones made by fallible human beings who like to overgeneralize.

Joshua Myrvaagnes wrote: Mulberry, Comfrey, Siberian pea shrub, Hawthorne, worm bin, and tree hay from either mulberry or willow. Cold climate specific. Thoughts?

What's that old saying - if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is?

At least the AI was honest about how long it takes from planting to being large enough to be useful, but that mulberry bush looked more like 20 years old! My mulberry tends to get harvested by wild birds before the fruit drops?

Also honest about how comfrey shouldn't be daily or in large quantities.

The AI was also honest about how some things are climate specific. My Island is at the northern range of Black Soldier Flies, and several other plants/insects that have realistic potential for warmer climates.

The AI aspect of the video is annoying to me, so I struggled to pay close attention, but he didn't mention paddock shift at all, and I suspect it would be required to really make a system like this work. In particular, I missed how often he's giving the birds worms from his bin, and that would be useful information. I don't know how often you can harvest enough worms from a bin that size, to keep 20 hens happy. My guess is that a single feeding of worms would be 5 to 10 worms per bird, so you'd need 50 to 100 worms. And you have to get the worm food from somewhere? Is that food the chickens could have been eating directly?

This system also takes more work to manage than he's implying. The worms need feeding, most people would have to dry the tree hay in stages - if 1 bundle feeds 20 birds, and we get at least 4 months of winter (probably 5), that's 120 bundles or more! This is why most people reduced their head count in the winter, and trusted the birds to be self-replicating in the spring.

So yes, there are some good ideas in the video, and many of them would be excellent supplements and an important part of a paddock shift system.   It would likely take a bit more experimentation and a wider option of foods. My friend has some kale planted in pots in her Banty run and her Seabright's love to do self-serve, as an example.

Joshua Myrvaagnes wrote: I’m trying how to relate to these many AI videos about homesteading that are coming out now. They may not actually be any more inaccurate than the ones made by fallible human beings who like to overgeneralize.

Yes, the AI was honest about how misleading many videos are, and I tend to agree. The more videos a person puts out, the more they're likely using the videos as a major income stream, and thus the less I trust the content. Videos take a *lot* of time to design, script, film and edit - that's time the authors aren't out doing work like cutting tree hay!