I realized today that Iv been a permie member for 10 years. I haven't been active all of those years but it did make me think of what I was looking for that lead me to permies. Dumpster diving!
I was on my own, broke and had a kid way to young. I was looking for ways to reduce my expenses so I could stop working overtime to stay home with my kiddo.
So I got chickens and ducks for eggs. Started a garden and planted a few perennials. This was nice for summer and I quite enjoyed the outdoor time with my son.
All of this I had seen my family do but never really took the time to learn why they where doing stuff. So when times got tuff I couldn't afford the feed for these chickens and ducks who weren't even laying due to winter daylight hours gosh darn it!
So I started dumpster diving for feed for the birds and myself. There was alot of food waste in our small town grocery store at that time. Mostly whole foods and vegetables to. I was getting 200$ worth of groceries a week from that dumpster easy. But now what do I feed the chickens and how much? Can a chicken live off of raw potatoes??? There was a lot of theoretical stuff from folks at the time of what they could eat. But permies was the only solid place I could find at the time of people doing this permaculture thing and feeding there birds "weird" stuff.
I now no longer dive that dumpster but all the food from it gets given to us for our rotationally pasture pigs. They arnt organic but they are a recycled product now, think I can market that......
But all this to say I came to permies for a bit of advice about feeding chickens and stayed because the people here taught me more in 10 years about living as a permie then any school or book could. The community is supportive and open minded. The projects and accomplishments help show how permaculture can look all over the world. And they help inspire me to keep learning and doing. In our interesting times when people are worried its nice to have a solid idea on how to help ourselves and our communities.
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