Deborah Epstein

Clayton High wrote:

I'd love to get my hands on some popbean seeds if anyone has any extras.

I have been looking for seeds for a couple of years and these have been super hard to find. I have been on the resilientseeds.com mailing list, waiting for a notification that these would be available and today, January 1, 2022, they finally are! Presumably she does not have many because ordering is limited to a single 1-ounce seed packet — Enough for possibly one or two servings and enough seed to plant a real amount next year, hopefully. So if you want to order, I would do so immediately.

Now to see if I can get them to grow, and more importantly to see if I can get them to pop! I broke a tooth earlier this year over exactly nothing so I will not be risking my teeth on hard unpopped kernels. This adventure is mainly a giant favor to my husband who loves things like  corn nuts and has been gleefully parching cascade ruby gold corn.

Ellendra, I've recently discovered a number of the varieties Carol Deppe talks about in the Resilient Gardener available at resilientseeds.com, in case you'd like to add that resource to your spreadsheet. I'm looking forward to ordering from them for the next season, as they're near-ish me. Sadly, no Goldini. But some of the beans and more. Thank you for putting together this list!

Thank you, Skandi. That gives me some really good thinking material. They are varying breeds and non-breeds. Mainly they seem not that big except a couple. There is 1 adult hen who lays almost daily, and 2-3 pullets who have begun laying. I think what I might do is free-feed them dry food with little extra (except gardening weeds) and measure how many pounds they eat in a 24-hour or 48-hour period, and then repeat that with fermented. I can probably find out the # of calories per pound from the grower, and that will give me a target of flock-calories as a baseline. At least I'll have a starting place for what happens when I give them produce, how much to jigger their feed by (then it'll get cold or they'll molt and throw everything off, lol). They probably do get several pounds of apples when apples happen (b/c lots fall off the tree!), but you help me understand that the kale and zucchini, while probably several pounds combined per day, possibly really is just too much water to be noticeably offsetting feed.

Hilarious observation about the mice! (I personally would totally be with them). I have a couple flock members who enthusiastically eat worms. Others I literally see spit them out!! I have hopes that the non-worm-eaters might eventually learn by observation...

My chickens always act like they're starving. I've read out on the webs that chickens generally eat 3-4oz/day (of mash, and I think that assumes that's their main intake).

They don't free range; they're in a run that's about 600 sq feet at a time, and which moves every couple-few weeks. Right now the grass is dry and there's not much self-forage.

I'm feeding my 13 chickens (12 right around 5mos old plus 1 adult hen) an organic mixture of grains/legumes (shifting from grower, 15% protein - to layer 20%; right now I'm mixing them around 50/50). I ferment it, b/c in theory that's supposed to improve bioavailability and help them eat less (which I don't see, though I generally only ferment for 1 day, sometimes 2, if that's relevant). I don't leave food "out" all the time, so nobody else (e.g. rodents) is eating it, and they always finish it. I feed them several pounds/day of produce from my garden (the grass in their run is brown since no rain, so that doesn't contribute much). They can dig around for bugs, although with the exception of 1 or 2 of them, they are generally not super fond of worms (annoying!).

SO, my question. It SEEMS like given how much produce I give them (currently apples, shredded zucchini, kale/broccoli leaves), and that I ferment their feed, I should be able to give them noticeably less than 4oz each per day. When I tried 2.25 pounds total (2.75 oz/bird), because of the large quantity of produce (and also I had a half gallon of expired milk that I fed them over those three days to supplement protein), they "acted" like they were starving. They certainly weren't, they just ate frantically when I dished it out. So I bumped that back up to 3.25 oz/bird, and they still act quite hungry (eating super way fast when I show up with food). So I've shifted that back up to 3.75 oz/bird, which they still finish readily, but they act less panicked about it. It just *seems* like so much, based on how much other food they're getting. I realize the produce is less calorie-dense. Is it really just barely impactful?

I'm working on building a compost pile for the run they're about to move to. The last one, in their prior location, wasn't broken down enough to be providing lots of bugs before I moved them, so I do not have this angle dialed in yet...

Besides wishing I could keep feeding (and thus per-egg) costs reasonable, what I'm really wanting is to reduce reliance on outside feed, I want to increase reliance on feed I can generate on my land (turning their beaks up at worms is not helpful). For the winter: I have maybe 80-90 starts of kales and mustards that I'll be growing as a chicken garden for winter-food (I'm zone 8, maritime PNW, so this should hopefully grow enough before it gets cold, and overwinter), plus I grew some extra winter squash to share with them.

How much feed would you think is necessary in this scenario?

Hans Quistorff wrote: With tee mink pressure definitely do not make the nest boxes to pull out of the back. make the roof so it opens on the back to reach the nest boxes. The purpose of the larger mesh is to prevent build up on the mesh requiring  frequent cleaning. The problem could be a solution if you have some building skills.
Make a tray with plywood and 2x2 around the edge to slide under the roosting bars instead of having the mesh on the bottom. If you notice Justin was putting a tarp under the chickshaw to catch the droppings. With the tray it would be mink proof and you could pull the tray twice a week and use the fertilizer.
Feel free to contact me on my face book page Qberry Farm if you have questions because I am a ferry ride away.

Thank you, neighbor! We are currently thinking about making a second layer, lined with 1/2" mesh, that would hinge downward to open to the ground. Then the poop would fall through the 1" openings so the chickens wouldn't be walking on it. Poop would get caught on the next layer down, but then once/week or so we could tip it open and spray it down with a hose (or someone suggested lining it with cardboard, which idea I think I like). We'll consider that vs. tray once we get it built and see the bottom.

I appreciate your pointing out the hole-size problem on the nesting boxes. Those gaps will definitely be big enough to permit predators! We'll see how tight those look like they'll fit to figure out about whether to close that whole deal with an extra "door" lined with 1/2" mesh, or make the back solid and open the roof from the back.

Artie Scott wrote:So this is really timely, as I now have all the materials and am about to build the chickshaw mini me. My plan was to use electrified poultry netting to contain the chooks and exclude the predators as I move it around the pasture.

Does this solve the concern around the 1” mesh, or do folks still think it too risky?

Artie, I read that electric fencing doesn't help with mink. Evidently their fur is so thick that they don't feel it...

The very bottom leaves, the so-called "seed leaves" aren't relevant. They die back once the plant gets going. But otherwise on the true leaves, there's more yellow than I would want to see. I would try potting them up into the next size, and fertilizing a little more. I suspect that for the size the plant is now vs. the pot they're in, they're using up the available nitrogen rapidly.

Separately, this isn't what you asked, but have you planted out in April in your zone in prior years? You might know this works fine. Only asking because I'm in Zone 8b, and I never plant out tomatoes, squash, or basil until after memorial day.

I'm hoping to find people with experience using the Justin Rhodes chickshaw. It looks like a great idea! He's adamant about not using smaller than 1" mesh for the bottom (although the sides have 1/2" mesh). That's the size that allows the poop to drop through the bottom to be self-cleaning, and anything smaller and it won't.

I'm wondering for folks who are using this specific design, what your experience is with small predators. We have mink in our area. I'm reading that they could fit in through a 1" opening, so that makes me nervous. One thing I'm not clear about is whether mink can get through a 1" opening that is up off the ground by 2 feet (not sure being up off the ground helps at all; just wondering). So I'm hoping to find someone who is using the chickshaw AND has mink predator pressure in their area, as to whether you a) have had trouble or b) have modified the design and how.

If nobody has this combination (chickshaw + minks), I'm curious to hear from folks who have mink pressure in their area, about what you know about a 1" opening. It's so hard to separate experience from theory on the internet...

Thanks

I planted lots of crimson clover last fall as a cover crop. Then I neglected to cut it down while it was small and it has flowered. It's totally gorgeous. Or it was. I just pulled it all up to use it as slow-release nitrogen in vegetable beds. partly because I remember hearing not to let it go to seed because it will spread like mad. Is this true? (Zone 8b, Vashon Island, Washington)

Since they flowered, I noticed that the bees loved them so I was ambivalent about pulling them up. Even though it's after the fact I thought I might check for next year's purposes... Next year, can/should I plant some for the bees in a place I don't need to pull them up, or will I regret it?

Also, I didn't see root nodules like I see on my fava beans, and they were planted together, so I assume they don't make them. My (possibly incorrect) understanding about using beans for nitrogen fixation, is that you need to cut them at ground level and leave the roots in place, and that's how they'll release their fixed nitrogen. For crimson clover, do I likewise need to leave the roots in place? I didn't this time because I needed to clean some things up, and figured that chop/drop into various beds (or my compost pile) will ultimately accomplish the same goal.

Thanks for helping me understand!
Deborah

Usually when I have meat that's gone bad, or poultry or lamb bones that are all squished up after having been pressure-cooked for bone broth, I give the remnants to a neighbor's pig. That's still an option. But, I'm wondering if I can capture the nutrition for my own garden.

As I was filleting a fish, I realized that people pay a lot of money for fish meal or fish bone meal for their gardens. So I thought I'd start saving things like that, and used soup bones, and bury them in my garden (like a foot deep, to avoid vermin).

Which then raised an additional question. My MIL ordered 20 lbs of raw ground rabbit (with bones and organs) for her cats, but delivery has gone sideways and since it's coming late, it may not be possible to feed to her cats (If it arrives thawed). When this happened before, it went to the pigs. But it got us wondering whether we can bury this in the garden too.

Our property abuts a creek, but which is about 275-325 feet from the garden. Still, we don't want excess nitrogen leaking into it and harming the waterway.

1) Is anything about this just plain a bad idea?
2) Is burying 1 foot the right depth? (we're in the country, so assume rats, coyotes, racoons). I'm not advanced enough to be doing hot-composting (yet), and also putting it in an aboveground pile would make me more concerned about vermin.
3) I read somewhere to mix it with sawdust and ag lime before burying (which was talking about a single dead animal, not 20 lbs of meat). While I theoretically know one wants a 30:1 ratio going into a compost pile, I don't know what this means in terms of volume of sawdust to volume of rabbit meat (or soup/fish bones) getting buried directly in the garden.
4) I think mixing it up with biochar would help reduce leaching. Yes? How much? I make it in my fireplace.
5) Would I want to bury under walking paths, rather than right under future plants b/c planting will happen in only about 6 months? (Also i do have some fall beds with young plants)

Thank you in advance for any ideas on this!
Deborah
Vashon Island, WA