Plan For Your Winter Poultry Needs NOW
Plan your winter poultry needs NOW
We have a small flock at the farm—about twenty-five chickens and fifteen turkeys. Of those, eight will make it to the new year: five of them chickens (four hens and a rooster) and three turkeys (two tinas and a tom—our breeding stock for the upcoming year). The rest will grace our table and for that we give thanks.
And these eight will need to be fed. Now, in the Summer, that’s easy. There’s plenty of grass and grubs to go around. But in the Winter…
Which leads me to the topic I’m addressing today. How do you keep that level of good nutrition up year-round? Simple. Start now.
Each chicken will need a quarter pound of feed a day, and the turkeys a half pound. That’s one of the reasons we reduce our stock so much. Now. To make that up, we grow corn and beans, squash (for the seeds) and sunflowers (For a little snack for them, I’m also drying mulberries). All that is not that unusual, and you may already be doing that on your farm. Or not. But here’s where it get’s a bit different.
All seeds (corn, beans, pumpkin, sunflowers) that we’ll use as feed will be stored in burlap sacks until we sprout them. The act of sprouting increases the weight, protein, calories, and in general, nutrients as a whole. I will be going over the process of sprouting for animal feed a little closer to when you’ll need it. For now, it’s just important to get some seeds in the soil so you have something to sprout. Beans, corn, sunflowers, and pumpkin seeds work best, but pea and wheat seeds work as well.
And, speaking of wheat…
We go one step further than sprouting with our wheat. Those seeds get planted in flats and placed in our green house (a cold frame, south facing window, or grow light work as well) and left to grow all winter long. The trays are rotated so that one is getting harvested (clipped) each day, with those clippings going to the flock.
The only thing missing with this set-up is calcium. And that the chickens take care of themselves. Whenever we consume an egg, the shells are saved to be pulverized. That powder is then mixed in with the sprouts. Just be careful to smash them completely. A chicken can turn itself into an egg eater if they even suspect that’s what they’re getting.
To be as sufficient as possible, we need to consider ALL our winter needs, including those of our flock. With the way the world is now, we can’t depend on the stores having the feed we need. If we plan ahead and start now, we can make sure our flock is well cared for all winter long.
