We went to Publix and asked the bakery department for a left-over icing bucket. After drilling some holes and attaching it to a shallow plastic dish (like the kind that goes underneath terracotta pots), we had our nearly-free chicken feeder.
Showing posts with label feed. Show all posts
Showing posts with label feed. Show all posts
Chicken feeder
Hand-fed
We've discovered a fun new past time.
Hand-feeding our chickens. Except for Princess (Saleighna's chicken). She pecks at everything but the feed, and it hurts.
Hand-feeding our chickens. Except for Princess (Saleighna's chicken). She pecks at everything but the feed, and it hurts.
Getting ready for the newcomers
So the coop is ready for its new inhabitants, but we're still working out a couple of details to make sure the chickens are happy and healthy. We started out by getting some feed (developer and some scratch). We're hoping to start out with older chickens, so we don't have to worry about incubating and feeding young chicks.
Nobody here has ever raised chickens before, so we're a bit unsure about all of the specifics. Most of the books we've read are pretty unclear or really technical about a lot of things, but we're learning slowly. Things are going to get a bit more complicated when we have a bunch of birds of (probably) different ages running around, but we'll sort things out in the end I'm sure. Thankfully we're able to start out with all of this on a small scale, so later on we can know a little bit about everything when we decide to expand.
Nobody here has ever raised chickens before, so we're a bit unsure about all of the specifics. Most of the books we've read are pretty unclear or really technical about a lot of things, but we're learning slowly. Things are going to get a bit more complicated when we have a bunch of birds of (probably) different ages running around, but we'll sort things out in the end I'm sure. Thankfully we're able to start out with all of this on a small scale, so later on we can know a little bit about everything when we decide to expand.
Timothy hay
Taylor and I are hoping to raise rabbits in the near future for several reasons:
They breed like... well, rabbits.
They're a great source of lean meat
They have a really high ratio of input(food) to output(meat)
They're quiet, don't make a huge mess, and are relatively low-maintenance.
They're a great source of high-nitrogen fertilizer.
After looking into this quite a bit, we've decided it could prove economical and efficient to grow our own food for these rabbits. In addition to giving them leftover greens from the garden, we also plan on growing timothy hay (and eventually wheat straw) to feed them.
This brings me to the second package I was expecting in the mail: timothy hay seeds!
We ordered one ounce of seeds for about five bucks with free shipping. We're hoping this will fill about 100 square feet of area, which should be plenty to feed four rabbits.
Timothy hay is a perennial, so hopefully we can harvest this in a manner that lets it continue to grow without having to reorder more seeds. For five bucks though, I think this might be a great investment. One ten-pound bag of commercial rabbit feed runs about $8, and consists mostly of timothy and alfalfa. With some extra veggies thrown in for more vitamins, I think these rabbits should do just fine.
They breed like... well, rabbits.
They're a great source of lean meat
They have a really high ratio of input(food) to output(meat)
They're quiet, don't make a huge mess, and are relatively low-maintenance.
They're a great source of high-nitrogen fertilizer.
After looking into this quite a bit, we've decided it could prove economical and efficient to grow our own food for these rabbits. In addition to giving them leftover greens from the garden, we also plan on growing timothy hay (and eventually wheat straw) to feed them.
This brings me to the second package I was expecting in the mail: timothy hay seeds!
We ordered one ounce of seeds for about five bucks with free shipping. We're hoping this will fill about 100 square feet of area, which should be plenty to feed four rabbits.
Timothy hay is a perennial, so hopefully we can harvest this in a manner that lets it continue to grow without having to reorder more seeds. For five bucks though, I think this might be a great investment. One ten-pound bag of commercial rabbit feed runs about $8, and consists mostly of timothy and alfalfa. With some extra veggies thrown in for more vitamins, I think these rabbits should do just fine.