Chickens for bug control and food recycling.

[journey11]

I've been rotating my chickens around the gardens and tossing all my compost right in with them. Sure beats having to shovel it up and haul it to the desired spot. They do all the turning for me too. (This pic is of last year's garden, btw. This year's was a mess of weeds.)



Processing the old hens is always just a little bit harder for me than the cockerels or CX for meat. We've got 8 EE hens to do as soon as they hit moult. They've been great layers, laid some really nice blue/green eggs.

We bought 6 Bourbon Red turkey poults last month to try our hand at for the first time and I have been surprised that turkeys are really hard to keep alive! I have 2 remaining which are strong and growing well. The others just dropped off randomly like flies. These were supposed to be next Easter's dinner, but I was hoping to have a couple of hens to keep for breeding and buy a new, unrelated tom. I'm afraid I'll get attached to them now after rooting so fervently for them to live.

 

[Smart Red]

That is a beautiful garden. My garden this year is mostly weeds as well. Sigh!

 

[Beekissed]

That is a beautiful garden! Green, lush and orderly...love it!

Bee, do you pre cook and strip meat off bones, or do you can raw chicken in pieces? I have canned broth, but not the meat.

I usually can it raw, right on the bone, just add salt and water to the jar. Then, if I want to make broth and I'm processing many chickens, I'll take the rib/back section and organs and cook them down with the fat to make some broth and can that separately.

To me, precooking it would just render a product that's just been cooked to death, as it gets pretty well cooked in the pressure canner anyway.

 

[catjac1975]

I refer to what my chickens produce as instant compost. They eat most every thing. They will forage all winter in the veggie garden attached to their yard.

 

[journey11]

Last year was the first time I canned chicken meat as I usually just freeze it. I was so surprised that the BBB gave me options--raw pack or hot pack. I tried them both to see how it would turn out. Raw pack was quicker and easier, but I did like that any extra fat melted off in the few minutes of cooking it for hot pack. It made the chicken in the jar look just a little cleaner and pinker to me. I will probably do hot pack again next time. It's not really cooking it through though, just heating it up first. Cockerels and tough old birds will always get pressured canned from now on, since it makes the meat all nice and tender. Don't you just love how handy it is to pop open a jar for dinner?

My poor garden now... Didn't we do an honest truth thread once in the past? I'd be ashamed to show you this year's jungle of weeds. Every so often I wade out there and find a couple of tomatoes. Well, soon enough the frost will come and wipe the slate clean. Better luck next year!

 

[Beekissed]

I do love the ease of it all....can get into soup or casserole real quick and in a hurry. I love leaving the fat on the chicken and in the jar, though when I make broth I'll render that out and skim it off to freeze separately for cooking with. It makes the best ever potato soup...gives it an unctuousness that is decadent!

Chicken fat from these chickens fed on fermented feed is so flavorful, silky and smooth that it's just beautiful! This is a gallon freezer bag full....I freeze it flat so I can just break off pieces of it for cooking.

 

[Beekissed]

Our new chicken dog is fitting right in and ignoring the chickens like he should, which is pretty amazing in a dog so young and in puppyhood. I'll get more pics of him today, as he is filling out and more active, growing in confidence each day.

I'm amazed at this little dog's behavior and am really liking him, thanking God for his arrival and his good fit into this homestead. He's a real gift to us! His presence will help us during the hawk migration this year and he will be a real help to Jake this winter when the coyotes visit the meadow...Jake's getting old, so he really needed a partner.

The dogs are integral to our keeping chickens here, so having one that fits into the way we live is incredibly helpful.

 

[Smart Red]

I am so happy the adoption has had such happy results for both you and the pup. It's a good thing when that happens.

 

[Beekissed]

Did some seasonal work in the coop the other day and am glad that I did...rainy and cold here now, so the chickens have a snug place to hole up if they should want to. Right now they are out in the front yard grazing in the pouring rain, so it seems they don't really need my "snug coop" contribution.

Anyhoo, cleaned out the nest boxes and the dog house, putting the hay and straw under the roosts and covering that with a cart load of wood chips. Trying to trap the moisture present under the roosts....I'll need that moisture for continued composting there.

Pics of this seasonal adding to the DL....

I'll be raking loads and loads of leaves into the coop soon and storing bags and bags of the same for winter bedding. All of this translates into compost for the garden next spring, healthy footing for the chickens while in confinement due to cold and snow this winter, and gives them something to do...they can hunt for bugs and worms all winter in that bedding. The composting deep litter also provides a warmth to the coop that can keep it 10 degrees warmer at roost level than the outside air...and that's in a very open air type coop, where I leave huge open areas all winter for ventilation.

I'll be removing the composted litter from the middle and front of the coop once again real soon, screening it out and putting the fine particles on the garden. This system is an ongoing source of compost and of great benefit to my chickens in many ways. This is the dry, fine particles at the front of the coop that need scooping out, screened and placed on the garden...

All of this is a rolling system of recycling of food...the chickens create their own compost to help me grow more food, then they eat the scraps of it all...what they don't eat gets buried in the deep litter for the worms and bugs there..., and they deposit the nitrogen rich poo right where I need it.

My only job is to flip some bedding over the poop every other day, add new materials as needed and then just take out the goodness and put it on the garden, already composted and ready for use. This year I'll be adding lime to the DL throughout the winter to keep it more balanced for use in the spring. This has a two fold benefit...the chickens get more calcium, phosphorus and potassium in their diet when they forage in the coop and the compost is a more balanced addition for my gardening needs.

I love this method of keeping a coop! No smell, no flies, little work, making something useful and ready to use, keeping a healthier habitat for my chickens. There are no downsides to this composting deep litter.

 

[ninnymary]

Bee, why is there a type of tray underneath the roost on the left of the first picture? Is it to catch the poop? At first I thought it was some type of feeding tray but the roost above it would cause poop to fall in the feed. So I don't think that's what it is.

Mary