Hey folks! You may have noticed by now
that when it comes to our “farm stuff”, we do a lot of learning
by trial and error. What farmer or homesteader doesn't, right? Don't
get me wrong. We research the basics and what we feel we need to know
on things, but, as with most things on life, it's never quite
that simple, is it?
One
such thing we've discovered (well, me, at least) recently is the
importance of protein in your chicken's diet. I'm willing to bet
about half, if not more, of backyard/small operation chicken keepers
out there buy some form of commercially produced chicken feed, so not
much thought is given to this, more than likely. With us switching
from store-bought feed to mixing up our own and the daytime being
shorter, it's become glaringly clear just how important protein
really is in our flock's diet!
If I
remember correctly, we mixed up our first batch of feed in early
December so obviously, the days were pretty short by then. I didn't
really think anything of it when the girls egg production went down
even more since I've read plenty of times that this is natural during
the winter. Anyhow, John did
mention after we started feeding them the new stuff and we were only
getting ONE egg a day, if that, that we needed to add some form of
protein to their diet as what we were using in their mix
did not contain enough.
Well,
John had planned on ordering some fish meal to add to their feed for
protein, but evidently unless you buy high-grade stuff, it ends up
making their eggs taste like fish. I obviously don't know if this is
true or not since we never tried it, but that's just what John found
in his research.
As
usual, some time went by and we kind of forgot about it/put it off,
but John did eventually research some things we could add for extra
protein. We started out by adding a packet of plain ole gelatin
powder to their feed each day. Someone, I won't mention names, is bad
about communication and didn't tell me I needed to put it in everyday
to make a difference in their egg production. (Now I know.) But, a
few days after we had
been consistent about putting it in, I was surprised to FOUR eggs
when I locked the girls up for the evening, which equaled FIVE for
the day as there was one waiting for me that morning!
We
also recently purchased some lentils as they are supposed to be high
in protein too. We just started those today, so I'll have to let you
know how that goes. Not surprisingly, most of the girls weren't crazy
about them when John tossed them out there dry, but once I hosed them
down some they started gobbling them up!
As I
mentioned in my post on switching to our own feed, we plan on
replacing some of the items in our feed, eventually, with others that
are higher in protein too. We are planning on growing a massive
amount of peas, from what I can tell (ha ha), so we will be replacing
the cracked corn with those as well as replacing the oats with wheat.
(To be honest, they don't seem to care much for the oats anyways!)
It's such a learning experience, this homesteading thing. Thanks for sharing on the Homestead Blog Hop!
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