Eggs

[INresponse]

My thinking- chickens unlike many homestead critters can basically feed themselves scratching around for ticks and other bugs as well eating plants . Many critters need feed , hay and such . I do indeed feed my chickens and feed them well , way beyond what most chickens get for food . However this going to a feed store to get critter food may " soon " be a thing in history . This thinking is why I got rid of my milk goats as I didn't have enough food for them , without going to a feed store and buying food for their survival . I think in the terms of life after S.H.T.F. such as the aftermath and subsequent years of life without fuel for fetching feed from stores or for that matter even there being a store to obtain food for critters - or to a grocery store for my household consumption . I have prepared for a pre -fossil fuel , medieval type of lifestyle .

I diced and cooked up another 4 pounds of beef liver for our birds today. I have done this 4 times now over the past couple months. This adds a lot of extra protein to their diet and will hopefully boost their egg production during this cold spell. When we get our beef from the butcher we ask for any and all extras. The butcher is awesome and knows we feed the extras to our birds so she slices the liver and packages it into smaller packs to make it easier for us. Same with the heart and other helpful parts.
Should feed become unavailable or over priced (it is already expensive compared to a few years ago) I will expand their already large fenced in area offer them more areas to scratch. We could also heard them out across the road to the forest service land an hour or two a day and let them have at all the free range goodies out there, but it would take a few of us to keep them out there or they would just run back home. They know there home and even if they escape their fenced in area they wont wander far from their fence.

When I had chickens, we use to add egg shells into their diets, but it was just much easier to add store bought calcium. We were told to never offer them any egg byproduct (omelets, fried eggs) because they would associate it and begin eating their own eggs. I don't think my people really knew, but just guessed.

We scramble up eggs all the time for our birds, many times crunching up the shells into the mix. We also add in garlic powder and oregano as both of them are very healthy for the birds to eat. We have never had a bird mess with any eggs. We heard those claims, but we never had a problem.