Right here. I want you to notice something.
This always kinda bothered me. Organic chicken feed? What does that even mean? I picture Landlady picking this up at a yuppie chicken supply store that specializes in exotic breeds. That only sells “Fair Trade” coffee at their snack bar. Right next to the store that sells Shih Tzus and Priuses.
I mean, what do the chickens care? They can’t even spell “organic.” I can’t define it, but at least I can spell it.
Now me, I’m a guy. I want poultry feed that comes in a package that looks like somebody spat tobacco juice in it. I want a sack you’ve got to grunt to lift. ‘Cause that’s the way real men swing.
Real men buy their animal feed in generic looking sacks without pretty pictures on them, just a paper tag sewn to the sack when it was sewn shut. Don’t be a sissy.
Seriously though, at $15 per 50# for feed it is really hard to cost justify keeping chickens. It is cool to have neat looking birds that lay different colored eggs. and you can eat them when they’re done laying, but have you ever eaten a 2 year old chicken? You had better have a slow cooker and be very patient. There are lots of good reasons to keep chickens but economics probably isn’t one of them.
I suppose organic chicken feed is good. Given the stupid things’ intelligence, they probably would (and do; look at what they’ll peck off the ground) eat a bag of inorganic material. A bag of sand might be cheaper, but being carbon-based (i.e.- organic) lifeforms, we should probably limit our silicon intake.
Want to have fun with obnoxious greenweenies? Ask if they ever even tried an inorganic tomato… and if they chipped a tooth on it.
I don’t think so, Woody. If he used 10# in three weeks, that 50# bag will last him more than a year! Eggs here are $1.75 a dozen right now, and heaven knows what they’ll cost soon… Seems to me that’s a heck of a good economic deal.
And don’t fool yourself, two year old hens cook up mighty good in a crock pot, or a kettle on the wood stove (as soon as he can get Zoe to move, of course). You just have to exercise patience and keep it moist. I’ve eaten LOTS of old hens, and my family actually enjoyed them as much as frying chicken. It’s just different.
I keep feed costs down by going to the local grain elevator and buying screenings which are very inexpensive compared to bagged feed. When they are chicks I buy the bagged chick feed for them to make sure they get the nutrients they need to develop, but when they are grown they get grain screenings, leftovers, greens from the garden(I always grow a couple extra zucchini for them, they especially love the whalezinnies-ya know the ones that are as big as whales ) , I make sure they have oyster shell and grit and I let them out to forage too. They are always healthy and happy and don’t cost me an arm and a leg to keep them. This fall I bought a 1400# of wheat from the elevator that had accidently been dumped on the ground, it had a few little rocks in it, but nothing much, for $100. That will last for a long, long while.
Chickens will eat damn near anything, including other chickens.
They’ll also clean your meat bones, take care of the mouse in the trap, grow fat on the manure pile grubs & maggots…what a chicken won’t eat, probably hasn’t been found yet. Throw ’em the next rattler you chop up & by golly…it’ll taste just like chicken!