No, literally 2 big punishing storms in the last 3 weeks.
The chickens managed fine even tho the wind was up to 130kph and the rain was pouring down.
Ahh ok that makes sense.
Yes from what I understand feeding chickens with more protein helps bump up the egg production. Three of mine are laying an egg a day, but the other two haven't yet started laying yet altho they're not far away. I also give them sprouted grains and a couple of times a week fermented grains too.I did the beets and added to the recipe I found online... I added to my taste a few bay leaf, some oregano and thyme or maybe rosemary.. ugh i forgot should have wrote it down bc its pretty good, the recipe just called for pinch of salt pinch of black pepper corns so I did that and called for a cup of sugar which is way too much for me so I used organic apple cider vinegar just tastes better I feel and used some red pepper flakes too but used more than 6 cloves of garlic it also called for.
With 1/4 cup sugar it tastes perfect and is still sweet, it's really firm once pickled but good.. different but good.
They get hard boiled first then peeled.. and I'm gonna try using a little vinegar and salt in the hard boil to make peeling the shell easier from now on..
But you can preserve fresh eggs in a pickling lime plain as is out fresh out the chicken and they're supposed to last up to 1 to 2 yrs preserved like that so when you get a bunch and don't know what to do you can preserve some, hard boil and do a few different kinds of pickled and I even find that if left alone a natural egg amazingly doesn't need refrigeration like most people would think.. because it has a natural bloom of bacteria protecting the egg people wash it off and they dont last as long. Have had eggs for months on the counter before this way. As long as you don't wash them! You have probably found this out already getting into keeping egg layers.
As long as you don't have a rooster fertilizing them too lol you won't need to worry about any surprises.
Can always feed them raw egg too if one gets cracked while your out there surprisingly is good for them.. I have fed my friends chickens everything in the yard the grapes from the wild vines growing around to sprouts from the lawn it self underneath things that covered stuff from sunlight you get those pale scraggly bunches of shoots from danelions or clover or grass.. the chickens loved that stuff.
But they fed them everything they would normally throw out which is kind of gross and questionable but they love human food! Eat everything you give them and they layedd tons of eggs it felt like out of nowhere too they just kept popping them out maybe at a similar rate it was nice having free organic eggs on hand.. just give them more than what you think you can and they should start laying a lot of eggs or at least thats what it seemed like the more random and wide the diet was the more eggs they seemed to have layed I feel like just all the extra nutrients...
Thats how fish breeders get their fish ready to lay more eggs or bear more live fish they widen the diets and up the protein/ nutrient contents and it makes a big help...
But that nure sure makes a good food just hot and needs time to be stable for plants or what do you find works if that's something you do?
My friend didn't bother because he had turkey too and they used the wood shaving so that was also in the litter and I feel to use it would all need to be composted for a season or 2 in a big pile and use each year's new pile the following year and so on. It just seems like a lot of waste to toss the waste when I pay for it in fertilizer blends.
The turkey is one nasty poopy hehe very foul smelling.. but composted should work wonders in soils. Just amazing how cheap you can feed animals if you know how to get food right from your land but that takes somecareful plotting and planning the right amount to keep for the off season and or just growing food for the off season when the prices might change on the feeds themselves if that happens. But things like alfalfa would be good to grow, even rice but soy for the nuts, corn is easy to grow too.. grains even and have a nice blend keep consistently happy animals its like old ways we have forgotten that more people should be getting into but it's easy when you have a business and money isn't much of an object to just get regular feed but even that has effects on meat and eggs.
See, I want to get I to chickens and bee's first that I feel would be 2 of the best things for me to start keeping because I love chicken, eggs and honey I would use ho ey everyday if it wasn't so pricey and the sad thing, it's not im just so damn broke
Ah so the protein does have a difference in the egg output. That doesn't surprise me, put in what you get out basically. That's interesting, so fermented grain that's smart giving them probiotics to the diet and then live pre/probiotics from the sprouted grains and other different nutrients un-sprouted grains don't have yet. Hey thats still decent eggs for you and the family, so theones who haven't layed eggs are younger im guessing or same age just take longer to get into laying eggs?... I feel like 1 a day is normal
All the world's commercial egg producers use hens that have been especially bred on genetic lines to produce 1 egg every day of the year, but they reach a point after 1-1.5 years where their production dramatically tails off. That is when the commercial farmers get rid of their stock and get new birds in. We have 3 of that egg a day variety. But our other 2 hens are known as 'heritage' hens (a Light Sussex and a Blue Orpingham), they can a take a month or so longer before they start laying eggs, but when they do they can lay for several years but not 1 every day, perhaps 4-5 a week.
Honey is known to have some very good properties to it. I imagine it is like cannabis in that many things are yet to be discovered about it. But regardless of it being natural, our bodies still have to deal with the sugar so too much wouldn't be good. But that shouldn't happen with sensible usage.
I only used 'ordinary' honey on my burn. I remember when I was working in the UK and there was an African nurse who was using white sugar on patient's leg ulcers and they were having great success with it. So I guessed it was the sugar content that was ensuring no bacteria could infect it while it healed. That's what I guessed the honey was doing for my burn, altho Manuka honey has its own extra properties too.
interesting.
I have heard about that, yes that would be really interesting to test!Thst honey they collect you trip off is only 40$ a gallon if that's true I will take a case sir! I will trip everyday on the hallucinogenic honey for cheaper than regular honey costs
