Monday, October 20, 2008

Chickens are in

But somewhat difficult to photograph. They certainly move faster than the camera can meter!


3 comments:

Stephan Guyenet said...

Fantastic! I can't wait to be stable enough to get chickens.

What are you feeding them? I was daydreaming the other day about making chicken food from coconut, flax, soaked rice, soaked beans, kelp meal and vegetable scraps.

They're pretty good at making long-chain PUFAs.

By the way, duck eggs have about half as much PUFA and are much richer in micronutrients. They're just as easy to keep as chickens.

Lee said...

I sometimes have a coconut and egg white "pancake" for breakfast, which the chicken might like. It makes use of surplus whites, cheap fat & coconut.

I whisk 2 egg whites till fairly stiff, then stir in 4 tsp dried coconut. This is fried in lots of beef dripping till brown then flipped over to do the other side. I have it with some sweetner or lemon juice, both unnecessary for chickens, I suppose. Anyway, good luck with the chickens.

Peter said...

Hi Stephan,

They came with chick crumbs which we're still using (25kg sack!) but they're already well in to cooked egg whites. The morning routine is to warm Squiggs' breakfast, serve, separate 6 egg yolks out for me, fry in same pan, serve, cook the whites in the same pan and save for chickens... Takes about 10 minutes. They're not too keen on potatoes but I'll try them on mashed potatoes with some beef dripping next. I grew a crop of spuds and a modest amount of broad beans which can be sprouted, basically all for the chickens. Lots of weeds. They seem to pick over anything green I throw in. When I weed the allotment I stick the greener weeds in a bag and bring them home. Only 4 of them have names, the other six are indistinguishable!

They go crazy when they get dust to bathe in. They are really cute! If we ever went for meat sources rather than egg laying they wouldn't get names!!!!!!

Hi Lee,

Yes, thinking along those line.

I can't believe how little a small animal surgeon knows about chickens! Thank goodness for the net.

Peter