A Montana homestead up in the Salish Mountains. We raise American Chinchilla rabbits, Nigerian Dwarf goats, Golden Comet hens, and Guinea fowl. We also hunt, fish, forage, and raise a pitiful little garden that is regularly wiped out by mid summer frosts.
We’re a family of four, and we live on the north side of an unnamed mountain. Our homestead borders the beautiful Kootenai National Forest.
I have 20 Rhode Island Reds incredible birds all around life span 8 - 10 years..can lay 250 - 300 large and Xtra large brown eggs a year and laying time 7 years
As a brand new chicken rancher with my three chickens, I found this video absolutely fascinating. Thank you for all the time and effort you put into making it, I know what it takes to make these videos. I would love it if you would be willing to do a FaceTime call so I can show you how I have mine set up and if you can give me any advice. Thank you again.
This is my favorite video I have watched about raising chickens so far. Even if I know very little about gardening and even if I suck at it, I can still supplement by growing what I can and my chickens will certainly appreciate that.
Awesome video, thank you for making this. Straight to the points, all the multiple points! Would be great to see the work time required to grow all that food for chickens though, and possibly other costs involved in it (fertilizers for the crops?)
Crop fertilizer can go from free (because you have animals) to $600 an acre if you want higher end stuff and you want someone else to apply it 😁 as far as labor, some weeks you’ll work nearly 0 hours, others will be as much as 40 hours.
Great idea! We just found out about this not too long ago and made a view videos about it too! Our sunflowers are coming up and starting to bloom!! We can't wait to try some of the seeds and supplement our chickens feed!❤
Not sure why you don’t open feed your flock I honestly think that is the problem. Our hens have bowls of food everywhere in there coop and enclosed pen, we have 12 full grown right now and maybe go through bag of pellets every month? $25 a bag for non gmo about $300 a year and average 11 eggs a day. Bunch of different breeds. Never heard of someone feeding their chickens weighed out portions. When they are chicks they blaze through the feed but by the time they are laying they could really care less about stuffing their faces
Thank you for the detailed and easy math! We started an off-grid homestead late 2021, and information like this is going to help us get off our reliance on the feed store! Tip: for the grains, just buy the 50# sacks of feed grains and sow them, it's way cheaper! We only just started with rabbits this past winter. The three does we took over from a neighbour/friend who was unsuccessful at breeding - she was doing the cage system. I have never liked cages for any animal - heck, we built a 15x40 aviary for our quail, which are typically raised in battery cages - so i gave them three of the units in our 4-unit chicken coop. The buck has a 4x5 space, the does have 76 square feet, and no issues breeding and getting kits! We're still developing our woodland, and will be tractoring our grow-outs soon!
Thank you for all your hard work it seems the prices of feed are so high that an egg is a million dollars. Haha but worrying about getting feed when there is none or can't afford this is a good solution Can you do a video on substitutions? Say if someone can't grow wheat can they substitute barley? Or something like that. I don't know but the crops that take a lot of space might not be doable for many.
From what I’ve gathered, as long as they are preserved, salted, or old in any way, this concept works with just about every seed you purchase folks👀👀👀👀👀 aka never but beans and corn seeds n shit lmao
One often overlooked food that has been working for me to cut down on feed cost is sweet potatoes. They grow like weeds in my area and I have seen studies that show replacing up to 80% of their feed with it has no negative effects. They also like to eat the greens. I boil them until they are soft and put them in the freezer. I give them access to store bought feed and the sweet potatoes. Regular potatoes are poisonous do not use them.
Thank you for all your hard work and posting. I am curious if there are resources for finding out nutrition on alternative grains, like amaranth, millet, and other grains that are easier to grow in my zone 8b/9a garden. Also, black soldier fly larvae are fairly easy to grow here in summer, as are mealworms almost year-round. Do you have any suggestions as to feed calculations resources? Thanks in advance!
sunflowers also clean the soil. cut the stalks while they are still green after harvest because they become super hard - they can be used next year for support stakes for beans and tomatoes
