From Permacltur@aol.com Thu Jun 3 13:30:29 1999 Date: Thu, 3 Jun 1999 07:49:35 EDT From: Permacltur@aol.com To: permawest@olywa.net, owner-permaculture@envirolink.org, permaculture@envirolink.org Subject: Re: Fowl forage In a message dated 6/3/99 3:42:25 AM, permawest@olywa.net wrote: <> Kirk: with chickens, the challenge is to find something that the do NOT eat. Then you can protect it from scratching. And if it bears fruit, figure out a way to savage a fraction for your direct consumption. So far, I have found that my chickens do not eat sage. I have seen them eating (green) oak leaves, blueberry leaves, oregano, banana (of course) leaves, ad infinitum. they do not eat my tea (Camelia sinensis) and feijoa plants. Forget blackberry. To date, I have not seen chickens eat conifers. I imagine they will eat the winged pine nuts, etc., as well as the next bird. Bear in mind that they have continuous grain in the poultry house and continuous bread (scrounged as waste) in the yard. Probably the most interesting thing that they do is to wade into the water to eat aquatic life. I never saw this before, but then I never raised chickens in a swamp before. Of course the ultimate food for them is the duckweed that spontaneously grows here. They will wade for it, if the water is nearby or if I am working further away. (We have had a bit of a predator problem, and there are sectors where they will not go unless I am working there.) I often use a pool net to harvest duckweed for the chickens. I get many invertebrates as well, tiny crustacea up to fresh water shrip and on to medium size crawdads, kind of the peanuts in the crackerjacks, insects (I've not seen the giant boatmen eaten), small fish (e.g. mosquito fish), mudpuppies, and I suppose tadpoles if they get any. Like the aquatic and semi aquatic birds around here, which I suppose they emulate, they like to work advancing and receding water for the concentration of small food animals. (I'd be happy to sell a hen to train your flock, but I don't know how we would ship it!). They DO NOT like to go into deep grass, except to hide when in stress, though even then they prefer brush. To harvest insects in deep grass, just mow it. Geese and ducks will harvest small roots (e.g. evening primrose) and tubers (e.g. chufa) as well. Back when I was an unrepenitant tiller, they used to follow me like children after the pied piper as I rototilled the garden. The first crank on the tiller brought a poultry stampeed: chickens, ducks, geese. The omnivores ate mainly invertebrates turned up while the geese worked the ground for root and tuber parts. We have a back issue of TIPSY (well, they are all back issues), that has a poultry forage section. If you like, I'll look it up for you. We stillhave several cases of the journal on hand. For Mother Earth, Dan Hemenway, Yankee Permaculture Publications (since 1982), Elfin Permaculture workshops, lectures, Permaculture Design Courses, consulting and permaculture designs (since 1981), and annual correspondence courses via email. Copyright, 1998, Dan & Cynthia Hemenway, P.O. Box 52, Sparr FL 32192 USA Internships. YankeePerm@aol.com We don't have time to rush. A list by topic of all Yankee Permaculture titles may be found at http://csf.colorado.edu/perma/ypc_catalog.html Elfin Permaculture programs are listed at the Eastern Permaculture Teachers assn home page: http://home.ptd.net/~artrod/epta/eptahmp.html