Subject: Re: Fowl forage

From: [email-masked]
Date: Sat, 5 Jun 1999 10:02:38 EDT

Well, we still haven't heard from Kirk, who asked the question and indicated 
he has already done a lot of work here.  If you have some answers, Kirk, 
share them.  A basic permaculture principle, from Mollison, is:  Everything 
Works Both Ways

MEANWHILE, I have recollected a few more items.  Bear in mind that chickens 
are almost a way of life, and interactions with them and residens are almost 
continuous.  There are many species one leaves just because they drop food 
for chickens and don't bother anything else.  I haven't listed any we have 
growing here because it is up to each person to be awake, seeing what their 
chickens eat, and reserving it for them if practical.  You don't need someone 
else's list.

Chicken Forage

*  When I have lived were there was a good supply of Japanese beetles, I have 
allowed Virginia creeper to climb up the poultry netting.  This is a trap 
crop for the beetles, and the chickens just pick them off.

*  Pigs will not eat a chicken that they know.  I have kept chicks with 
piglets, as soon as the chicks could forage on their own.  They eat the 
garbage crumbs that the pigs dribble around (messy eaters), pick maggots, 
etc., from the pig manure controlling flies, and even sometimes walk on the 
pigs, like an egret on cattle, picking off things (dead skin, parasites, who 
knows?).  These chicks grew faster than identical chicks from the same hatch 
on free range with continuous grain also available.  (I think it was the 
extra vitamin B in the pig manure.) This being successful, I tossed in some 
hens that were off laying, as I figured if they were not producing they 
should be off the payroll.  The pigs attacked and began eating the "new" 
hens.  (Pigs do not kill a chicken before eating it, so I had to jump in and 
put the hens out of their misery.)  The young chickens that had grown up with 
the pigs were mildly puzzeled and distressed by this.  So then, I caught some 
chicks from the same hatch, same breed, very hard to distinguish from the 
chicks that grew up with the pigs.  The pigs did not attack these, though it 
was their turn to appear puzzeled.  (It appears that pigs cannot count.)  
Toss in another cull hen and bam, they hit it like sharks on bloody meat.  
Clearly the pigs discriminated between the chickens they knew and strangers.  
And clearly, one can raise some chickens "free" by letting them live with the 
pigs.  By the way, no predator ever tried to take these chickens away from 
the pigs!  So it was a predator-proof situation too.

*  Years ago, I reased steers, one at at time, by tethering them to mow the 
"lawn" for the first year of their life.  It was easy, taking about 10 
minutes a day including play and cuddles with the steer, and saved 1.5 hours 
of operating an awful lawnmower per week, when it would run.  I never had 
trouble getting the steer started.  And I was never able to eat the 
lawnmower.  Well when tethered, very large horseflies, the kind that can blot 
out a quarter by landing on it, would harass the steer during the hotest 
weather.  So I would take an extra few minutes each day and visit the steer 
with a flyswater.  A regular flyswater will stun, but not kill, these huge 
flies.  But the chickend quickly learned that the flyswater in hand meant 
treat time.  So they would pounce on these blood  engorged nasties almost 
before they hit the ground.   Be carful not to have younger chicks in on 
this.  The steer will step on them, all oblivious to any squawking, and then 
you have to feedthem to the pigs.  Once the chicks get larger than, say, an 
American robin or a blue jay, they are ok with the steer.
	Here in Florida, one resourceful rooster led a bunch of hens to hide 
behind the steer when a coyote came through.  The steer kind of liked the 
chickens and was verg indignant about the coyote's predatory attempts.  I 
never de-horn an animal and I have seen no dog pack or coyote or anything 
else feel hungry enough to try to get past that lowered head swinging about 
in menace.   
	Of course chickens get a lot of insect life out of cow-pats once they 
are a day or two old.  They break them up and spread them about.  But surely 
this is commonplace.  In any event, this keeps the flies down.

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. [email-masked]  

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