If you are feeding scratch or corn you are wasting a lot of nutrients. Here is my regime. I have a Corona CORN grinder on my back porch and each morning I grind half a cup of whole corn, half a cup of dog kibble, add half a cup of laying pellets and pour boiling water over the whole thing and let it steep. This softens the grains and enables the chicken to get more nutrition out of less feed. In Alaska, where the feed came in by barge, we would set a bucket of feed and water on the back of the wood stove when we went to bed. That would really make it swell up and burst. This gives the chicken much more useable food and saves you money and gives you good egg production.I have 7 hens and this gives us all the eggs we can use and then some.

If you can, let your chickens free range. We have a hen house that I lock each nite to keep the varmits out, but no chicken pen. They range over the whole farm during the day. They keep the bugs cleaned out around the house and garden. My payment for this service is that each morning I have to hose off the porch where they spend the hot afternoons. Needless to say the grass is much greener around the edge of the porch!!

Got eggs? Nothing tastes better than homemade eggs.!!

Taz

-- Taz (Tassie @aol.com), May 05, 1999

Answers

hate to sound like a city boy, but how do you get them back in the henhouse at night?

-- a (a@a.a), May 05, 1999.

Hi City Boy, Not to worry. They will return to their roosts as soon as it begins to get dark. We've never had a problem in the years of raising free range hens. If you have a good rooster they tend to be the last one in after they have made sure all the hens are up. Our hens tend to roost by 4PM in the winter when it gets dark early and as late as 9PM in the summer.

-- sheep (sheep@sheeple.com), May 05, 1999.

I have had chickens for a long time. I also let them free range. I don't like leaving them out when I go to town so I put them back in the chicken house. All I do is get their metal feeding pan, put a little grain in the bottom and shake it so the chickens can hear it. They will follow me anywhere.

-- monique (me@home.here), May 05, 1999.

Monique...kinda like Democrats, wouldn't you say? 8<)

-- Lobo (atthelair@yahoo.com), May 05, 1999.

Lobo,

I wonder if there is a difference between a Clinton democrat and a plain ole' democrat??? The Clinton democrats follow without even grain in the pan. It's more like the pied piper.

-- monique (me@home.here), May 06, 1999.