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Episode #68: How to Raise Chickens with No Grains · Beyond Labels Premium

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: The smaller you are, the more some of these alternatives can work.
• 0:04
  SPEAKER_00: So, um, you know, a a mealworm, uh a mealworm thing is fine, except remember the mealworms have to have a source of food too.
• 0:14
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so all these things, you know, whether you um, I mean, everybody knows that we do the eggmobiles and the chickens eat the maggots, okay?
• 0:21
  SPEAKER_00: But the but but the maggots in the cow pies come from the cows eating the grass.
• 0:26
  SPEAKER_00: And so um, you know, mealworms tend to uh live on dead stuff.
• 0:33
  SPEAKER_00: So are you gonna start going out along the road picking up uh roadkill, you know, to feed the mealworms?
• 0:41
  SPEAKER_01: Hello everyone, welcome to Beyond Labels.
• 0:44
  SPEAKER_01: I'm your host, Dr.
• 0:45
  SPEAKER_01: Cena McCullough, here with everyone's favorite farmer, Joel Salatin.
• 0:50
  SPEAKER_01: And today is another listener question for Joel.
• 0:53
  SPEAKER_01: This question comes from Neil Martin.
• 0:56
  SPEAKER_01: And he says, Hi guys, I love the new structure and I love all of the content y'all put out.
• 1:02
  SPEAKER_01: My question is around self-dependency as we embark upon uncertain times.
• 1:09
  SPEAKER_01: With feed prices rising and crop reports proving grim through harvest this fall, it looks as if this trend will continue at least through 2024 to even 2025.
• 1:23
  SPEAKER_01: For the small farms and ranches who don't have grain silos to give ourselves more resilience, do you have guidance on how to best prepare for this so we don't get stifled in productivity by our pocketbooks?
• 1:37
  SPEAKER_01: He also goes on to ask: I see the recipe for broiler chickens in Joel's book titled Pastured Poultry Profits.
• 1:45
  SPEAKER_01: Is there a similar one for layer hens?
• 1:48
  SPEAKER_01: Additionally, I'm planning, um I am planning on starting a mealworm hatchery to provide supplemental food to our layers, as well as growing a small plot of grain to mill to help reduce dependence on others.
• 2:03
  SPEAKER_01: With the mealworms, I may be able to turn a revenue stream um with that as well.
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_01: Anything else y'all recommend is welcomed.
• 2:11
  SPEAKER_01: Thanks for all you do.
• 2:12
  SPEAKER_01: God bless.
• 2:13
  SPEAKER_01: Uh Neil Martin.
• 2:15
  SPEAKER_01: All right, Joel.
• 2:18
  SPEAKER_01: Many questions there.
• 2:20
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, well, uh, to uh unpack this, there's uh there's a lot, there's a lot going on here.
• 2:26
  SPEAKER_00: And so let's just kind of take it, uh uh take it from the top.
• 2:31
  SPEAKER_00: Um you know, uh somebody asked me uh not long ago, you know, to you, what does what does wheels falling off mean?
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_00: Um and and uh so I I didn't have a quick answer, so I kind of spent a a week chatting with my team and saying, what does what what would feel wheels feel feels walling?
• 2:54
  SPEAKER_00: Wheels falling off look, you know, look like.
• 2:56
  SPEAKER_00: What is that really uh like?
• 2:59
  SPEAKER_00: And we kind of came up with three things.
• 3:01
  SPEAKER_00: We kind of came up with uh number one, you can't get electricity, so the grid goes down.
• 3:07
  SPEAKER_00: Number two, you can't get uh fuel, so gas and diesel are or um are uh you can't get those.
• 3:15
  SPEAKER_00: And then the third one is you can't get grain.
• 3:18
  SPEAKER_00: Um to uh I mean you you can make a big long list, you know that you can make a big long list, but uh but people's eyes glaze over if you go too long.
• 3:27
  SPEAKER_00: So so for us, the three things seem to be kind of um kind of critical.
• 3:32
  SPEAKER_00: And um, so so this question obviously is about is about the grain, which is obviously also related to uh the fuel and the electricity.
• 3:42
  SPEAKER_00: And so let me just let me just say um, and and you may have thoughts on this, Zina, that generally things aren't as bad as you can imagine.
• 3:56
  SPEAKER_00: Uh almost never are things as bad as you can imagine, which is one reason why um, you know, uh uh whatever business experts and counselors, you know, um have people do uh focus group sessions on, you know, what's the worst thing can we're gonna do this, so what's the worst thing that can happen?
• 4:16
  SPEAKER_00: And and once you once you describe what's the worst thing that can happen, then you say, well, okay, I guess we could live through that, and you know, and then you then you go on.
• 4:25
  SPEAKER_00: So um so if if we here here's my bottom line.
• 4:33
  SPEAKER_00: If we can't get electricity, fuel, or grain, everything will change so dramastic so uh drastically and dramatically that that it's it's almost it's almost impossible for us to conceive uh of what that would look like.
• 4:54
  SPEAKER_00: Um and I mean you know, you're you're back into you know you're into you're into Stone Age basically.
• 5:00
  SPEAKER_00: So um so I think to to prepare for that is almost um is almost overkill in that you're preparing for something.
• 5:16
  SPEAKER_00: A the risk is really low, b, you don't you don't even know how to prepare for it because because um at to that extent um because you know at that point we all have to pick up a you know a a shotgun and go shoot a deer, you know, to survive.
• 5:35
  SPEAKER_00: And and and the deer population would drop pretty quickly if that happened.
• 5:40
  SPEAKER_00: Uh so so um you know, I I think it's I think it's as wrong to to not worry about things that you should worry about as it is to get all flummoxed and and your uh as we say, bowels in an uproar, um over over things that you really don't need to worry about.
• 6:04
  SPEAKER_00: Um so I think that the idea that you can't get grain uh for your for your chickens um is pro is probably overkill uh just on this on the face of it.
• 6:20
  SPEAKER_00: Now, you know, here at Polyface, what we've done is linked up with a a local kind of Amish Mennonite uh mill that does all GMO free from local farmers.
• 6:31
  SPEAKER_00: So we're not getting grain from Ukraine, we're not getting grain from Russia, you know, we're not getting grain from those places.
• 6:38
  SPEAKER_00: And so just shortening that chain.
• 6:40
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, if if um if if Neil can find a a source that is more locally sourced, that is maybe maybe um in that area there are some alternative things like like Milo or um or sugar beet uh roots, uh, you know, you know, some things like that.
• 7:04
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, there there's a lot of uh a lot of options there.
• 7:10
  SPEAKER_01: Um so wait, can you expand on that just for a moment?
• 7:16
  SPEAKER_01: Because as you're talking, I thought this is great advice, you know, go to local farmers, right?
• 7:21
  SPEAKER_01: Shorten the supply chain.
• 7:22
  SPEAKER_01: And my thought was can't they decrease their dependence on grain, right?
• 7:27
  SPEAKER_01: Shift to shift to some other food source that they can provide them because you know, in the wild, animals wouldn't have eaten nearly as much grain as we give them, generally speaking, today.
• 7:41
  SPEAKER_01: So can't they also find another source of food for them?
• 7:46
  SPEAKER_00: Uh yes, and that that goes to the last part of the question that Neil has posed here about starting a mealworm hatchery.
• 7:53
  SPEAKER_00: So um uh, you know, Harvey Useri, who uh wrote the book on the backyard chicken chicken flock, uh probably has offered the greatest amount of of um you know alternatives uh for things, you know, here here at our farm.
• 8:13
  SPEAKER_00: One of the problems with being at s at scale where we are, and Neil doesn't tell us how many chickens he has, um, for sure, it's a big difference whether you have 12 chickens or 2,000 chickens.
• 8:26
  SPEAKER_00: All right.
• 8:27
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm gonna I'm gonna assume that Neil's flock is relatively small, you know, say fifty 50 or fewer.
• 8:34
  SPEAKER_00: That's a pretty small flock.
• 8:37
  SPEAKER_00: And so the smaller you are, the more some of these alternatives can work.
• 8:43
  SPEAKER_00: So um, you know, a a mealworm, a mealworm thing is fine, except remember the mealworms have to have a source of food too, you know.
• 8:53
  SPEAKER_00: So all these things, you know, whether you um, I mean, everybody knows that we do the eggmobiles and the chickens eat the maggots, okay?
• 9:00
  SPEAKER_00: But the but but the maggots in the cow pies come from the cows eating the grass.
• 9:05
  SPEAKER_00: And so um, you know, mealworms tend to uh live on on dead stuff.
• 9:12
  SPEAKER_00: So are you gonna start going out along the road picking up uh roadkill, you know, to feed the mealworms?
• 9:18
  SPEAKER_00: Um yeah, this is the big joke with you know beyond meat and impossible burger and and and lab lab grown meat is they say lab grown meat, but they don't show you the train car loads of soybeans and lentils and peas and corn and all that that that's going in as a feedstock to the artificial, you know, artificial stuff.
• 9:42
  SPEAKER_00: And so um none of these none of these things actually, you know, actually lives on whatever, lives on air, you know.
• 9:52
  SPEAKER_00: The none of this stuff is, you know, that they're not they're not breatharians.
• 9:56
  SPEAKER_00: So uh so the and the meal worms aren't either.
• 9:58
  SPEAKER_00: So that you know, they have to have a feed source.
• 10:00
  SPEAKER_00: We um we years ago did earthworm beds under the chickens in the winter and um and sprouted uh sprouted rye on these uh beds so that every day we'd m move uh uh four feet of um of of of cage of of wire mesh, move it aside.
• 10:23
  SPEAKER_00: The chickens then could eat the the fresh sprouts, which you know gives you a little more nutrition than just the raw grain, and they could scratch through and eat the earthworms, the worms that we're digesting under the rabbits.
• 10:35
  SPEAKER_00: So this was under the rabbits, rabbit manure falls down, worms eat the rabbit manure.
• 10:41
  SPEAKER_00: Now, remember, how does all this start?
• 10:43
  SPEAKER_00: It starts with being able to get feed for the rabbits, okay?
• 10:47
  SPEAKER_00: So, you know, so uh, but anyway, you you get the feed for the rabbits, the rabbits poop, grow the earthworms.
• 10:54
  SPEAKER_00: Um, the chickens roost on the beds on these wire cages, and they poop the earthworms, the worms, red wigglers, not not earthworms, red wigglers eat the uh eat the the poop, and um, and then you you sprout the grain on top, and the chickens eat the grain and they scratch the earth, the worms, and then you know, and each day you move one of these uh one of these four-foot sections down.
• 11:17
  SPEAKER_00: So every day the chickens, you know, you have this kind of rotational grazing thing of the chickens.
• 11:22
  SPEAKER_00: Listen, it worked beautifully.
• 11:24
  SPEAKER_00: It worked beautifully until it got really cold.
• 11:27
  SPEAKER_00: And when it got really cold, then the worms went down deep, the grain didn't germinate, and rats moved in.
• 11:37
  SPEAKER_00: And that whole that whole hoop house became infested with massive rats.
• 11:45
  SPEAKER_00: And um and so, you know, sometimes these things uh you know, you can you can bite off more than you can chew.
• 11:55
  SPEAKER_00: But uh the idea of um uh one of the things that Harvey does, for example, is you know, he's got he's got a small flock, it's a backyard flock, and he has a worm bed uh that's that's doing all of his kitchen scraps, and then he exposes the chickens to the compost slash worm bed um periodically for the chickens to self-harvest worms.
• 12:23
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I I really think uh meal worms, yes, they have some options.
• 12:29
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I think I think regular red wiggler worms have some options, those are all great protein sources.
• 12:36
  SPEAKER_00: Then the problem becomes starch.
• 12:37
  SPEAKER_00: Where are you gonna get you know your your carbohydrate?
• 12:41
  SPEAKER_00: And uh those typically have come from grains.
• 12:43
  SPEAKER_00: No, they're high in carbohydrates, you know, especially corn and and uh uh uh wheat, barley, oats, things like that.
• 12:51
  SPEAKER_00: And of course, in the wild, remember, you know, in the wild, birds eat a lot of a lot of seeds.
• 12:57
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, that's what birds eat in the wild, is primarily seeds and bugs.
• 13:01
  SPEAKER_00: Seeds and bugs, those are the two, uh, you know, the two things that that get them.
• 13:05
  SPEAKER_00: I will tell you that even at our scale, you know, we have whatever 4,000 layers at our scale, uh, when hunting season comes, we um uh you know, we we harvest quite a few deer here, and we take what we're going to take, and then we throw the we throw the uh carcass in for the chickens and they clean that thing off like a pressure washer.
• 13:27
  SPEAKER_00: They eat every little bit of meat, and that be that becomes a wintertime supplement for them when we don't have grasshoppers and crickets.
• 13:35
  SPEAKER_00: In fact, old timers around here tell I remember them telling me when I was a little kid, they said that uh when they were little kids, you know, back in night in 1920 and 30, the first uh chore for a farm boy was every Monday go out and trap, shoot, otherwise get um some rodent, you know, a raccoon, a possum, a skunk, uh, a groundhog, uh, you know, even a turtle out of the pond, uh, but but some some uh animal, and then take it and um and and just rip it open and throw it in the chicken yard for the chickens when there was no grasshoppers and crickets.
• 14:15
  SPEAKER_00: And they would do that throughout the winter to provide fresh, fresh food.
• 14:20
  SPEAKER_00: So, you know, again, when you're when you have a a little flock, you know, this can be done.
• 14:26
  SPEAKER_00: Uh if you can, if you can link up with a slaughterhouse and bring home some um some uh slaughterhouse waste, you can that that can feed your mealworms, your mealworms can feed this.
• 14:38
  SPEAKER_00: The thing about all you know, worms, mealworms, all that kind of stuff, crickets, whatever, uh the problem with all that stuff is that these are living things, so they don't you they they don't have keep keeping uh quality.
• 14:52
  SPEAKER_00: You know, they're living.
• 14:53
  SPEAKER_00: So if if you don't feed them while they're alive, then they die, then they turn into mush, and you've got smell and odor, and then you've got all sorts of uh issues.
• 15:03
  SPEAKER_00: So, you know, one of the reasons that farmers have gone to grain is because it's stable, you can store it, it you know, it doesn't get moldy, it doesn't get funky uh long as you keep it dry.
• 15:14
  SPEAKER_00: And uh and you can handle it real easy.
• 15:16
  SPEAKER_00: It's not all, I mean, handling, you know, shoveling, shoveling worms uh is um you know, is not easy.
• 15:25
  SPEAKER_00: You know, it's pretty, it's pretty gooky.
• 15:28
  SPEAKER_00: And uh so so um just you know just appreciate that there are things you can do, I think, on a small scale that become very, very difficult to do on a larger scale.
• 15:40
  SPEAKER_00: And and I think that's one of the things that we're there we're into, right?
• 15:44
  SPEAKER_00: Is uh is to encourage many, many small flocks.
• 15:48
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, we we talk here that in our perfect world, we wouldn't have the number of chickens we have because they would be, you know, next to everybody's back door all over the country.
• 16:00
  SPEAKER_01: That would be beautiful.
• 16:01
  SPEAKER_01: I would love that.
• 16:02
  SPEAKER_01: Uh so I have never raised chickens myself.
• 16:06
  SPEAKER_01: Obviously, this is not my area of expertise.
• 16:09
  SPEAKER_01: So I have a couple of basic questions for you to piggyback on Neil's question.
• 16:16
  SPEAKER_01: So if you're in that situation, you know, these dire times and you can't get the grain, for instance, and you don't have a large farm or ranch where you have these grain silos, so you don't have the storage, can you in, you know, and I'm not I'm not suggesting do this all the time.
• 16:35
  SPEAKER_01: I'm saying I'm asking you if you need to, can you raise chickens on your own food?
• 16:44
  SPEAKER_01: So you've mentioned giving chickens chickens like kitchen scraps before, right?
• 16:50
  SPEAKER_01: As you know, supplement to the to their own diet.
• 16:53
  SPEAKER_01: If you didn't have access to grain, can you raise them on like your chicken scraps?
• 17:01
  SPEAKER_01: Um I mean, sorry, your your kitchen scraps, as well as like not chicken scraps, your kitchen scraps, as well as like the dead animal that you would throw in there, whatnot.
• 17:12
  SPEAKER_01: Can you actually do that and raise them to be healthy chickens?
• 17:18
  SPEAKER_00: Uh yeah, yes, you can, because most kitchen scraps have a fair amount of starch, have a fair amount of carbohydrates.
• 17:27
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, you know, potatoes and and uh squash and and things like that.
• 17:31
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, those are all you know energy sources.
• 17:34
  SPEAKER_00: And then the other issue is uh is protein.
• 17:37
  SPEAKER_00: And so, you know, Vermont, Vermont composting, they have 2,000, they they have a uh a massive um food waste pickup program there in Vermont, and um they raise, I think, I think now 2,000 chickens without buying any grain whatsoever.
• 17:56
  SPEAKER_00: The chickens eat what they want from the food scraps, and then the compost generates enough worms to supply all the protein that the the chickens need.
• 18:06
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, wow.
• 18:07
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah, yeah.
• 18:08
  SPEAKER_00: So so um can that be can that be done on a small scale?
• 18:12
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
• 18:13
  SPEAKER_00: Uh you know, especially if you have a you know a fairly uh large family, this generating a lot of peels and and uh uh uh stuff.
• 18:24
  SPEAKER_00: And and I think this you'll appreciate this, you know, this goes right with your own food processing.
• 18:31
  SPEAKER_00: Uh look, if you're going to the grocery store to buy applesauce, there's no waste.
• 18:36
  SPEAKER_00: But if you're going to a local uh a local apple orchard to buy 10 bushels of apples to come home and make 80 quarts of applesauce, you're going to have you're going to have buckets full of schnitzes and seeds and peels and all that stuff for making your own applesauce.
• 18:52
  SPEAKER_00: So that so the the historic homestead, the historic kitchen generated way more food scraps than today's kitchen where most things are coming in in an in a processed state.
• 19:07
  SPEAKER_00: If everything's coming into your kitchen unprocessed, you're going your kitchen will generate way more uh uh um you know waste material than than than average.
• 19:19
  SPEAKER_00: And then that can go to your chickens.
• 19:21
  SPEAKER_00: Your chickens bring the eggs in, and it's this this beautiful, beautiful cycle.
• 19:25
  SPEAKER_00: So it really starts with um with feeding your own family on processed foods.
• 19:33
  SPEAKER_01: I love that.
• 19:34
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, what a great reason to become even more self-reliant, you know.
• 19:38
  SPEAKER_01: Um I mean, and you're gonna just improve your health and the healthier animals while you're at it.
• 19:43
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so I think this is fantastic, especially because I want to raise chickens, you know, as soon as I move into my forever home, I want to raise chickens, but I don't want to feed them grains.
• 19:54
  SPEAKER_01: So I'm thinking is um, along with Neil's question, part of your food security can be, you know, we all have probably part of our food security seeds, right?
• 20:06
  SPEAKER_01: We save seeds just in case.
• 20:08
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 20:08
  SPEAKER_01: But you can also have seed saving for your animals so that you can, if you can't get the grains and you want to feed them grains, but for every reason you can't get them, you can start growing a garden, right?
• 20:20
  SPEAKER_01: To supplement or to feed your chickens alongside you, right?
• 20:24
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 20:24
  SPEAKER_00: And yeah, and and Neil Neil said that he's interested in growing a little bit of grain.
• 20:29
  SPEAKER_00: Now, um, now let me tell you, growing a little bit of grain is like being a little bit pregnant.
• 20:34
  SPEAKER_00: Uh you eat you either are or you aren't.
• 20:37
  SPEAKER_00: Um about about the only thing that you can grow uh and really harvest kind of by hand uh and make it and make it work on a very small scale is is corn.
• 20:51
  SPEAKER_00: And of course, you know, I mean, corn, maize, maize preceded the Europeans here.
• 20:57
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, we North America is the breadbasket of maize, and um doesn't mean you've got to use GMO corn.
• 21:03
  SPEAKER_00: You can use open pollinated.
• 21:05
  SPEAKER_00: My goodness, you could even go to something.
• 21:08
  SPEAKER_00: It's important to realize that that uh a lot of of the the old style corns, like like bloody butcher, for example, is a is a favorite uh variety of corn, that it has twice as much protein.
• 21:22
  SPEAKER_00: Normal corn today is down around you know 7% protein.
• 21:26
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, so it's primarily carbohydrate, which great was great for making high fructose corn syrup.
• 21:32
  SPEAKER_00: But something like bloody butcher corn is up there more like 14% protein.
• 21:37
  SPEAKER_00: And so as you move to some of these more uh uh older heritage varieties of corn, it it greatly reduces the amount of protein you need.
• 21:47
  SPEAKER_00: Corn is relatively easy to grow, easy to harvest by hand.
• 21:50
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, I mean, you can get a little, you know, a little hand crank corn sheller, and um, and and you know, it it it's a it's a one it's a wonderful food.
• 21:59
  SPEAKER_00: Uh um you know in that in that kind of state um and and then very little protein supplement uh you know can go in so the you know the um the the energy the inner the carbohydrate has always been a little easier to acquire than the protein uh that starch is cheap protein's expensive um you know potatoes are cheap um t-bone steaks are expensive and so um so as you as you formulate some of this uh balancing out that that protein and that um and that starch becomes the the big trick and it takes a bit of finesse to you you know to to balance that out and uh in a backyard situation it's almost impossible to tell um you know to tell if you're if you're balancing out right because you know in in a kitchen that's using a regular flow of of of uh raw ingredients going through it you're gonna generate well like you know um let's go back to the apple sauce if you're making applesauce the seeds the seeds are high in protein and the apple pumice and the skins those are high in carbohydrate and and and so um it it's not just as simple as throwing some some stuff out for the chickens now that being said a a small flock that's allowed to um you know to my favorite is the is the chickens on you know on compost uh where you where you actually have an outdoor run rather than the chickens running free range you actually have an enclosed run so they don't get predator attacked and and they're on this real deep uh deep bedding that becomes a compost that grows its own worms and the chickens are self-harvesting their own worms out of that compost.
• 24:04
  SPEAKER_00: So one of the best ways that you can generate your own protein is with carbon uh whether you rent a chipper and chip up some old trees and just make a nice deep you know two foot deep um uh bunch of of chips worms worms will move up into that including little you know rolly pulleys and uh centipedes all the different bugs uh and and so just having a decomposing carbon pile can can produce copious amounts of worms and protonaceous critters that the chickens will scratch in and find and get so for a small operation like that you can greatly augment supplement whatever the flow is through your kitchen with just you know uh a strategically placed pile of wood chips that is that is uh feeding feeding all sorts of worms and insects uh to decompose it and the chickens eat some of them on their own they they they self-feed on it wow that's so cool like it's so brilliant you know and just I love how like I'm developing such a deep respect for how you work with nature right it's like this whole different perception of of what nature is and how it's there for us to support us and we don't have to fight against it.
• 25:30
  SPEAKER_01: We can work with it and and together it's like this beautiful dance that you do with ease right like when I've tried a garden before and whatnot I feel like I'm just fighting nature you know and I go and see your farm and it's just this beautiful dance with that you're doing and it flows and there's no stress about it and because you understand it.
• 25:52
  SPEAKER_00: So and this is another beautiful example of that it's I'm in awe I want to go out and get chickens yeah so so yeah so Cena you know to cut to the chase imagine a you know like a an a a 10 foot by 10 foot uh caged enclosed area uh with with with with uh with uh wire wire mesh over it that you have you know two feet uh two feet of um uh of wood chips in and and that becomes a growing you know a growing mechanism i i would suggest that that in in many ways that is easier especially if if look if you've only got six seven eight ten chickens um that is much easier than running a mealworm you know and and having a uh whatever you know a sophisticated grow out uh system um but you know to each his own that's fine uh and and then and then you can go along in the in the summertime and you can go right on the outside of that bed and you can plant uh vines that'll trellis up on the outside of the you know of the uh wire mesh and uh use it as a trellis and the roots will go into the compost that the chickens have have made you know in and the worms have made in the in the deep bedding and um you know and and you can get multiple use out of both the fertility the worms and the and the trellis of the uh the wire mesh that's the protector for the chickens oh that's so cool yeah so so there there's a there's a lot of there's a lot of options here as especially if you're very small it there's a lot of options if you're very very small you know this idea with the wood chips and you know the worms coming up um so the chickens can eat that will that um withstand the cold months uh well yes yes um the wood the wood chips act as a uh as a blanket now in in the cold the worms will go deeper okay uh but they but they won't leave leave and so you know uh here again um a lot of it is is just you know watching the chickens um observing and and certainly any kind of meat uh you know it uh if if you can get a hold of something from roadkill to whatever to throw in there you can you can tell a lot about the the protein satiation of the chicken by how they go for the carcasses.
• 28:30
  SPEAKER_00: If you if you throw a if you throw a possum in there and you rip open its stomach so its intestines are exposed and you throw up and you throw a possum in there and the chickens just kind of come over look at it and eh you know whatever then then that's a clear signal or a rat a mouse I mean any kind of of little critter um if they're not really interested in it then then you can you can be assured okay I'm giving them all they need.
• 28:56
  SPEAKER_00: If they come over and they attack it like like buzzards on a carcass um then you'll know ooh you know they're probably a little bit short of of protein so uh you know so you you can kind of you can kind of um do do some different things to kind of measure and and sense where you are okay the I love that um the other part did we answer this part of his question he said I see the recipe for broiler chickens in your book Pastured Poultry Prophets is there a similar one for layer hens yeah there there is there is um uh you must have a a very old pastured poultry book because the new one has it in but I I um two things on this question one is anybody who wants to play around with this kind of stuff should get Morrison's feed and feeding Morrison's feed and feeding is a a 1500 1500 page compendium of of um of ways to formulate feed for different kinds of animals and um and they have the relative protein carbohydrate uh calcium and other things for a host of different um of different kinds of materials you know from um from from ash to whatever you know tankage to cottonseed meal to whatever feathers um all sorts of things and so if you're if you're wanting to kind of formulate your own ration Morrison's feed and feeding is the is absolutely the do-it-yourself manual for that kind of thing secondly uh I always go to fur trail in Bainbridge Pennsylvania uh the fur trail f e r t r e l fur trail uh if I'm wanting to formulate a ration um you know I go to fur trail for their for their advice they're happy to happy to help you uh because what you'll probably do is use fur trail's poultry neutral balancer which we use religiously and it is a it it it is an organic um mineral and vitamin supplement uh that can that can fill in a lot of cracks you know chickens need methionine and and and lots of things there were some real breakthroughs around 1910 in uh in in you know synthetically formulating some of these you know lecithin methionine and some of these things that that chickens really really needed and um and so making sure that the chicken has its its its basic vitamin and mineral supplement uh together can really smooth over a lot of rough places uh if you're if you're fluctuating its its basic you know uh protein and carbohydrate level um you know from day to day it it can it can fill in a lot of chinks that's great all right so I think we answered all of Neil's questions.
• 32:09
  SPEAKER_00: Um Joel any last thoughts for Neil any last piece of advice no just um just I think what we've said mainly you know um don't obsess don't obsess about that we'll never get grain because just think about what would happen if we can't get grain that would mean Tyson closes down Cargill goes closes down Chicago Board of Trade is gone.
• 32:34
  SPEAKER_00: I mean just just think about that for a minute.
• 32:36
  SPEAKER_00: So you know I I I uh grain's been around here um a lot longer than the Federal Reserve and the FBI and uh um you know and and Trump and Biden okay it's been around a lot longer than them and so the chances are grain when you think about what's going to outlast things chances are grain will outlast uh you know a lot of things and so uh so I'm all about do-it-yourselfing uh uh doing all you can especially if you can get multiple benefits from from whatever you're doing I mean this this this this chicken chicken run compost thing uh that provides the fertility for your garden you know so the chickens stir it and the worms make castings and now you have your garden uh you know your garden thing I mean john moody in uh in Kentucky basically uh moves this where he has the chickens one year that becomes his garden the next year and he just he just moves it around uh and and places his his chicken protective structure over wherever the chickens are and then and and that becomes his garden next year and just kind of uh he I think he has a he has a little thing about uh growing six inches of soil in one year or something like that.
• 33:53
  SPEAKER_00: So um he brings back he brings back you know coffee grounds and and he's got a kind of a you know a food waste run.
• 34:01
  SPEAKER_00: But you know if you can't get fuel you can't get food waste either.
• 34:05
  SPEAKER_00: So you know um uh do what you can where you are look at your contacts and if there's something that's that's easy to get and and feed your system um that's from a waste stream that's always the place to start.
• 34:21
  SPEAKER_01: Wonderful wonderful advice very practical and helpful thank you Joel thank you Neil for sending in your question if anybody else has questions for us feel free to send them to us we always look forward to hearing your thoughts and to addressing any questions or concerns you have.
• 34:37
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you for joining us and we'll see you next week