Hey Hivers! I did some blogs here before about my backyard chicken layers, which, until now, are still there, and it gives us a lot of fresh eggs everyday. Since I started this out of interest, it has become part of my daily routine of feeding, giving water, and, of course, collecting eggs.
I just maintained a manageable size oòf about 50 layers as the maximum number, in which the layers give out more eggs than we can consume and the rest, we sold to our friends, neighbors and relatives.
We don't use commercial feeds...
We all know what a commercial feeds for animals is made of and it is not cheap. About 70% of total cost in commercial chicken layer farms went to feeds alone. What we give to our chickens are foods that are natural as much as possible unlike their white feathered layers counterpart that are caged and eat commercial feeds and drugs to give eggs as much as possible. My layers are brown and black feathered birds and they are heavy foragers.
Yes.. they eat grass.
When it is rainy season here, I let these layers to roam around the area to consume all the grasses and insects around. The feeding cost turn down dramatically. Not only grass but also all kind of vegetables. Just make sure it is chop into smaller pieces that the birds can eat.
Azolla
I maintain and grow Azolla as food for the chickens. These wonderful water plant grows and multiply really fast. It has a high content of crude protein which is the much needed nutrient for our heavy laying-egg birds.
I combined Azolla and rice bran as a chicken feeds also with chopped leaves or vegetables. Sometimes I make a do-it-yourself fermented feeds which is mainly consist of rice bran and leaves of plants like Moringa and Azolla.
Having water pools full of Azolla is very easy. Just maintain at least a feet of water level and put some organic compost into the water as fertilizer. Azolla grow much faster in full sun though water reside much quicker. I add water, once a week to maintain the level.
Disadvantages
The only downside for this feeding method is that the all commercial feeded birds still produced more eggs daily. I made a comparison before that my layers produce 30% less eggs than the layers that are caged and eat 100% commercial feeds.
Advantages
The main advantage with more "natural feeding" is the cost. There are times that I have almost zero cost on feeds. Especially in the months of heavy rains, when grasses and plants grow fast. Also the birds are more healthy and their welfare are more way better than the caged ones.
🚄🚄🚄🚄🚄🚄🚄🚄🚄🚄🚄🚄🚄
A big thank you! to the #silvergoldstackers community for welcoming me. As such, I'm going to share some cool and interesting silver and gold coins every time I make a post.
Now I'm sharing this One Peso 1908 USPI coin with some black tone and XF details. A silver-copper coin, containing 70% silver.
That's all for now. Thanks for having me.
Next blog soon :)