Showing posts with label Chickens. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Chickens. Show all posts

Friday, May 1, 2015

Chicken Feeding



 Even though we are not settled for sure on the place we want to end up, we have decided to go ahead and start the Living History Farming process where we are. This first step includes chickens! I have recently been reading a book, that I will highlight more in a future post, by Jacob Biggle. Jacob Biggle wrote several farming books in the 1890s, one of which was called "The Biggle Poultry Book : A concise and Practical Treatise on the Management of Farm Poultry".

 I was recently reading about feeding the chickens. Here is what Mr. Biggle has to say :

  "On every egg farm there should be a large boiler or steam cooker for cooking vegetables and making compounds of meat, ground grain and vegetables. A good morning ration may be made of equal parts of corn meal, fine middlings, bran, ground oats and ground meat. This should be stirred into a pot of cooked vegetables while boiling hot until the mass is as stiff as can be manipulated by a pair of strong arms. Seasoned with salt and cayenne pepper. Potatoes, beets, carrots, turnips, onions or any vegetable clean and free from decay will be acceptable. Cut clover hay may be substituted for vegetables for an occasional meal. The above contains a variety of food elements such as compose the egg, bone and muscle of the hen, the fat-forming elements not being prominent. For the noon meal, wheat is the best single grain. It may be mixed with good oats and scattered in chaff or leaves on the feeding floor. The night feed should be a light one, consisting of whole corn." 

 According to Biggle the most successful persons in the business raise a considerable portion of the food that the hens eat, also adding that if cows are kept on the farm, skim milk is given to the hens. 

I'm really enjoying his insight into 1890s chicken keeping.

 -Jake 


Wednesday, April 29, 2015

Chicken Experience

So, last year I was given an English Game Cock. My purpose for wanting one is that I am very keen on their place in the old world as a sporting bird and was intending to take the bird to reenactments to give talks on cockfighting in the 18th century. I pick up the bird at a reenactment in Ohio brought to me by my good friend Tony Gerrad (John Baptiste). I was very excited and looking forward to having my little companion at events and at home.



 After some time having the bird, I recently purchased some game hens to accompany my Rooster. I was completely unprepared for how wild and crazy these birds would be. Once they were around my rooster became more aggressive. The chicken enclosure I build for them was immediately escaped they set about roosting in the nearest cedar tree. 

 Eventually the rooster met an end when he attacked our small dog and was killed in the process of trying to shoo him away. One hen is no where to be found and the other hen is in a small enclosure where we can collect her eggs.

 It was one of those lessons learned. Game hens are not a good hen to keep around for collecting eggs unless you have the right facility, which I was completely unprepared for.

 Recently we have decided to get a nicer more tame variety of chickens called "French Maran". Although I am planning to have another game cock for the same purpose I had the first one.

We will post updates on our chicken adventures so stay tuned. 

-Jake