Stocking Up For Winter...

It was a beautiful day today...sunny and not too cold...and it looks like it might be the last one for a bit, so I'm really glad we got some gleaning done today!

Last year I walked through the corn fields after the corn was combined and picked up over twenty, five-gallon buckets full of ear corn that was left in the field.  It would have just rotted away, so I figured I'd feed it to my chickens. That pile of corn lasted most of the winter, and I was able to cut my chicken feed bill in half!  I didn't get near as much this year...I guess that's a good thing, because it means that there was less waste from the combine...but it will be less for my chickens as well.

Jim helped this afternoon...

These adorable neighbor boys helped.  They were so excited whenever they found an ear of corn...

Murphy and Snickers stole corn out of the buckets helped...

And we got a few buckets of corn...

We picked up around six buckets full today, and I had picked up four or five more a few days ago, so my pile is much smaller this year than last.  I waited a little too long to start, so some of the fields that I was planning to glean are now covered in manure from when Jim was cleaning out pens, and made slim pickings. I might head out tomorrow morning if the rain holds off to see what more I can find.

I'm also doing something different with my chickens this winter...

I have thirty chickens, and am lucky to get ten or eleven eggs per day right now.  There are several reasons for this...

...the days are getting shorter, and chickens need more daylight to lay regularly.  We don't have a light in their shed, so they sleep longer and as a result eat less, and lay fewer eggs.

...they're molting, which is a natural way for their bodies to take a rest from laying.

...the egg shells are also getting thin, which is a sign of an aging chicken.  (They have oyster shells in their feed, which should help some, but it's not enough)

In order to pay for their 100 lb. bag of feed ($26.?? per bag) which they were eating devouring in about ten days, I had to sell at least 13 1/2 dozen eggs (at $2.00) per dozen to break even on the feed.  No problem when they were laying well. (Yes, I fed them all the table scraps and garden waste that I could find, but still, they ate it that fast!)  So...I have decided to sell most of the chickens to some Nepali refugees, who will put them to good use.  They will give me what I think is a fair price, so we'll all be happy.

I'm planning to keep my ten Barred Rocks over the winter so that I have enough eggs for myself, and then start fresh in late winter/early spring with new pullets.

What are you doing to get ready for winter?

Linking to Farmgirl Friday

Gleaning...

What a beautiful day we had today!

On days like today, don't bother looking to see if my house is clean...or if my dishes are washed...or if the laundry is folded and put away...it's time to be outside while the weather is still warm!

Today I decided to spend some time gleaning the soybean and corn fields to supplement our chickens' menu.  

When the soybeans were harvested, some beans were left along the edges of the field...

There was a significant amount of ear corn left in the fields.  There could be several reasons for this...the hot spell we had while the corn was pollinating left some weakened "stems" where the corn is attached to the stalk, which caused some of the ears to fall to the ground...Hurricane Irene left numerous patches of downed corn in some fields...and if the combine driver goes too fast during harvest, ears of corn can bounce around and fall to the ground!  

This morning I made piles of corn and filled feed bags,  but  I soon discovered that a bag full of ear corn is WAY too heavy to lug around, so this afternoon I switched to five-gallon buckets. That went much better...

I had some help this afternoon from two adorable neighbor boys and their Mom...thanks guys! :)

I lost track of how many buckets of corn I gathered, but it was somewhere between twelve and fifteen!  (And that was only from one field!)  I then dumped the corn into feed bags, and stacked them inside the empty corn crib.  They'll be under a roof and stay relatively unaffected by the weather...
 

The first time I ever threw ear corn to the chickens, they looked at me like I was nuts..."what are we supposed to do...work for our food?  Aren't you gonna shell that for us?!"

Well...it didn't take them long to figure out how to help themselves...they pick the soybeans right out of the pods...
 

...and clean off those ears of corn in no time at all...

 

The price of a 100 lb. bag of layer mash is close to $23.00, and our chickens were going through a bag in less than three weeks!  The layer mash has the protein and nutrients that they need to produce good eggs, but the ear corn will help to supplement their diets quite nicely! 

And since that corn and those beans would literally go to waste...why not give the chickens a treat?!