Our Chickens Are Freeee!
….free ranging, that is.
It was highly recommended to not let them out of their coop for a couple of weeks, just so their GPS could reset and they could get used to their new surroundings. They’ve been out 2-3 days now, and I would say they’ve been enjoying themselves.
When my chicken inventory literally doubled from what I expected it to be, I realized I had to get serious about feeding them. I chatted with my local market and asked if they ever throw expired produce away and if there was a way they could save it for me, which has turned in to the best thing ever!
I get 1-2 bins from them now per week and I’m thrilled about it. Less stuff is wasted, we get a ton of awesome variety for chickies…it’s a win win as far as I’m concerned.
I did make the one time mistake of not going through the bin immediately. The melons and squash sat on top of all the bruised pears and moldy cucumbers, and by the time I got to the bottom it’s was just rotten vegetable water soup. 🤢
There’s a story for later about myself and food…but it involves crossing the equator on a boat, a flooded dry stores compartment, and wading in warm salt water up to my chest to retrieve warm, waterlogged food bits, blobs of grease, and garbage bags that were clogging up our dewatering pumps. 🤢My stomach has never been the same around old food since then, and homemade, rotten produce soup at the bottom of the bins was not going to work.
Enter…..my latest!
It’s marvelous. I go through the whole bin IMMEDIATELY, figure out what needs to be fed asap and what will last a few days, sensitive stuff goes with other sensitive stuff so things don’t get squished to death, and as I go through things I just nest the boxes back inside each other.
The nesting situation probably still needs work, but they seem happy enough to be laying 3-5 eggs daily. 🤷♀️
Ok, I’ve been sitting on this post for like 3 days, so I’d better just send it.
Thanks for reading y’all!