Posts: 762
11/11/12 10:48 A

For those of you who grow your chickens...I've recently read a great article about providing more protein for the girls...this will sound sick but stick with me...
Make a cylinder of metal with a cap and some way to hang from a pole. Make another cylinder of small chicken wire with the bottom wired off also. When you find road kill or have a need to kill those pesky rabbits..smash the product either in a chipper or a car tire...and put it into your inner cylinder. Within a few days the wind will be blowing little fly larva down into your chicken buffet. The girls will be healthy and full of organic stuff...You will need to replenish the "product" before any flys begin to hatch as we don't want that.
Another benefit is flys will hang around this cylinder rather than your goats face....

current weight: 255.0

305 263.75 222.5 181.25

140

SparkPoints: (15,399)
Fitness Minutes: (5,625)
Posts: 2,172
5/23/12 2:13 P

Great links!

Pounds lost: 1.4

0 3.75 7.5 11.25

15

SparkPoints: (3,770)
Fitness Minutes: (1,990)
Posts: 282
1/26/12 12:41 A

We raise our own goats and milk twice a day. We use the milk to make soap, shampo,lotion and creamy lip balm. We raise our own chickens for meat and eggs. We make our own cheese, yogart,butter,and sour cream from our milk also. We grow as many veg. As we can and can the extras for winter. We also raise our own beef. We have one pair of mini dexters out in the field. We raise the baby for meat. We r enjoying our new lifestyle and learning as much about nutrition as we can. My kids r homeschooled and help with the chores, as well as the cheese, and soap making. We get to spend a lot of time together and hopefully the kids will grow up with healthy habbits.

current weight: 290.6

300 287.5 275 262.5

250

SparkPoints: (11,623)
Fitness Minutes: (13,044)
Posts: 570
9/26/11 12:50 A

You will want organic pastured eggs, rather than free-range. Lovely golden yellow yokes from all the plants and insects they eat. The best ones are moved around the pasture on a daily basis or simply free on the farm to roam.

Take a day to go visit any local farms you buy from. They should have no problem letting you see how their food is grown.

May Minutes: 0

0 450 900 1350

1800

SparkPoints: (63,491)
Fitness Minutes: (58,659)
Posts: 6,392
7/24/11 1:08 P

Thanks for the link.

current weight: 125.0

130 128.75 127.5 126.25

125

Posts: 799
5/31/11 1:11 P

Beware the feed of the "free-range" hen. My sister, a PhD agronomist, tells me that almost all commercial chicken feed is genetically modified. Almost all chickens whose eggs you can buy are fed this feed. If you want the healthiest eggs, the only way you can gaurantee they have not been fed the GM feed is by buying "organic" eggs.

current weight: -0.5  under

5 2.5 0 -2.5

-5

SparkPoints: (18,511)
Fitness Minutes: (7,228)
Posts: 2,383
5/27/11 9:06 P

Thanks for the link. Very, very helpful.

Pounds lost: 12.0

0 5 10 15

20

SparkPoints: (3,229)
Fitness Minutes: (3,100)
Posts: 243
11/8/10 2:11 P

Thanks a bunch.. I found this website extremely helpful and will be bookmarking it!!

SparkPoints: (2,323)
Fitness Minutes: (50)
Posts: 949
11/2/10 10:45 P

My dad lives on a farm down in Virginia. I just returned from there with 3 dozen very fresh duck eggs, all humanely raised. Also goat and beef meat, pasture finished.

I've been doing one duck egg each morning for breakfast, usually fried in a little olive oil, over easy. With seasonings that vary each morning. Today I added in some oyster mushrooms.

Edited by: CEDARBARK1 at: 11/2/2010 (22:45)

Posts: 73
6/19/10 6:25 P

Sorry this is such a late response, Judy, but I'm new here.

Find your local eggs and more here ...

www.localharvest.org

Ooops - I didn't see the site in the post below.

Even better ... find local eggs, that are Certified Humane here ...

www.certifiedhumane.org/index.php?page=whe
re-to-buy

Edited by: ADIOS2ADIPOSE at: 6/19/2010 (18:34)

Posts: 71
5/18/10 8:59 P

Thanks HUNNYTHISTLE. I usually look up localharvest.org to find organic/natural farms, but it's nice to have more than 1 website to rely on.

Posts: 75
3/18/10 1:48 P

I am looking to find a local resource for pasture feed chicken eggs in Sonoma County CA. If anyone has any leads I would love to hear from you.
Thank,
Judy

Posts: 12
3/14/10 11:01 A

Thanks for the link. That looks like a great resource!

Posts: 48
1/23/10 12:01 P

Check out the movie Food Inc. to see where most of your food REALLY comes from in regards to large farming corporations. This movie will make you want to seek out local product whenever possible! It's a must see!

SparkPoints: (128,922)
Fitness Minutes: (101,085)
Posts: 13,984
1/15/10 3:07 P

Thanks for the link, I passed it on.

current weight: 268.0

316 268.25 220.5 172.75

125

Posts: 2,044
1/12/10 8:44 P

I think I just found a direct source to buy my eggs! Thanks.

SparkPoints: (100,539)
Fitness Minutes: (149,032)
Posts: 5,148
1/11/10 5:43 P

Thanks for this link and your comments. There are a number of countries whose agriculture is at least as "messed up" as ours, especially some in the third world where DDT is still used.

current weight: 137.2

142 134 126 118

110

Posts: 2,227
1/11/10 1:00 P

Thanks for the link - that's great!

Pounds lost: 2.0

0 4.75 9.5 14.25

19

Posts: 284
1/11/10 9:05 A

The link should work now. Sorry about that!

www.eatwild.com

Actually, a fair number of wild herbivores do eat grass! But I agree that "farms" and "wild" are really different things; I don't know if any of the places in the guide are game preserves... altho they do list sources for acquiring wild caught salmon & other seafoods, FWIW.

Even though the name of their website isn't quite accurate, it still seemed a useful guide for those of us who still eat milk, eggs, honey, & meat -- but want to do so in a more environmentally sustainable manner and humane way. I realize that vegans may not get much use out of it, unless they eat honey (I know some do, some don't).

Arguably, however, the truly self-sustaining farms, those referring to themselves as "grass farms", operate in a cycle with little or no external inputs, and little or no waste (external outputs). The animals produce the fertilizer that the plants need to grow, and disperse new seeds, while the plants supply the nutrients that the animals need. Humans include themselves in this ecological cycle as well, facilitating and often accelerating the natural cycle to provide sustenance for ourselves.

Doing so in harmony with ecological systems is more desirable, environmentally speaking, than working against it. Growing plants without animals requires a lot of chemical imputs and generates a fair amount of waste. Growing animals without plants is even more unbalanced. The fact that most agribusiness is doing precisely that is part of what's wrong with the world today, at least in my opinion. Hence, perhaps even vegans would find it useful to know who's at least attempting to mimic natural ecosystems, and farm sustainably, as well as those farm's relationships with the people who grow their vegetables.

In an ideal world, we could all eat wild mushrooms and berries (yummy!) and not need to rely on agriculture -- farming, but the world currently contains entirely too many people for that to feasibly work. Only a few priveleged people can actually do that. (I admit that I live in an area of the world that I could conceivably high tail it into the wilderness and probably live off of the wild land, especially if I fished -- but not with all of my neighbors, too!)

Hmmm.. upon reflection, I suspect that using the "wild" in their website name is to connect these sustainable practices with what happens in the wild, as opposed to what Tyson, Cargill, and Archer-Midlands-Daniels do, which is almost the opposite of a healthy ecosystem.

BTW, I believe this resource is mostly US centric, and apologize for that to those of you who live elsewhere. Sometimes I'd like to think that ya'll don't need these guides only because your agriclture is way less messed up than ours, but I'm not sure that's true?

Pounds lost: 1.0

0 5 10 15

20

Posts: 1,370
1/11/10 9:00 A

The link works fine, this is a great site! I'm havingg a dinner party next month, so I may have to look into some of these places, budget permitting. Organic/grass fed meats is something that I haven't been able to readily afford meaning that meat is an occasional treat on the menu in my home, and usually chicken at that.

current weight: 137.0

152 147.25 142.5 137.75

133

SparkPoints: (39,979)
Fitness Minutes: (152,601)
Posts: 1,726
1/11/10 7:46 A

Link doesn't work.
I'm not sure how grass-fed anything qualifies as 'wild'.
Wild are the mushrooms you gather yourself in the backwoods of Solovetsky Island in late autumn, honey child.

Posts: 284
1/11/10 4:30 A

Check out this guide for farms near you that provide pastured meat, eggs, & dairy products:

www.eatwild.com

(Fixed the link)

Edited by: HUNNYTHISTLE at: 1/11/2010 (09:07)

Pounds lost: 1.0

0 5 10 15

20