These CHEAP and FREE Foods Keep Chickens Healthy in WINTER!

I worry about my chickens in Winter everybody worries about their chickens in Winter I want to feed them right so that they stay healthy and warm and fuzzy and I also want my pocketbook to stay warm and fuzzy okay I don't want it to get [Music] cold Hello friends welcome to chicken landia my name is Dalia I'm a backyard chicken educator also known as the president of chicken landia raising chickens has been the best best way for me to find peace and joy in my life and I want to help you find that too are you staying warm and fuzzy bubbalicious what is going on with your hair all right I'll put you down I see a lot of videos out there about what to feed your chickens in the winter so that they lay all winter long and while I never want to invalidate anyone else's experience like if there's something that you have found that's work for you and your chickens are laying during the winter I think that's great and I think you should keep doing it but one thing that I do know is that for most chickens they need a certain amount of hours of daylight in order to complete that egg laying cycle so what we're going to talk about today is not necessarily to get your chickens to lay during the winter what we're going to talk about is how to keep them healthy and warm and happy over the winter so that you don't run into any problems you know that are common during the winter I mean there's definitely more illness with chickens over the winter and we don't want to deal with that okay and definitely if you are supplementing light so if your chickens are laying over the winter you are going to want to hear this information because it's very important that they get the appropriate nutrition whenever they're [Music] laying so the ground is not frozen here yet I still have grass in my run I don't have any snow going on so my chickens are able to keep getting that fresh Greenery every day they they have access to the dirt they have access to the microbiome of the soil and all you know the minerals and everything that's in the soil all these things are really good for them but when it starts to snow and when it gets colder here they're not going to have that same kind of access so it's up to me to make sure that they still get exposure to some good fresh nutrition so that they can stay healthy one of the things that I really love to do for my chickens that is so healthy for them is I love to ferment their feed fermenting chicken feed is a super super easy practice I promise like a lot of people feel intimidated about it but it is so easy believe me if I can do it anyone can do it I really like to ferment the raw scratch and peek feed I'm wearing their sweatshirt right now they got a fancy new logo and they gave me a sweatshirt I'm wearing it and full disclosure scratch and pick feed is sponsoring this video but I will tell you I have been feeding this feed since before I was the president of chickenlandia and that was a long time ago now the one thing about scratching peeg is it is very high quality feed and of course when feed is high quality you have to pay a little bit more for it but the way that I make it work is I ferment it and by doing that I will literally like double the volume of the feed and also increase the nutritional value of the feed so the nutrients that's already in the chicken feed whatever chicken feed you're using that you're fermenting is going to become more bio available to your chickens it will be more digestible to them they will likely eat less of it and you're also increased the volume of it so that's how I am able to still save money while feeding a really great quality feed that being said you can ferment almost any kind of chicken feed okay just ferment what you can afford you want to start out with some really small batches to make sure that the feed ferments well because there's a few of them out there that don't ferment very well and I do have a whole video to that shows how to ferment chicken feed it is so easy I'm going to link that down in the the description for you but don't go and watch it yet okay because I have some more things to share with you so a lot of people ask well if you're fermenting feed how do you keep it from freezing over the winter well I have a secret a secret trick I use a heated water bowl and that will keep the feed from freezing and it also gives the chickens a nice warm meal that they can have every day it's not like hot okay it's just nice and warm they can have it every day I know a lot of people like to give their chickens oatmeal over the winter and this is a way to kind of give them a similar kind of warm treat but it's actually their feed so you're getting lots of good nutrition into them if you can't afford to get a heated water bowl or you don't have electricity in your C don't worry about it you know if you live in a in a mild climate you could probably give them some fermented feed in the morning and then you know as much as they will finish during the morning time and then give them some more feed later so that it doesn't freeze or just give them pellets or crumble okay that's absolutely fine we always say in chicken landia we do what we can okay and whatever you can do the best that you can do is going to be the best for your chickens so we talked about the chickens not having access to pasture over the winter months they're not going to get as many bugs in their natural environment as much and so a great thing that you can give them over the winter even if you don't do it any other time of the year is some really healthy kitchen scraps if you have taken my course if you have my book or if you've just been what hush up okay like I was saying if you have taken my course or if you have my book or if you've just been following me for a really long time you probably know about the chickenlandia chicken food pyramid and basically what that is is it's just a very very simple guide to help people to feed chickens in a way that's more instinctual so that they don't feel like they have to worry about you know how many scraps am I giving how many treats am I giving do I need to measure you know a spoonful of treats for each chicken we don't like to do that that's not how our ancestors did it and it's just going to cause a lot of stress so on the pyramid the bottom tier is whatever feed is appropriate for their stage of life so usually that's layer feed in the second tier you have healthy kitchen scraps so this would be mostly leafy greens if you sprout grains or seeds for your chickens it would go into this tier low sugar fruits will also go into this tier but the main thing is over the winter you want to get greens into your chickens you want to them to get those nutrients that they are not getting because they just don't have access to the same things over the winter time give them that leftover kale okay give them that leftover Roma lettuce give them the leftover broccoli all that good stuff that you're feeding your family you've got these leftovers it doesn't cost a thing you can give it to your chickens just make sure make sure that you do not leave kitchen scraps in your chicken yard overnight especially in the winter time because there are Little Critters looking for not only a buffet but also a warm place to sleep so make sure if your chickens have not cleaned up all the scraps and it's getting dark you got to clean all that up okay you just just trust me okay trust [Music] me a lot of folks like to give their chickens a nice treat before they go to bed in the winter time I think this is a great idea I always think about it in terms of of the chicken landia chicken food pyramid the little treat that you're going to give your chickens at night before do they go to bed to keep them nice and warm and fuzzy overnight is going to be at the very top tier and that's where the healthy treats come in cracked corn goes into that tier grubs if you're doing grubs I love the cluck and good grubs from scratch and Peck feeds meal worms will go into that tiar but you can also put scraps in that tier and that doesn't cost anything okay leftover scrambled eggs uh shrimp tails uh leftover healthy meats that you can give to your chickens what you want is something that is nutrient-dense it's got a little bit of fat it's got a little bit of protein and it's got a little bit of carbs in it for them to digest that overnight the handy thing about thinking about it in terms of the chicken landia chicken food pyramid is it helps to keep that balance okay if you're giving them a whole bunch of fat or a whole bunch of of protein that's actually not good that is a situation where it's like too much of a good thing can lead to other problems okay even too much protein for chickens can lead to problems for them the one thing I will tell you not to give your chickens at night before they go to bed when it's really cold is cooked oatmeal if you've ever seen a chicken eat oatmeal they will literally put their whole face into it okay and then they then they get all mad and they like wipe their face on the ground but they never get all of it okay some of it stays on their face and if it's on their Waddles and comb they can get frostbite there is a very special super healthy treat that you can make for your chickens and it's so good for them over the winter okay not only is it good for them it can help with their immunity CU it's got like immune boosting herbs and garlic in it it can also keep them from getting bored because in the winter you know chickens are usually in more of a confined space and when chickens get bored they get into trouble so you don't want them to get into trouble you want to give them something that they can do and I have a recipe for a d y flock block but it's a healthy version and you can make it with stuff you have at home okay so it shouldn't cost you much money all right and that is the goal guess what it's also 100% friendly backyard chickens education and entertainment and I know you're going to love it

Channel: Welcome to Chickenlandia

Views: 97,448

Keywords: backyard chickens, chickenlandia, chicklandia

Id: 09Sk2wnkGL4

Length: 9min 49sec (589 seconds)

Published: Wed Nov 15 2023