What a difference some HAY makes!

what a difference some hay makes yesterday I talked about the needs that this chicken yard has to make things more comfortable and healthy and enjoyable for our hens so we're beginning that process starting with hay I'm gonna talk a little bit in detail about why we choose hay and a little background story on there but first I won't take too long with this because I know folks would rather see the chickens and talk about chickens but I want to acknowledge and really appreciate all of you who I made the video a few days ago about health edible acres grow and I made a comment on that but maybe some of you haven't seen that that day I think it was over a hundred new subscribers which is small by some of the bigger channels but to me that's crazy exciting and the fact that it came almost entirely who most likely from word of mouth of folks that believe in this channel and enjoy it talking to their friends and family or to their networks rather than complete strangers through clickbait or advertising or what-have-you so thank you so much for that and we'll keep developing this channel as best we can and thanks for being part of the community let me get back to the video yesterday Sasha and I headed up to Truman's burg to the main nursery to pick up some resources but also to pick up a the front leg of a cow for from an Amish farmer an old Amish farmer that we've made a relationship with that had been damaged and had to be put down and so we worked out an arrangement to pick up that leg and process it into some incredible meat and food for our dog and cat and a little for us and for those of you that are sketched out by meat don't look at this but for those of you that raised chickens in rural environments or understand the true nature of chickens you can appreciate what they have this morning which is the remainder of this to peck apart the amount of protein and mineral and iron and goodness for chickens is off the charts with this sort of material so in the winter it's lovely thing we've also yesterday picked up compost and so they have free choice on organic almond butter and cashew butter this morning so it's off to a good start but let me zoom out here we left that in the coupe for those hens that don't feel comfortable coming out all of this is one hey Bill but both what's outside here and also on the inside yesterday connected again with an old farmer friend of mine and I want to go on a side tangent here just for a minute as a shout out and a respect to elders this fellow Steve he's been farming in Truman's burg for a half of a century he's 86 years old this year still farming square bales of hay I think this is his last year I haven't seen him in a while and I could tell he's really winding down physically and I just wanted to acknowledge that this fellow with his friend Don who's also in his mid-80s have been putting up square bales of hay for a half of a century feeding I don't know how many animals in our region I worked out in exchange with him almost 10 years ago where he taught me how to pack and load hay in exchange for my labor I got a pair of hay forks from him as a gift and we loaded thousands of bales of hay onto trucks and I got to meet some really great old farmers and learned how to move hay in an appropriate and safe way so thank you Steve for your amazingness and thank you all the old farmers when he leaves this world most likely his children will subdivide the hundreds of acres that he's farmed and that's just how things go hey it works our chickens are so much more comfortable I've spread out one bale here to completely cover the ice and snow and I can feel the energetic difference they're spending a lot more time outside in fact they're laying down in it and falling asleep in it that little barred rock has been gorging on sprouts and probably some meat an almond butter this morning and it's taking a quick snoozer what I'll do is continue to add biochar to the ground here I talked about this extensively in other videos but we're making a lot more biochar as it gets colder and colder it's about 10 15 degrees right now and my fingers are freezing so they'll crush that charcoal and that'll get folded in to the compost you can see we've added a lot more compost in there yesterday and sprout Mountain is kicking it will switch over to chicken TV in a minute here I promise but let's look inside the coop a lot of friends are opting on this cold morning to rest on the hay for a bit and then go out and come back in feel so nice to have a space that is dry and comfortable for their feet the next order of business and this will be documenting is to reinvigorate some nesting boxes I want to acknowledge what I've seen or observed that they like to lay down in corners were too dark and I've read that that's their preference so what we're gonna do most likely is create the nesting boxes on this far back wall so take all the roofs off and set them down this line mm-hmm lay them out so that they're not stacked on each other but a little bit more flat and with enough space that they can't poop on each other while they're sleeping and set the nest boxes in that far corner so they have a little bit more privacy back there any feedback on that layout idea is more than welcome because it hasn't started yet but we've also queued up a couple hay bales in the coop here so that they have real protection from wind and place to play I would suspect the 10 hay bales we picked up so far at least a few months in quick sidenote on hey why hey instead of straw I've talked about this in other videos where I mentioned making hay bale Gardens instead of straw bale Gardens straw for what it's worth unless it's certified organic and you know the farmer almost always is pretty heavily sprayed with glyphosate life glyphosate it's a hard time saying that roundup basically so straw as a mulch material unless you know the farmer is absolutely not spraying it most likely they are hay by and large is a perennial crop that some farmers may spray but I know are pretty darn sure this fellow does not spray I've worked with him for a while I've never seen spray equipment so hay versus straw hay also is a feed that the chickens can pick out there's a lot of grass and clover seed in there other weed seeds and it is insulative it is dry but it can also be a good composting material so that's our preference but our little friends in here a lot more comfortable today and that's just one bale I've known him long enough that he sells them to me for a low enough price when I first got started I traded labor for the bales because I didn't have enough income from the nursery and now I can pay him cash and round up as he gets older and it feels really nice to have that role reversal there a little bit it's certainly cold but our friends have real wonderful all-you-can-eat buffet today sprout Mountain as James wall described it working pretty well cracked a little ice off of there this morning since it dipped down to around 10 and I put a sheet of plastic on the far end to reserved heat as we get colder and colder next week but I'm going to show up now and let some chicken TV happen [Laughter] [Laughter] [Applause] [Laughter] [Laughter] [Applause] I can see better seemed unimpressed little too cold for that one maybe not he seems so much more comfortable with a nice insulative hey pad under them look forward to keeping them very comfortable during this cold spell

Channel: EdibleAcres

Views: 91,409

Keywords: chicken, chickens, chicken compost, compost chicken, composting chickens, composting with chickens, winter chicken, winter chicken run, insulating winter chickens, chickens in winter, backyard chickens, chicken (animal), permaculture chickens, organic chickens, backyard permaculture chicken coop, feeding chickens, chickens permaculture garden, chicken run, chicken coop, pastured chickens, permaculture animals, #permaculture, permacuture

Id: EgFZZreNOFs

Length: 11min 21sec (681 seconds)

Published: Sat Jan 26 2019