MY SCRATCH HENS LAY GOLDEN EGGS
(Page 3 of 4)
July/August 1975
By Allice Merritt
My flock's basic diet is table scraps and odds and ends from the garden: outer leaves of collards and cabbage, large cucumbers and squash (split open), and so forth. Grass cuttings left by the mower also become chicken feed, and none are left to accumulate in the yard.
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Some crops are grown just for the chickens. Rape, especially, is easy to raise and produces quick results. I simply rake the ground, scatter seed, and forget it the greens are ready for the flock about a week later. (More seed would come up if I covered the bed with dirt, but I don't bother.) I also put in about half an acre of rye, wheat, or oats, usually from the less expensive seed which is sold as feed. The same stock of oats is a good poultry food just as it comes from the bag.
When soybeans are gathered on our place, the cows and chickens forage the field after the combines have gone over it. The soybean straw also goes to the birds, which eat what they can and shred the rest into an ideal mulch for the garden.
My neighbors' harvested cornfields are another good source of chicken feed, since I make arrangements to pick up the ears the mechanical harvester leaves at the ends of rows. Some folks let me have all I can find, others give me half the gleanings. I keep the sacks of corn under shelter-in an airy place, to prevent mold and feed the grain as necessary by just throwing the whole cobs near the chickenhouse. The flock gets exercise by picking - the kernels off, and not a single one is wasted.
Chickens must consume some grit to help them digest their food so I occasionally buy surplus sand from a home builder or haul a wheelbarrow load home from beside the road. Cracked oyster shells (available from farm supply stores) are fed regularly to strengthen the shells of my birds' eggs. Whenever I run out of this supplement, I soon notice the difference.
My small flock is housed in part of an old shelter, which I enclosed with scrap lumber and fitted with narrow roosts. Actually, the chickens prefer to spend the night perched on tractors, beams in the barn, and other high places but when I found that some had gone so far as to move in with neighbors, I began to shut them up at bedtime to teach them where home was. My son and I have regular roundups: He catches the high-roosting strays, while I get those lower down. A week of this convinces most of the fowl, and the stubborn ones fall to the rifle.
Nests are nailed on racks, placed under shelters, or located wherever I think a hen might lay. Pine straw is the handiest bedding around, but I also use soft hay, dry grass, discarded string, rags, shredded paper, etc. The used material can be removed later and spread on the garden as mulch.
Many of my fowl "steal" nests that is, lay in spots of their own choosing-and I scout for these locations several times a week by listening for the clucking of the hens. (It's worth checking any nearby low places, since summer nests are often just holes hollowed out of the ground.) My grandson helps in my daily "Easter egg hunts" and enjoys himself thoroughly. Regular search and careful handling of the layings assures my customers of fresh hen fruit but if a buyer does complain of runny eggs, I take his word for it and give him replacements.
