Goat Health & Hay

We just passed through a tough cold spell for the goats, with the snow covering the pasture for more than a week. This is the condition that made the goats sick last winter. This time, one of our goats got a mild case of diarrhea again (the Nubian), but seems to be OK. The goats are liking the home made hay, but I did not harvest enough of it. I would need two to three time the amount I collected. Still, some money has been saved harvesting that hay. As the weather is warming, the goats should need less hay soon. Good because I am running out.

Another Loss in the Corral

While feeding the chickens this morning, I found a dead hen. Since the body was complete, I doubt it was killed by a predator. This is the second hen to dies this winter. Those hens are 3 years old, so this may not be too surprising.

Grounding issues

Some weird problem with one of my showers in our house. There is a 50mV to 60mV DC voltage on the showerhead, while the pipe it connects to is properly grounded (a teflon tape appears to isolate the showerhead from the pipe). It is DC, not AC, like the house mains electrical. It is a low voltage (1/1000th of normal AC voltage at the outlets) but is enough to produce some twiching when touched. When all the breakers are off, there is still ~ 15-30mV residual voltage. When the breakers are back on, but the phone wires are disconnected in the phone interface box, there is a ~ 15mV residual DC voltage on the showerhead. When both main electrical and phone are disconnected, there is still a residual DC voltage of 15 - 30mV. There is never any AC voltage. The hot water pipe is grounded to the cold water pipe at the water heater. All voltages were measured with the negative of the voltmeter connected to earth (round prong of a 3-prong outlet). Our wireline phone has a constant humming sound which is very annoying (symptomatic of a bad ground). We actually discontinued the service due to poor audio quality. I am thinking the house has a weak grounding rod, maybe due to corrosion. A google search points to other people experiencing such problems. The recommended solution is to separate the phone interface box ground from the house AC mains ground, although I was told that codes require a common ground, which I tend to agree with, a good ground should have 0 potential on it.

Rainwater, and compost.

The first flush diverters on the rain water system were left open yesterday. We had several frosty mornings in the past few days. If the diverters are allowed to freeze, they will bust, so rain water collection is stopped at this time.

I also got a compost thermometer yesterday to measure the temperature inside the compost heap. It was the same temperature as the outside air, in the 40s, which indicated the forced air system is not really working. I will devise a way to put a much stronger fan in the system.

Chicken Feed: Protein yield

Yesterday I posted a small analysis of growing our own chicken feed for a flock of 25 chickens. I used corn, peas and sunflowers, and found big differences in yield per acre. It would be interesting to calculate the protein yield per acre instead of the whole yield and compare.

Crop	Yield per acre	Protein Content	Protein Yield
Corn	6000lbs	10%	600lbs
Barley	3600lbs	13%	450lbs
Peas	2400lbs	18%	400lbs
Wheat	3000lbs	18%	500lbs
Comfrey	200,000lbs	20%	40,000lbs
Sunflowers	1200lbs	25%	300lbs
Lentil	600lbs	30%	200lbs
Shorgum	3000lbs	10%	300lbs

All yields are close, except the incredible Comfrey (are those numbers real?). The numbers are for Russian Comfrey, which should grow well in the PNW. It is a heavy nitrogen feeder. It is a perennial that will produce at full yield starting the 3rd year, once the deep tap roots are well established. It can be cut every 5 weeks during the season. It is also difficult to eradicate once established. One option would be to plant it directly inside the chicken run, and protect each plant, then let the chickens feed on one plant at a time.

I may plant at leat 5 plants in the chicken run next year, and protect them the first year to allow them to grow to maturity, then use them as feed supplement.

Aside from Comfrey, we can see that protein yield per acre is a lot more constant that whole yield, and should actually be the main criteria for selecting a crop. Corn, barley and peas seem to be the winners, while sunflower can still be planted as an ornamental while providing some additional proteins.

Eggs for income?

We stopped at a food stand this afternoon, and I saw eggs at $6.50 a dozen. Wow, prices have gone up! This got me thinking, would it be worth to sell eggs, in a situation where I would need to supplement my income (such as retirement for example)? Assuming $5 a dozen and customers for them, 25 layers, 2 dozens a day, for $300 a month. The only cost is feed, and that alone may eat up a lot of the revenue. What about growing my own feed, since I do have good land?

From a study:
"Feed consumption and its efficient utilization is one of the major concerns in commercial table egg production as feed cost is one of the major components of total cost of production. Feed alone may contribute from 60 to70% to the total cost of production in egg type layers according to Mian (1994) and Qunaibet et al (1992). Better utilization of feed and avoiding unnecessary feed wastage could be the leading factors in minimizing total cost of production (Elwardany 1998). A layer requires 2.5 kg of feed for 1 kg eggs produced (Ascard et al 1995). Elwardany et al (1998) reported a daily feed intake of 102 g over a 52 weeks production period and 2.07 kg feed/dozen eggs laid. Petek (1999) reported a daily feed consumption/layer (115 g)."

Since our layers are free range, they will eat a lot more feed than caged, at least 30% more if I recall previous readings. So the 2Kg/dozen translate into 5lbs/dozen. Our need would then be 10lbs a day for two dozen eggs, which is a little more than what we actually use, so a good round number for a conservative estimate. Assuming a little less feed needs in the winter, due to less egg laying, the total yearly feed need for 25 chickens is about 2500lbs. This already seems a very big number.

What to plant? Layer feed must have about 18% protein content.

• Corn (10% protein)
• Barley (13% protein)
• Peas (18% protein)
• Wheat (18% protein)
• Comfrey (20% protein)
• Sunflower (25% protein)
• Lentil (35% protein)

Deciding what to grow depends on the climate and the particularities on my area. I will likely have to try each of these, and see what works best, which will take several years of experimentation. Another factor is the work needed to harvest and process the feed. I can get a corn sheller for $80 (corn sheller) but I haven't found any tool for sunflowers. On the other hand, sunflower do grow well here, we have already grown them. So, next is to decide on a formula.

First formula: 25% Sunflowers, 25% peas 25% corn and 25% commercial formula. The commercial formula will be bought on demand. The rest will have to be grown, dried and stored. I will need about 600lbs of each ingredients. Next is to determine the yield.

Corn yield ~ 100 bushels per acre, 60lbs per bushel, or 6000lbs per acre. 0.1 acre needed, or 4400sqft.
Field peas yield ~ 40 bushels per acre. 0.25 acres needed.
Sunflower yield ~ 1200lbs per acre, 0.5 acres needed.

This gives some scary numbers, I don't see myself hand shelling 600lbs of sunflowers after growing and harvesting them on half an acre. We can estimate that we would need one acre of land to provide 100% of the feed needs of a flock of 25 chickens. That seems an enormous amount of land (and work!) for just $300 a month. Clearly, growing vegetables seems a better income maker.
I would still like to grow some of my chicken feed. Some companion planting may be used here, using the corn or sunflowers as stakes for the peas for example, while the peas provide nitrogen to the soil. A good star would be to grow 1/10th acre of corn, and the peas that would grow with it. Before that, I need to try out the crop, so using one or two of the 10x25 garden beds is probably the best approach. One bed could have corn/peas, while the other sunflowers/peas.

Dealing with slugs - picking and garter snakes

I decided to try and pick up slugs every morning since they started appearing. The first week, I picked up up to 25 slugs at a time. The second week, 10-15. Now I am on the third week, and I pick one or two occasionally. The newly planted lettuce, spinach, and peas have not suffered from the slugs. It looks like this method of working.

Yesterday night, I also noticed a baby garter snake in the grass. Good to see they reproduce near the garden. Those snakes feed on slug.

Some slugs are too small to be picked, and yet are still very destructive due to their number, so I do rely on their predators as well as picking.