At the Sebastopol Energy Garden eggs account for a large portion of the calories that we produce. Of the estimated 1,476,765,3 calories that we can produce over the next growing year, 136,218 of that comes in the form of eggs.

On average our flock of five chickens produces an egg/chicken/day, each weighing roughly 61g, and containing 93.3 calories.

Supporting a flock of chickens; however, requires energy as well. Each chicken needs at least 200 calories/day to survive, and while about 30% of those calories can be obtained by foraging, the other 70% needs to be provided for them. Our chickens are allowed access to the compost piles and obtain some additional calories from the food scraps we recycle, but this is not enough.

Because hens allocate so much of the protein that they consume toward egg production it is also essential that we support the needs of our flock by providing a protein rich feed for them. It is recommended that 16% of a chicken's diet be protein.

Recommended Daily Value (chicken): 200 cal/day
(5 chickens) (365) = 365,000 cal/ year

FOOD SOURCE % PROTEIN, BY WT

Dried fish flakes 76
Dried liver 76
Dried earthworms 76
Duckweed 50
Torula yeast 50
Brewers yeast 39
Soybeans (dry roasted) 37
Flaxseed 37
Alfalfa seed 35
Beef, lean 28
Earthworms 28
Fish 28
Sunflower seeds 26.3
Wheat germ 25
Peas & Beans, dried 24.5
Sesame seed 19.3
Soybeans (boiled) 17
Wheat bran 16.6
Oats, whole 14
Rice polish 12.8
Rye 12.5
Wheat 12.5
Barley 12.3
Oats 12
Corn 9
Millet 9
Milo 9
Rice, brown 7.5

Chicken feed can be purchased from most feed stores and while this may be a simple enough solution for most, it is our goal to produce chicken feed on-site so that we may decrease our dependece upon off-site materials and reduce our energy consumption.

The majority of chicken feed is produced through unsustainable, agricultural methods which rely heavily upon the use of petroleum. The proces behind producing, storing, and transporting feed is a very energy requiring process; by producing chicken feed on-site, on a small scale, we can avoid a lot of the energy inputs of conventional production.

By calculating the theoretical calorie yield of each crop intended for
chicken feed as well as their protein content, we can determine the
amount of required growing space for feeding the chickens. When it comes time to harvest the grains, and process them we will already have calculated how much to allocate towards the chickens. Then all we need to do is grind the grains and mix them accordingly. In the batch that we just prepared we used a combination of Peredovik Sungflowers seeds, Sorghum, Millet, and Ground corn.

Hand powered Corona Mill

[video]

Corn Millet

Peredovik Sunflower Dale Sorghum

Chicken Feed

At present, the plan is to raise twelve chickens on the farm site at Brookside School. The purpose of raising chickens is to create eggs for local buyers, demonstrate a system that can provide for the food needs of poultry, and, where possible, control insect populations. The site will include an enclosed coop and small chicken yard, with the option of allowing the chickens to both pasture and range as they forage for a majority of their sustenance.

As a general rule, the nutritional needs of chickens include:

1. Grains (a mixture of whole grain, un-cracked grain is good and mixed grain is better than pure corn).
2. Greens (grass, weeds, fresh berries, and other vegetable scraps).
3. Protein (in summer, ranging they get enough bugs -- but in colder weather they need protein supplementation, including soybeans or fava beans, worms, milk, and seeds).
4. Water (chickens need plenty of water and need to have it not only in their pen, but additionally in chicken tractors and near their forage).

There is a special opportunity at the Willits Energy farm to demonstrate a planting arrangement on the western perimeter that serves the dual function of windbreak and forage crop. The western fence line stretches 150 feet and borders a fallow pasture. While designing our annual beds, we have allocated a width of 10 feet from the fence to create the windbreak and forage section. Perennial trees and shrubs will be spaced and interplanted with ground crops that should provide a variety of food from late spring to the middle of October. The plan is that some of the crops will be immediately consumed by the chickens while other crops will have the advantage of storage.

Below is the list of crops that could be used for the western windbreak and under-story:

-Trees:

These will provide the bulk of the windbreak and will be alternated in sequence.

• 5 Mulberry Trees (This tree is wind resistant and provides edible berries as early as the first year).
• 4 Honey Locust Trees (A fast growing tree that provides large, edible seed pods and hard seeds that can be collected and stored for winter use. It also attracts bees).

-Shrubs:

The selected shrub will be spaced between the trees and provide added windbreak for the area left open between trees.

• 8 Siberian Pea Shrub (This shrub is hardy and grows well in drained soils; it requires full sun and will be backed away from the trees. With a large number of them it should provide a certain amount of storable seed if the chickens don’t get to it first.)

-Understory:

These plants that will be sown to provide ground cover and compete against grass under the newly established trees. They will address all three dietary needs and provide greens, additional forage seed, and some grains:

• Clover (It will compete against grass, attract bees, and provide a choice of greens).
• Borage (This flower will also provide greens as well as yield seed).
• Comfrey (It has deep tap roots that bring potassium from deep in the soil. It will be used in the understory of trees and can perhaps be used for composting and green feed).
• Buckwheat and Rye (These grains will be row seeded in various short lengths both in the fall and spring and may provide added material to be composted).
• Favabean (Fava may potentially provide more storable protein for the winter and food in the earlier part of spring).

To support pastured egg layers, we are considering the implementation of various “chicken tractor” designs. A chicken tractor is a movable floorless chicken coop for the purposes of pest control, protection of annual crops from hungry chickens, fertilization, and sheltering the chicken as they forage. Chicken tractors allow the birds to feed in precise areas and can potentially be a useful way to manage forage resources. However, they need to be moved throughout the day and may be too tight a quarters for more than two birds, thus requiring more tractors and more effort to move them. If we don’t use chicken tractors we may consider fencing the forage section with extra wire left over from the perimeter fencing project.

Way Down There is the Western Fenceline

Northwest Corner Behind the Backstop (Potential Coop Location)

Example of a Very Nice Chicken Tractor

It was another day of constant rain. Since it was so wet outside I had an opportunity to do research on cereal crops and chickens. The question that we were asking today was whether or not it would be possible to support about ten egg-laying hens with both free ranging opportunities and supplemental feed grown on the farm site. As we are in the infrastructure planning phase this is a question that a few of us are asking related to the project. I was able to find a paper that had layer mash formulas developed in the 1980's at the University of Maine and the 1940's at the University of Maryland. Here are the supplemental feed recipes:

These recipes are a complete ration and we hope to let the chickens ingest a variety of nutrients by free ranging. However, the article mentioned that twelve chickens would need about 100lbs of supplemental feed per month in the winter and 50lbs per month in the summer. I want to work out the numbers regarding space and capacity to see what sort of situation we are interested in designing. I am particularly excited to crunch a few numbers tomorrow to get a better picture of how much of each crop is needed for the entire year. A small report related to how much land one might need to generate sufficient food per chicken or per flock of chickens is expected to come from some of today's research. However, before making too many strong conclusions I will need to consult more sources.

Check out the attached PDF to read a great article related to free range chickens. The author, Don Vivian, covers a lot of ground in this article and even includes some do-it-yourself building plans related to chicken infrastructure.

I also have another PDF from West Virginia University. It is a short article that gives an overview of the dietary needs of poultry and seems to support the composistion of layer mash formuals illustrated above.