The Chicken and the Egg: Pasture and Supplemental Feed

Well, the chickens have started laying again.  We are up to about a dozen a day and gathering more every day.  Clearly, the supplemental feed we were using did not have the proper nutrition profile to support laying.  However, right now, we are feeding 100 pounds of feed a week at a cost of $90.  We have mixed feelings.  The cost doesn’t bother us as much as some of the other issues.  We have always said that the chickens save us $5,000/year on fertilizer and as long as they continue to cost less than that then we feel very good about having them here.  

It is the larger, more philosophical issues that have us a little ruffled.  Supplemental feed is made from organic, non-GMO wheat, oats, corn, alfalfa, and soybeans.  All of these crops are grown on large, monoculture plots using a lot of inputs.  They are then harvested, shipped to one place for manufacturing, then another place for distribution, and then finally here.  Too many inputs (and often waste) for us to feel comfortable.  

Then, we move to FCR or food conversion ratio.  It is a term that is thrown around a lot in the chicken industry but also used by “greenies” to support arguments for grass-fed meat products as well as those trying to convince people that meat is irresponsible from a caloric-input point-of-view. (I have made both arguments so guilty as charged.)  It is hard to use FCR data for eggs, but I can guarantee you that 100 pounds of feed for 20 dozen eggs a week (the top production we have ever gathered in a week) is poor (irresponsible?) use of resources (water, energy, soil, etc.).  

So, what do we do about it?  I have always been a “we do it right, or we don’t do it at all” type, which has made motherhood challenging for me and mothering and farming at the same time downright frustrating.  I am trying to learn how to let go but letting go so often seems like compromising to me, and I don’t really like to compromise.  I have been thinking a lot, though, about what Mary Farmer shared with me.  I am paraphrasing (and thus possibly reinterpreting): you do the next best.  In other words, you do the best you can do now, and you work on making that next change to do a little better.  Is that where we are?  Possibly.  

Hens free-ranging on pasture last fall.

When we had the hens on “chicken pasture” last summer and the old (a.k.a. bad) supplemental feed, we were gathering at least 2 dozen eggs a day.  Everything else was pretty equal...weather, of course, always being the uncontrollable input.  Our conclusion is that the chicken pasture (an assortment of legumes, brassicas, and chicory) worked.  But, and there is always a but when trying to make this sustainable farm puzzle fit together, it attracted a lot of brassica pests that then attacked and mutilated (without destroying entirely) our fall brassica crops.  So, do we try the mix without the brassicas and hope the brassicas weren’t the key?  And hope that we can then feed significantly less supplemental feed so that we feel like we have tipped the moral scale on chickens and eggs.  I think that is where we are at right now.  So, we will seed more chicken pasture in the early fall.  It will be flourishing next spring, and we will hope for more eggs and less feed.  That’s farming - the way we do it, at least.