Shadrach's Ex Battery and Rescued chickens thread.

[RoyalChick]

Sounds like the people of Ecuador are adaptable and flexible - both great attributes in my view.

We switched to metric for most things decades ago now, but in a rather piecemeal fashion. We've hung on to pints (for beer) and miles (for longer distances) even among the young, while thinking of shorter lengths comes easier in feet/yards for the older and in metres for the younger. I think a lot of us just used the price as the proxy for a shamefully long time, instead of getting our heads around kilos for fruit and veg and litres for fuel. So I'd buy £25 worth of fuel, and couldn't tell you how much that was in either litres or gallons! It was an 'enough, that'll do' sort of measure.

I was teasing a guy I was talking to in the UK the other day. He was doing some construction work and said something along the lines of "I will get some 2.4meter 2x4s for that"
What is a 2x4, I asked sweetly, surely you can't be describing a piece of lumber in inches?
It is sold as 89x38mm which is is more accurate than '2x4' but way less memorable!

 

[Sally PB]

It is sold as 89x38mm which is is more accurate than '2x4' but way less memorable!

I think asking for some "eighty-nine thirty-eights" might be quite memorable at the local Menards hardware store.

 

[townchicks]

View attachment 3693750
Someone must have thought a rational analysis of the nutrients in the human's ration included sampling.
(At least this time she had the courtesy of not stepping in and scratching the food around.)

We are taught the revolutionary calendar as children so it feels like a game, the names of the months are fun and make it easy to remember. Still, I forgot it growing up and I admit I had to do the correspondence when I studied the revolution again as a young adult.

I hate that the US have these eccentric measures for cooking because everytime I find an American recipe, I have to look up the amounts of the various ingredients in grams and I haven't found a trustworthy single converter.
And I wonder how do you actually know what a cup is ? Do you have specific cups for measuring or is it just any cup and whatever happens, happens...

And to go back to the chickens, maybe it's the novelty but none of mine have ever refused anything I offered cooked, unless it was really mushy and sticky, whereas they have shun some of the raw food I thought they could like.

Yes, we do have specific cups for measuring. I hardly cook, but I have all the gear, lol. Even though I haven't baked in years, I got hooked on the Great British Baking show. I was, wait, what? They're weighing the ingredients? Wow, who knew? Well you all, obviously. So, back to chickens, and cooking. I have never given my girls scrambled eggs. In my head, I guess I kind of felt that was my payment for caring for and loving them. Especially now when I am having to buy eggs! Today I thought, well I buy them tuna, mealworms, sunflower seeds etc, why shouldn't I give them a bought egg. So I scrambled one for them. It was well received.

 

[BDutch]

I hate that the US have these eccentric measures for cooking because everytime I find an American recipe, I have to look up the amounts of the various ingredients in grams and I haven't found a trustworthy single converter.

I have several sets of measuring cups. I think one of the cup measures is marked 240 ml, and another is marked 250.

This is what I found on google:
Officially, a US Cup is 240ml (or 8.45 imperial fluid ounces.) This is slightly different from an Australian, Canadian and South African Cup which is 250ml.

Cup is 8 fluid ounces.
Pint is 16 fluid ounces.
1 pound is 16 weight ounces.

Ounces are not very useful for Europeans either. .

 

[RoyalChick]

This is what I found on google:
Officially, a US Cup is 240ml (or 8.45 imperial fluid ounces.) This is slightly different from an Australian, Canadian and South African Cup which is 250ml.

Ounces are not very useful for Europeans either. .

And the first two are fluid ounces so a measure of volume not of weight.
I have never understood the need for fluid ounces as a measurement.

 

[BDutch]

https://www.backyardchickens.com/goto/post?id=27338245 @TropicalChickies said:
One year ago today, this holy terror of a bird broke out of a egg bought for twenty-five cents from a neighbor, one day before his only hatchmate.

I remember you were telling about the day you lost mother and son some time ago. It was great to read the whole story. Thanks for sharing.

 

[RoyalChick]

Weights and measures tax: two busy ladies!

 

[Shadrach]

Good grief, an awfull lot of lets just throw it all together and see what happens going on here.
One problem I think I'm seeing currently is not only is the nutritional profile for a given weight changing through the fermenting, so is the volume. The stuff I've been fermenting grows in volume by about 35%. That 35% is water basically.

Depending on the breed, the commercial concerns dealing with high production breeds recommend 100g to 150g of feed per bird per day. A chickens crop has volume limitations; they're all different but as I've mentioned before, I've estimated the volumes of a number of bulging crops and none that I've felt could hold even 100 grams of the mash/pellets and let alone the feremented feed.

With dry feed the chicken gets more nutrition per gram or per volume than with fermented feed. Does anyone think the advantages claimed of fermented feeds gives a 35% boost to the nutritional value?

The allotment lot if I'm there for three hours get two shots at eating whatever feed I take; one as soon as I get there and one just before roosting. What I need in this case is maximum nutrition and minimum volume.

My Light Sussex keeping friend limits his chickens morning feed which he says keeps them hungry enough to forage during the day. He finds his birds a bit lazy in this respect. They're a big breed and need the excercise.

However, a person who doesn't free range and feeds by a shedule rather than leaving feed out all day might find that the birds don't/cant eat enough in nutrients in the time and at the volume of the fermented feed.
For those who range their birds all day on larege areas with diverse vegitation this is unlikely to be a problem.

I'm trying out drying the fermented feed. The fermentation should have reduced the bioavailabilty problems and the drying will reduce the water content and I hope, the volume by a significant amount.

I'm hoping to produce a wholegrain feed with a similar profile to the low calcium commercial feeds.
I'm still waiting for a delivery of teff and spelt. I think teff may be too small a grain to be useful but a good quality wholegrain spelt can reach 18g of protein per 100g; 18% for those of you who don't do metric. What I have coming is advertized as 17%. I now can look at other grains or pulses that only need to have the right amino acid profile that gives the same protein per 100g or one percent more rather than looking for stuff 6% to 8%. This increase the possiblities a lot.

Yup, it's expensive. But, in theory, I can then add one other componant with a better lysine profile and have a complete balanced protein similar to a commercial feed. The best price I've found so far is forty one uk pounds for 20kg. Would one save the extra cost of the spelt by being able to spend less on the other componants needed to bring the protein content up and balanced?
Why does Shadrach keep banging on about commercial feeds when we're all on the feremented whole grains and pulses? Well, while the overall quality of what goes into commercial feed may leave a lot to be desired, the industry has done the math and the reasearch and has billions of chickens as evidence that chicken can survive and thrive on their feeds.

 

[BDutch]

And the first two are fluid ounces so a measure of volume not of weight.
I have never understood the need for fluid ounces as a measurement.

I find measuring from a cup / measuring cup (ours is for centiliters or liters) is more easy/convenient than having to weigh something on a scale. When Im cooking I like to work fast and don’t want to be very precise,

 

[Shadrach]

I think any traditional method of food prep is pretty reliable; it developed through a process of trial and error on locally grown foodstuffs, long before labs existed and without any mathematical input. Natural selection is pretty good at weeding out bad ideas in that sort of environment

I must get some stickers made up that say natural selection will weed out the pre packed high fat and salt pre made UPF dinner you're about to buy and take them with me on my next supermarket shopping trip.