Rose hips for chickens?

[Noymira]

While looking for rose hip recipes and drying methods for making syrup, jelly and tea I found this link about drying them for supplements for chickens.

http://www.ehow.com/how_8164552_dry-rose-hips-chickens.html

I have a lot of roses, and on several bushes the hips are small enough I probably won't harvest them for eating since we have plenty of bushes with much larger hips. I was wondering about drying the smaller ones whole for my chickens this winter in my dehydrator.

Has anyone done this before? Any thoughts or advice?

 

[Orchid]

Mine seem to dehydrate pretty nicely right on the bush by mid-winter or so. The chickens ate most of them early this spring.

 

[Noymira]

Quote:
My chickens don't free range, and the roses are nowhere near their run. If I leave them on the bushes the deer and birds will eat them all by January.

I'll leave some on there for them, but thought I'd get something out of them for myself this year.

Maybe I'll test my drying method on hips for the chickens before I do the others for my tea, so if they get a bit too dry or not dry enough I can feed them to the chickens sooner, or rehydrate with other goodies.

 

[Orchid]

I think throwing them in the dehydrator would work very well, in that case. You're going to have some happy chickens this winter!

 

[Hawkeye95]

WOW!! had no idea you could feed rose hips! I never use them, just clip them off and toss them. I'll be gathering them now and saving them! I assume you can feed them when they are fresh? But if you dry them out- then they can be saved for winter treats? Love this!!

 

[Noymira]

Quote:
I've always known they were edible, but this will be the first time I've harvested them. I just can't pass up on the opportunity to pick some for the chickens since they are free!

Plus they have a lot more vitamin C than oranges and are great for people. I'm going to make syrup to have on hand for cold season, dried hips for tea for the same reason. I making some apple rose hip jelly after I go apple picking this weekend. If we still have more left after all that I hope to make some fruit leather and rose hip wine. We have a LOT of mature (20+ year old) rose bushes.

 

[Hawkeye95]

Quote:
I've always known they were edible, but this will be the first time I've harvested them. I just can't pass up on the opportunity to pick some for the chickens since they are free!

Plus they have a lot more vitamin C than oranges and are great for people. I'm going to make syrup to have on hand for cold season, dried hips for tea for the same reason. I making some apple rose hip jelly after I go apple picking this weekend. If we still have more left after all that I hope to make some fruit leather and rose hip wine. We have a LOT of mature (20+ year old) rose bushes.

You must have a lot of rose bushes! I only have one bush that has hips grow on it. The others I assume have been crossed so they won't produce hips? I've never seen them on there, and my other bushes are about 11 years old. I knew about the Vit C and that they were edible, just figured it was more work than it was worth. But I had no idea you could just clip them and feed them as is. That is so cool! Very neat about the apple and rose hip jelly. Never heard of that. We have apples trees, and I've been pulling off about 5 apples every day for the last week since they've just gotten ripe. The kids eat them so fast! Once they start falling, I'll really have to get out there and get them picked up. I love having my own fruit! I'm going to go check and see how many hose hips are still on the rose.

It almost looks like a berry bush this time of year it usually gets so many. Good luck on all of your processing.

 

[Noymira]

Quote:
Thanks! Hopefully the rose hip venture will turn out ok. I'll come back and post results and pictures, both of the food goods, but of the dehydrated hips for the chickens as well!

My mom planted the roses when I was a kid (we bought my parent's house 2 years ago). They form a giant hedge that lines about 40-50 feet of our driveway, and there is another small hedge along one side of our house (about 15 feet long) that produces smaller hips. Since we started with the chickens (and other self sufficient ventures) I've taken much more of an interest in what we having growing here that I could forage for us and for the chooks.

I want to plant some apple trees, I love apples! We don't really have a good spot for full size trees, so I'd love to get some of those columnar apple trees to plant along the driveway as well. http://www.gardeners.com/Columnar-Apple-Trees/VegetablesFruits_Cat,37-513,default,cp.html

 

[Hawkeye95]

Quote:
OMGosh! Those little apple trees are just adorable!! How cool would that be!? What a great idea for smaller spaces. I have some dwarf trees- but honestly, they are already over 10 feet and growing. I have some full sized apple trees too- they are obviously bigger, they seem much sturdier than my dwarfs. I have red delicious, yellow delicious, granny smith and I forget the other one.. I have a lot of room, so I plan on putting in some more apple trees! LOL! I want my own little mini orchard for myself and my family/friends. It's not a selling venture by any means, but it sure is nice to go out and pick apples. I'm wanting to plant persimmon trees this Fall too. I've got lots of self sustaining plans for us.

I put in my first herb garden this year, and it did fabulous.

 

[rrreeeaaa333]

I gave some dried ones to my chickens that my bunnies didn't like and once they pecked them and realised they weren't grapes they ignore them. But i think that if your chickens like them then it is a very good use of old berries.