Because the black oil birdseed sunflower seeds are so inexpensive just buy another 25 or 50 lb. bag for next year and don't give it all to the birds. I plant it wit a 2-row tractor drawn corn planter (bean plates) and I'm cutting on my third planting for this year. Most people comment on how mich nicer the flowers are than the ones they are growing when I take to market. When I had mixed varieties on first planting (auction seed purchase) the majority of the customers preferred the generic birdseed sunflowers. So by all means plant them and expect about 50% of the flowers to be attractive enough to cut, same as for the expensive seeds. For each planting expect a 2-3 week cutting period before outer petals begin to drop; always best to cut flowers within a few days of first opening. Other flowers give you a slightly longer cutting window.

Boss Brothers is a Feed & Seed on 78. It is a few miles east of the Growers Outlet. I'm not sure if that is considered Loganville or Monroe. You should call for availability before you go. I was using meal on my lawn for a few years and had a hard time finding it. You may want to try soybean meal if you can't find cottonseed.

Here in W. WA, 50lbs of oyster shell costs $12, and it’s very stable, not subject to problems of dampness, not susceptible to aging. Cheap insurance. Calcium in the soil is good, but it often isn’t enough for a hen to produce 200+ eggs per year. I live in a high-rainfall area, and it leaches calcium from the soil badly, so without adding lime in fall, grass and crops will be calcium-deficient. Get hold of Gene Logsdon’s book “Small-scale Grain Raising” for a LOT of info on growing smaller amounts of grains at home, for your own use and your livestock. Greens: alfalfa, clover, cowpeas, field peas, kale, chard and other people greens. Whole dried corn isn’t great for chickens unless they have an adequate source of grit. Otherwise, they will eat it, but they can’t break it down enough to receive much nutrition from it. Fresh or cooked corn is okay. Seeds: cowpeas, English peas (plus tendrils and flowers), flax seed, pigeon pea. Not beans unless they’re cooked. Grow sunflowers and let them pick the heads clean. Some grains to consider for poultry: buckwheat, amaranth, barley, wheat (including the old wheats: kamut, emmer, einkorn), millet, oats (on the stem or rolled), quinoa, rye, sorghum (don’t use for sprouts), spelt, teff, triticale. Many of these grains can be harvested by cutting the stalks or stems, and bundling them together, and hanging them in a warm, dry place. But beware of mice. If you miss some, or even if you don’t want to harvest it, you can knock the plants down and let the chickens in to the self-serve buffet. While eating these high-quality feeds, the chickens will help till in the cover crops with their scratching, improving the soil with both plant residues and their droppings. Comfrey has quite a bit of protein and minerals, some chickens will eat it, some won’t. Cooked cull potatoes (no green parts), pumpkins, squashes, sweet potatoes can help to fill them up. You might even consider growing some mangels or fodder beets for them – they’re nutritious, and can be nailed or clamped to a post for pecking at, or grated. All these crops store well in the proper conditions. Wild nuts, acorns, black walnuts, etc, can be smashed with a hammer on a rock or brick Any berry you can eat, chickens can eat. Consider planting some just for them: mulberries, aronia (they prefer black over red), currents, bilberries, elderberries, saskatoon/serviceberry, sea-buckthorn or huckleberries. Protect the roots from those big, scratching feet with some large rocks or wire mesh, and you can grow them where they can harvest them on their own. Run them under your fruit trees to eat the fallen fruits and insects. If you live near a beach, collect some fresh seaweed and bring it home to them. Rinse it off and nail it to a post. There are thousands of varieties of kelp and seaweed and none are poisonous. You can even dry it for extended storage. Grow duckweed in a kid’s wading pool. Scoop out part of it and give to the chickens (or ducks), let the rest grow a day or two and then scoop out some more. It multiplies very fast. Soybeans must be cooked or roasted for any creature to eat, including us, or it causes bleeding of the stomach. I wouldn’t recommend genetically-modified kinds (about 90% of the U.S. crop) for any creature. Grow your own earthworms, nightcrawlers, mealworms or black soldier fly larvae, but don't let them be more than 25% of the diet. Black Soldier Fly larvae contain about 42% protein, 35% fat, 5% calcium, 19 amino acids, and 13 minerals, a real powerhouse of nutrition. They produce much faster than earthworms. They can quickly reduce 100 lbs of garbage or manure down to 5 lbs, which could be composted or continue finishing via earthworms. They can be frozen in containers for winter feeding. Boil those cracked, dirty eggs. Cool, then just chop them in quarters (shell and all) and toss them to the girls. The birds don’t seem to associate eating the shells with shell-eating of raw eggs. If you’ve got a grocery store, farmers market, juice bar or restaurant nearby, ask for their produce waste (lettuce trimmings, juice pulp, etc). Use chickens to clean up after feeding grain to larger livestock and to pick eggs and parasites out of the manure. It is recommended that you don’t feed chickens avocado skins or pits, rhubarb, citrus, salt, green potato skins, garlic or onions (causes Heinz anemia) or uncooked beans (contains toxic hemaglutin). But they aren’t likely to eat them unless they’re starving, anyway. Don’t go crazy trying to poison-proof your property for your animals. Pat Coleby, Australia’s expert on natural health for animals, says that if animals are getting a good diet, they won’t overeat on toxic plants. Yes, they may take a taste or two, but she says that seems to fall into the “medicinal” category. The creatures know what they can eat and what they can’t. Farmers extol the horrors of tansy, but only starving cattle will eat it, well-fed cattle won’t. And I’ve found that she is right. I have quite a few poisonous plants around, and my girls may nibble a bit, but they don’t overload.

We get hay from our field for the horses n cows and rabbits when I have some. Rabbits can live on good timothy hay. you dont need pellets. We also get food from the food pantries. At the local pantry here they have truck fulls of breads.Its amazing how much food big stores like wegmans throws out. Most of it is organic stuff. I think it dont sell fast as the price for that type of bread is $5 for a tiny loaf. And convienent enough we can store it in a cold part of the barn in the winter and it dont rot. all the animals eat it. even the horses get some as a treat. We get the types that are whole grains like the 12 grain or sunflower honey. Different pantries get foods from different stores. Find a pantry that recieve their food from a store that sells lots of organic stuff. We get other food from them too. Just tell them its for your animals. I bring extra eggs and squash to donate. I save our apples in wooden crates in a cool barn and they last till about january as long as you dont let them freeze completely. and even if they do they eat em like apple sauce. We also feed the animals lots of winter squash and pumpkins. almost all the animals eat it. We dont even need to take care of the garden they grow on. they just regrow there every year on their own as long as you leave a few to seed. I use a machety knife to chop em up and add them to the chickens feed and some horses like em too. Cows love em. Sometimes I'll cook up some in our wood burner for a warm treat in really cold weather. Your animals may need to get used to eating this type of food if they are used to grains. The chickens hatched here love this food. chickens that came from another farm take a few weeks to learn to like it but befor too long I see preferences among them. One beautiful black pencil rooter loves tomatoes. he will devour all the tomatoes befor touching anything else. Some of the chickens wont even touch the tomatoes. I noticed they really love spaggetti squash the best and I plan on growing a ton for them this summer. We also grow a patch of heirloom cattle corn. It fairs well some years. We store that in old animal cages and a small corn crib we made from old fencing. I noticed mice seem to get at it that way. Wish I had a better way to store it away from mice. another favorite is sunflowers. They grow in abundance. You place the heads face down in the sun on a piece of cloth up off the ground and as the backs dry the seeds fall right out. We also just scatter the seeds and they regrow with no effort the next year. Dont forget to leave some out for wild animals like turkey and other winter birds. Dont forget about natural forage too. Here, in New York, we have wild burdock which has lots of seeds and sumack. I realized that after watching the wild turkey foraging in deep snow. The sumack is tall and the berries are at the top. Its amazing how nature provides. The snow gets 4-5 foot deep and the turkeys can reach the berries. same with the burdock. the plants can get 3 foot high. We grow a patch of comfree too. the leaves are huge. you can dry them and store them for winter vitamins for all the animals. Rabbits especially. If they get disintary one portion will heal em quick. I also had some geese they were eating too much for winter. Then I realized they like to eat the grass around the nieghboring creek. They moved there and I havent fed them in 5 years!! The grass along the creek bed stays green and edible all winter. Get some books out of your local library and read about how they did it 300+ years ago. And its amazing what our livestock lived on. Squash and pumpkins was a major food for them. When people restuffed their beds with grass they fed the old grass to their animals...weird Hope this wasnt too long. Merry christmas! Marie