Saturday, February 7, 2009
Free Chicken Feed
Well, in the interest of helping my fellow poultry keepers, I want to share another story about free chicken feed.
About 30 years ago I was the assistant manager at Fantastic Caverns north of Springfield, MO. http://www.fantasticcaverns.com/ At that time my wife and I were living in our mobile home out by the caverns. It was there we raised our first batch of 25 fryers. Lacking an outbuilding, we set up a brooder box for them in the extra bedroom. When they had feathered out and were ready to leave the brooder, I made a pen for them that measured about 8 feet by 8 feet. Half the top was solid and the other half was poultry wire on a wood frame.
Among my many responsibilities at work was the overseeing of the snack bar. Each evening I would bring home the left over popcorn. Yes, we made fresh everyday. Generally this amounted to 2 - 4 gallons of popped corn. The chickens loved it and thrived.
Well I got to thinking about that the other day and got to wondering where I could get free popcorn now. Actually some friends of ours own Ozark Mountain Popcorn http://www.ozarkmountainpopcorn.com/ so I asked them if they ever had any waste popcorn. Well sure they do and they are happy to give me some now and then. Typically I receive 55 gallon plastic trash can liner full. The corn is "plain" that is without any added flavors or salt. In return I take them a dozen fresh hen fruits from time to time.
The hens love the popcorn. During these cold winter months, I continue to feed a commercial feed but only about 50% of what I was feeding before. Once spring arrives and the vegetation and bugs re-appear, I expect to cut out all commercial chicken feed.
Now where can you get free popcorn? I suggest you check with movie theaters, indoor sporting arenas (don’t overlook college or university sports arenas), and baseball or softball facilities. The corn you receive at these sources will likely be salted but based on my past experience, that will not be a detriment to your flock.
Thursday, February 5, 2009
Hard Scrabble Times
Wow! Do you suppose that is true? I think it probably is. No, I am not wanting to "dog pile" on former president G.W. Bush. A debacle like we are experiencing and are about to experience has taken more than the last eight years to develop let alone plan. If it was planned, it was certainly not planned by one single person or political party. Many entities and persons are complicit in this mess. One thing we can count on is that many of the same people involved in getting our country to this point are ready and waiting with a great deal of enthusiasm to jump in and "fix" the problem by redesigning and redirecting the role of government through this crisis.What used to be pretty well accepted as “normal” life is likely where we're all headed – tougher times.
Most people deluded themselves into believing that the last several decades of post-modern decadence would last forever. It was the “easy life” characterized by a second mortgage-credit card existence securely tucked in an endless immigrant-groomed suburbia and required little more than showing up for some completely unproductive and over-paid 9 to 5 job. The denizens produced absolutely nothing of tangible value, and that era is crashing to a close.
High five and six-figure salaries are vaporizing like the morning fog off river bottoms, as the harsh light of economic reality burns the hazy illusions away. When you have off-shored the manufacturing of products that have true and measurable value, and the Corporatists have turned our formerly productive economy into one based on nothing but “service”, well, we can only wash each other's clothes for so long before the money runs out. The multiplier effect is dead, particularly once you have to import the soap.
“Hard Scrabble Times” alright, maybe even the “Real McCoy” of economic depression is probably what awaits.
The last President who ascended to power after the wheels had come off the economy once said, “Nothing happens in politics that isn't planned.” Economics and politics are pretty well all intertwined these days, just as they were back in 1933. Who am I - a lowly occasional scribe and creature of the land - to argue with such a respected intellect and connected man as F.D.R., therefore I shall simply agree with his premise.
Men with plans perhaps nefarious, best laid, now coming to a devastating
fruition.