Fermenting Feed for Chickens

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In our constant quest here at The Welcome Homestead for better quality and cheaper, more sustainable ways of doing things there has been some research done regarding chicken feed. Currently, we feed a complete layer pellet along with scratch grains (corn, barley, wheat, oats) in a basic 50/50 mix. This has worked well for a few years and the birds have been healthy, happy and the egg production has gone well. Last summer we had a high of 22 eggs from 25 hens one day and an average of 17-20 eggs a day for most of the summer.

However, feed costs have exceeded the income from selling eggs and this situation had to be stopped. Unsustainable activities will sink the boat eventually if allowed to continue so we have taken some steps to turn things around.

Mixing the grains in the same feeder and leaving the feeder on the ground allowed the hens to scratch around in the feeder looking for their favourite goodies and spreading feed over a wide area around the feeder resulting in a huge waste of feed. The feeder was consequently hung from underneath the coop by a hook where it was still sheltered from the elements and only pellets were put into it. This had the dual purpose of getting it up away from their feet so they couldn

Terror and Military Spending

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As the world reeled in shocked horror in the wake of the terrorist attacks in Paris it unleashed the predictable torrent of emotional outburst so familiar after any large world event. Many people changed their Facebook profile to include an overlay of the French flag on their avatar. Monuments around the world were lit up in the French flag colours and another wave of moral outrage against Islam was unleashed on the internet.

Once again, though, there will be an effort to fight against the symptoms instead of getting to the root of the problem. Each time a world power gets goaded by a small terrorist group they end up stomping around the world, usually the Middle East, snorting and raging against anyone they think is connected to the attacks. This behavior is very predictable and exactly what the terrorists want as it legitimizes their cause and gives them yet more reason to attack the west. In addition, it continues the financial bleeding that a great many of the western countries cannot afford as they are already swimming in debt that they cannot afford.

A small scale guerrilla attack costs comparatively little, perhaps a few lives and whatever it costs to set them up with guns, bomb making materials and the means to get them to the site of the attacks. The Return on Investment is quite substantial, though, as a country that is the site of these attacks usually spends hundreds of billions (trillions?) in the following years in a massive military campaign that may take out a small number of the terrorist organization and cause huge collateral damage in the process, many times wiping out the infrastructure of entire cities leaving the population living in horrific conditions and disillusioning many people making them more likely to join fanatical groups bent on the destruction of the west.

This can continue ad nauseum if we let it and in 100 years we will be no farther ahead than we are today, in fact, the multiple tiny bites of terrorism could cause the west to bleed dry and collapse, resulting in the fall of society as we know it today. However, there is a solution but it wouldn