Chickens

For some reason the idea of raising chickens on feed produced by myself from my garden came to being. In order to evaluate if this is possible and how much work/garden I am talking about I have done some research.

I used the chicken feed recipe from a blog to make the following calculations. Also the weight and other measurements were acquired via google search.

Recipe:

30% Dried Corn
30% Wheat
20% Peas
10% Oat
10% Fish Meal
2% Chicken Nutri Balancer
Kelp
Aragonite

Because I can only reasonably produce Corn, Wheat, Peas, and Oats the math is only being done for those items. The number of chickens in this experiment is going to be 6, as during high egg production times this is a reasonable number for me to keep up with and put away the eggs. I can reasonably eat 2 to 4 eggs a day with spare(s) to put away, while ensuring that during low production or a stop of production I can still have fresh eggs or use the extras put away.

Chicken Math 6 chickens = 10 pounds of feed

Using the ratio of 1/4 pound of feed per day from another blogger multiplied by 6 chickens and 7 days a week results in 9 pounds of feed. To make the math easier I am using 10 pounds of feed. Also by using 10 pounds I can not have to stress too much about over feeding sometimes or having to weight out the feed each day; a guest-a-mate of the amount of feed to put out will do.

Now that we know how many pounds of feed we are looking at each week let's look at the production of that feed

Corn Math 

In order to get 30% Dried Corn in a 10 pound mix you will need 3 pounds of dried corn with results in 8 1/8 cups of dried corn per week and 422.5 cups per year. To find out these numbers the weight of 1 cup of corn was found to be .37 pounds. One pound was divided by .37 which resulted in to 2.4 cups of dried corn per pound. This number was checked by multiplying 2.4 cups by .37 pounds with the results equaling .99.

Sweet Corn was chosen for the corn variety due to the possibility of over raising for eating and the higher sugar content. In general corn needs 3 feet of space between plants, will produce 1 to 2 ears of corn per plant, and 55-75 days to mature to harvest. At .5 to .75 cup of dried corn produced per ear that means a total of 600 plants need to be planned for to ensure sufficient harvest. Using the 3 foot spacing this will result in a 40 foot by 45 foot or 1,800 square feet of space needed to grow sufficient corn; smaller blocks of 10 feet by 15 feet with 50 plants per plot can be used for easier placement depending on your property. If you want to use the moons to plant and harvest by then the corn would have to be planted in July with the anticipated harvest in September.

Wheat Math

In order to get 30% Wheat in a 10 pound mix you will need 3 pounds of wheat which results in 7.2 cups per week or 374.4 cups per year; I am going to easy my math by using 375 cups or 159 pounds. Using a google search I found that 1 cup of wheat weights approximately .42 pound; dependent on the type of wheat.

Nebraska growers use seeding rates for winter wheat that vary from 30 to 180 lb per acre (320,000 to almost 3,000,000 seeds per acre). The lower rates are most common in drier areas. The higher rates are used for irrigated wheat which often is seeded in narrower rows and later in the season since it often follows another crop rather than fallow. [source website] Using this information 1 acre of wheat that is irrigated or has sufficient rain fall is needed; 1 acre is 43,560 square feet or 209ft 9in square. Spring wheat typically needs 4 months to be ready for harvest; planted between March and May with Harvest being in July and September.With winter wheat needing 8 months to mature; planting in October to December with harvest in late spring or early summer.

However it looks like Wheat needs a much cooler climate than I want to live in ... so a replacement grain will be needed...

Pea Math

So that there is 20% Peas in our 10 mix I will need 2 pounds of dried peas resulting in 2 cups per week or 104 cups per year.

Oat Math

To get 10% Oat in the 10 pound mix I will need 1 pound of (not rolled) oats per week or 52 pounds per year.

I stopped doing the math of how much growing space would be needed after finding that Wheat would need 1 acre. Unfortunately the space need to raise 6 chickens off of mostly self produced grains looks to be about 5 acres. Fortunately those plants for the most part do not need much attention, but unfortunately they will need a watering system in order to ensure sufficient production.

5 acres is a lot of land to farm by one's self.

It could be possible to up the production rates by using different seed, soil, fertilizer, etc. however I am one to plan for the lowest possible out come so as to ensure sufficient supply for the minimum. Planning in the manner can reduce the stress of possible failure and builds in a sort of fail safe in that you know your chances of success are that much more.