Cost of feeding chooks...........

[frias]

Last time I made bread I could have used it to knock fence posts in. I can turn my hand to anything else in the kitchen, make my own pasta, etc. but bread always ends up with a crusty shell. Thinking of investing in a Panasonic.

You must have gone to the same school of breadmaking I did. I've tried a few times but just end up with something I could build a wall with.

[VirginVegGrower]

Or take teeth out with :-#

[Snadger]

My breadmaker is gathering dust since I started doing Atkins!

[chris]

Last time I made bread I could have used it to knock fence posts in. I can turn my hand to anything else in the kitchen, make my own pasta, etc. but bread always ends up with a crusty shell. Thinking of investing in a Panasonic.

We've the kenwood BM450 - expensive but worth it. The rapid bake option (1hr) produces great bread, and it's the only one we use now.

[baldrick]

I had an old chicken book from the late 1800's (Now sold by me on eBay for a princely sum!) that extolled the virtues of feeding them raw meat, straight from the abattoir and allowing them to pick it from the bones or minced up.

Yukkety yuk yuk. I feed the dogs on raw meaty abbatoir bones regularly because it cuts down vet bills on bum glands and teeth, and coz its miles cheaper than processed junk that sends the lurchers loopy, but the chooks cant get at it. The chooks have tried tuna though, and they loved it!

Mad cow disease and foot and mouth put paid to that though, and rightly so.

Too right!

If you have ever seen a chook with a mouse or a shrew you will see how carnivorous they are.

The pigeons are terrified of them and dont seem to understand the chooks are fenced off from my little garden veg plot! Ive seen how fierce they can be with the dogs though! I tried to teach my working beardiexlurcher to herd them in to the coop. he was a bit enthusiastic so I asked him to lie down. They turned on masse and mobbed him. Poor lad turned tail and ran....and this is the dog who isnt averse to collecting the odd pheasant (uninstructed) alive to hand uninjured. We call them our flock of velociraptors.

We let them have leftover cooked veg, raw greens, soaked wholemeal bread and the odd handful of (very expensive) corn. I also have to collect dandelions etc as they have decimated the vegetation. They also love a rotten log full of woodlice and the maggots that sometimes appear inside the lid of the compost bin. They have a hot mash every morning in cold weather and a couple of times a week in summer, with pellets ad lib (and a few scattered in a morning). Id say the eggs pay for the food and maybe the straw (�3 a bale), but it does cost me a bit to keep the girls. That said it costs me to grow veg too, and I will always have pets, so they may as well be chickens, and ill always have a hobby, so it may as well be growing veg. I reckon at one time I was paying upwards of �100 a month on dog agility when all I did was get stressed out, so its cheap as chips really.

[Flummery]

�100 a month for dog agility? You could eat steak every day for that!

[baldrick]

�100 a month for dog agility? You could eat steak every day for that!

that was costing in diesel and show entries but yes easily...plus all the beer...plus getting someone to come in and see to the chickens on weekend shows..............! Id be a liar if I said I didnt miss it stress and all, but Ive been on the waiting list years for an allotment, now I have one, and a baby too, the dogs are getting on a bit for super fitness and I dont have the money or the time! Anyway I am now angling at increasing the chicken flock and getting some kind of moveable effort into my rotation that is fox and human proof. suggestions welcome!

[polo]

Last time I made bread I could have used it to knock fence posts in. I can turn my hand to anything else in the kitchen, make my own pasta, etc. but bread always ends up with a crusty shell. Thinking of investing in a Panasonic.

Go for the panasonic 257 - really good, I can recommend!

[BUFFS]

Last time I made bread I could have used it to knock fence posts in. I can turn my hand to anything else in the kitchen, make my own pasta, etc. but bread always ends up with a crusty shell. Thinking of investing in a Panasonic.

perhaps you could sell it to the m.o.d. and they could drop it on gaddafi,OH has same problem,but with meringues,one took a complete filling out the other week and i ended up with a very costly gold crown on a molar.....