feeding chickens in the summer

We love our new forage chopper from the Ukraine! It does a great job shredding mangel-wurzels for animal food. Thank you, Eddy and Gosia in Poland, for putting us on to this tool.

Now we're working on a balance of grain (which we mostly buy in) and mangels, milk, and other foods grown on the farm, that will keep our chickens laying well. We started with a high percentage of mangels, and that worked for a while, but rate of lay has diminished and we're adding in more grain again. Higher energy demands in summer may be at the back of this, or something else. We'll let you know.

Happy farming.