Organic Quail and Watercress - A winning combination - Grow Forage for Quail

I heard my first male quail call of the year today and to me it holds as much magic as that of the cuckoo. Our quail are a little late in their Spring song, possibly due to the terrible rain and dull days dampening any thoughts of romance and continuance. My females normally begin laying the day after the males start to call and as in the wild, these songs also encourage nest building. For the past week our quail, as a group, have started to remonstrate when I put them all in the same house at night, another sure sign of them beginning to pair off. Thus I have also started to increase the level of invertebrate protein.

Last year I began my organic mealworm farm, which I will be writing up shortly. This is to supplement the other invertebrates I collect from the various compost bins around our garden. I am also continuing to add greenery to their diet, other than that which is growing in their enclosure. Although protein obviously plays an important role in the egg laying and general optimum health of the quail, many of the processes involved are synergistic, requiring minerals and vitamins found within plant matter. To fulfil this requirement one of the easiest and most nutritious examples of forage to grow is water cress, nasturtium officianale.  As you can see from the dirty beak evidence above, the watercress bed provides great opportunities. The quail can eat the leaves and 'garden' around the plants for some 'meat' to accompany the vegetable. Watercress is obviously also a great crop to grow for your other poultry too.

 

Food & Medicine

As  the  designator officinale suggests, watercress was one of the valuable medicinal plants used within the officina or medicinal still room attached to the physic gardens of mediaeval monasteries. It was here that the monastic herbalists, would dry and prepare medicinal and culinary plants. One of the most cited and earliest remaining architectural plans for a physic garden is that of Saint Gall, a Benedictine order famous for its knowledge of herbalism/phytotherapy. Pictured is the layout for St. Gall in 820 with its hospital and physic garden (top left), planted up with medicinal plants, including watercress.

Early European sailors also took watercress with them on board ship to prevent scurvy.

Hippocrates is said to have sited his first hospital on the Island of Kos near to a stream, to take advantage of a particularly abundant crop of watercress. So what is it that makes watercress so special? It's not just the quantity of individual vitamins and minerals but it is the quality of specifics, watercress is said to have high levels of Vitamin K, A, C, and relatively high levels of Calcium and Manganese

 

Watercress - vitamin and mineral rich from A to Z

Here is a list of watercress's most valuable nutrients:

The Vitamin A (Retinol) precursor: beta-carotene - this in quail is important not only as in humans for the health of eyes, skin, normal growth and development and the transport of calcium to the bones but also shell quality. Without sufficient vitamin A, calcium is deposited in the soft tissue thus risking heart conditions and skeletal problems. I have read on several occasions that the laying ability of quail is directly linked to the amount of vitamin A stored in the fat from the previous years intake of beta carotene. Beta-carotene also, has strong antioxidant properties and can protect quail from many potential conditions associated with free-radicals. Vitamin A deficiency also causes keratosis (see my article here), which encourages the proliferation of external parasites.

Vitamin B1 (Thiamine) plays an important role in converting carbohydrates and fats and proteins to energy.  Thiamine protects quail against 'star-gazing' a common complaint, in my experience, in young quail hatched from commercial eggs and where the parents have been on a poor quality diet. Thiamine is crucial, along with other of the B complex vitamins, in the maintenance of a healthy nervous system.

Vitamin B2 (Riboflavin) as above, is responsible for the production of energy from food and the maintenance of a healthy nervous system, in particular Riboflavin  works in synergy with B6 and B9. Riboflavin is also responsible for maintaining healthy blood cells. In quail and other poultry and game birds deficiency in Riboflavin causes curled toe paralysis which is fatal if left unattended - see my article on Riboflavin for a quick cure and prevention. Chicks hatching with low riboflavin can also have beak malformation.

Vitamin B3 (Niacin) as above with the other B vitamins, is responsible for the maintenance of optimal nervous system function. There is some recent research showing that there are possible side effects with supplementing with this vitamin in high doses, so getting a requirement through food rather than supplementation seems to me to be optimal. Chicks from deficient parents can have beak malformations

Vitamin B5 (Pantothenic acid) Again important for food conversion to usable energy and for optimal nervous system function. Vitamin B5 is crucial for the formation of  acetylcholine, the primary chemical which allows the brain to communicate with the organs of the body. B5 deficiencies in quail can also result in poor feathering and low hatchability of eggs.

Vitamin B6 (Pyridoxine) As with all the B complex vitamins, Vitamin B6 plays an important role in a range of physical and psychological functions, including maintenance of an optimal immune system.

Vitamin B9 (Folate) Working in synergy with B12 (cobalamin) this is another important member of the B Complex family and with the same importance to nervous, physical and immune system function. Together the folate and cobalamin also have an important role in maintaining bone density. Deficiency in the parent can cause beak malformations in chicks.

Vitamin C (L-ascorbic acid) Although poultry are able to synthesise vitamin C it is also the first one to be flushed due to stress, with quail therefore, it is important to be aware of this, particularly during the breeding season and in hot weather. Vitamin C also plays an important role in egg laying and shell quality when the birds are under heat stress.

Calcium I like to give my birds oyster shell because I think this enables them to adequately judge for themselves how much they are taking in. I am also aware that wild birds use snail shells and other potentially calcium rich sources, such as calcareous grit to provide this mineral in their diets. However, plant sourced calcium was found in a study: Nutrition and Feeding of Organic Poultry (Blair 2008) to be as bioavailable to poultry as that of the usual sources of limestone and oyster shell.

Copper although a micro nutrient is important for digestive system function, feather production and hatchability of eggs. Low copper can result in heart conditions and as copper is a component of melanin, in reduced pigmentation in certain feather colours such as black, brown, grey, red and chamois.

Vitamin E is made up of eight compounds (Tocopherol/tocotrienols) it has antioxidant properties and is important for growth and nervous system recovery in times of stress. It has also been shown to have significant impact upon fertility in quail, in both sexes and upon the hatchability and general health of the chicks. Vitamin E is crucial in protecting eye and brain health and helps the body utilise vitamin K.

Gluconasturtiin, which  provides the peppery flavor of many cruciferous vegetables and is particularly prevalent  in watercress, is the precursor for phenethyl isothiocyanates (PEITC), shown to inhibit carcinogens.

Iodine again a micro nutrient but essential for growth and development and in  particular of the brain and nervous system because of its ability to synthesise thyroid hormones. Adult quail with insufficient iodine can pass on goitre (a swollen neck condition due to malfunctioning thyroid) to their chicks.

Iron is needed to produce haemoglobin, a protein found in red blood cells that carries oxygen from the lungs and transport it throughout the body. It also helps regulate cell growth, maintains brain function, metabolism, endocrine and immune system function and is involved in turning food into energy production. Without enough iron, a body will suffer chronic fatigue and as quail have a high basal metabolism this can be a real problem. Iron, as with copper and zinc also influences the richness of feather pigmentation.

Vitamin K1 (Phylloquinone) Vitamin K (in the main K2) has an important role in the transport of calcium to the bone and thus in quail and other poultry to the formation of shell. If calcium has formed in the soft tissue (arterial calcification) both phylloquinone and to a greater extent menaquinone (Vitamin K2), have the ability to reverse it. Vitamin K1 goes directly to the liver and is well known for its ability to help to clot the blood and avoid blood loss.

Lutein known colloquially as 'the eye vitamin' lutein protects eye health. Lutein is one of the few plant pigments or carotenoids which can accumulate in the macular pigment and macula lutea, the small central part of the retina of the eye, responsible for detailed vision. Furthermore it plays an important role in brain health and thus may prevent cognitive decline

Magnesium is responsible for cell division, muscle and nerve function including the heart, mitochondrial efficiency, bone density  and the metabolism of various minerals including calcium, phosphorus, iron and zinc as well as several hundred enzymes and the activation of thiamine. As such it impacts on the laying process of the adult quail, eggshell thickness and the hatchability and subsequent growth of the chick.

Manganese is needed for optimal growth, shell quality and hatchability of eggs. Deficiency of manganese in quail and other poultry can cause perosis, a leg deformity,  a condition where the tendons of the legs slip from the hock. Deficiency in the parent bird can lead to poor development of embryos and low hatchability, those chicks that hatch are prone to poor feathering and slow development and or can suffer from malformation.

Phosphorus is important for a whole raft of physical and nervous system function. Plant-based phosphorus is often conjectured to be less bioavailable because it is bound with phytates.  To me, this seems relevant only in the seed and grain form, which is understandable as the plant is protecting itself from its 'offspring' from being digested. My conjecture would be that within the leafy plant itself this would not be a problem. Phosphorus is also linked with bone density and the transport of calcium, thus  in poultry with the formation of shell and hatchability of the chicks. Chicks deficient in phosphorus may also have soft beaks and bones (rickets).

Potassium  is an electrolyte, thus balances the body's chemical and electrical impulses. It is important for various physical and nervous system functions, including the heart, brain, kidneys, muscle contractions, fluid levels and blood pressure. Deficiency causes low hatchability and retarded growth in chicks.

Quercetin is a type of flavonoid polyphenol a 'plant pigment' and a powerful antioxidant thus a free radical scavenger. It also has anti-inflammatory effects to protect the body against heart, circulatory and arthritic conditions as well as infection, allergies and fatigue. It also has influence on the immune system.

Selenium works as an antioxidant, including in synergy with other antioxidants such as Vitamin E. It also has an important function in the nervous system and I will often add selenium, usually in the form of a tiny amount of Brazil nut as a first aid in the case of shock, stress or potential stroke. Non-organic commercial quail egg chicks as well as hen chicks are also prone to leg weakness, often at the outset of curled toe paralysis, which can be quickly cured with selenium and riboflavin. Low selenium also causes problems with fertility and hatchability of quail eggs.

Sodium regulates water in the body and helps in avoiding electrolyte imbalance, thus making it important for brain and nervous system function. Sodium is also needed for digestion, quail with low sodium have poor growth, compromised immune and nervous systems.

Zeaxanthin another carotenoid and with the same rare ability as lutein to accumulate in the retina and thus protect the eye from the aging processes associated with free radical damage. As with lutein, also works in synergy with vitamin E.

Zinc Zinc also has a role in the transportation of Vitamin A from storage in the liver for use in the rest of the body. Zinc deficiency in the parent bird will also cause a prevalence of low hatchability and the self-explanatory condition known as 'dead in shell'. Birds deficient in zinc also exhibit 'frayed' feathers. As mentioned previously zinc deficiency also impacts on feather pigmentation in certain colours of plumage.

Hope you enjoyed this article and if you did please feel free to share them and to add comments and suggestions below. Here is  the link to Part Two of this article, including links to others I have written on producing forage crops for your quail and other poultry.

In the meantime all the very best from Normandie, where the quail are singing a Spring song, finally,

Sue
© 2018 Sue Cross

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Food for Free. Fabulous Forage. Part 2. Chickweed stellaria media

It is not for nothing that one of the alternative names for stellaria media is 'The Hen's Inheritance'. The Greeks and Romans thought so highly of it they even cultivated it. The Victorians coveted it as a super food and made it into all kinds of salads and sandwiches and chickweed is now enjoying a renaissance as a wild edible and herbal. You will easily find it everywhere, from seed catalogues to medical and beauty preparations.

Chances are you have no chickweed in your garden at the moment, if like me you have your birds free-ranging in your food forest, they will have eaten it. Why? Well because firstly it's often the only fresh weed available in the Winter months but also because of its valuable nutritional and medicinal value. Poultry, as I am often fond of writing, know more about their digestive systems and general health than we ever will.  

So if you have a dearth of this ubiquitous plant, then why not do as we do and go and offer to weed someone else's organic garden or homestead. You will be earning their eternal gratitude and also gaining a forage plant that is worth all the gold in China.

In The Herball or Generall Hiftorie of Plantes, the 16th century botanist, herbalist and gardener, John Gerard wrote:

          'Little birds in cages (efpecially Linnets) are refrefhed with
           the leffer Chickeweed when they loath their meat : whereupon
           it was called of fome Pafferina'

Chickweed amongst its many virtues therefore, is a tonic and one my birds enjoy in the Hungry Gap, which occurs, well about now! As with all good things however there are certain provisos, which should be observed and considered and I'll look at them too in the following paragraphs.

Chickweed Habits and Habitat

Like poppies, witness this beautiful wheat field beyond our house, chickweed prefers soil that is periodically disturbed, such as that used for home vegetable cultivation or arable farmland. It grows in various soils but does particularly well in the damp earth shaded by overhead crops – hence in my neighbours' cabbages. Chickweed reproduces by seed and can take less than 6 weeks to complete a growth cycle. Thus, although an annual, because of its ability to flower in all months, it can keep germinating and reseeding throughout the year. It also reproduces asexually or vegitatively by means of rooting at stem nodes, thus forming a dense mat of foliage. The average seed per plant was noted by the agricultural engineer, Lucian.Guyot in his 1962 book Semences et plantules des principales mauvaises herbes to be as many as 25,000. Furthermore, seeds have the ability to lay dormant and thus remain viable for 10 years, I have actually read 40! Chickweed is thus an incredibly successful plant or shall we say weed and is one of the most common found on arable land, where it is also an important dietary element for many farmland wild birds, such as partridges, linnets and sparrows. Chickweed also has the ability to grow at low temperatures and survive all but the hardest of frosts. As an addendum to this, the 18th century botanist, William Withering, in his book A Systematic Arrangement Of British Plants, (1776), wrote of what he described as 'the sleep of plants'. This is the ability of certain plants including chickweed to protect its tender shoots and flower buds by covering them at night with older, larger and thus more frost hardy leaves. 

 

Stellaria Media - Virtues

What's in a name? Well in this case quite a lot, because chickweed is high in potassium, essential for development and growth. Birds deficient in potassium will fail to grow and die within a few days of hatch.   In their study of thirty one wild edibles, published in 1996, Bianco and Santamaria, of the University of Bari, found that stellaria media had the second highest value of potassium. Given that Sir Humphrey Davy first identified potassium as an element in 1807, it is interesting that, as with other vitamins and minerals found in forage, the practical observation of how birds fed if not the why, was known many centuries before.  It is also probably why Mummy told them to eat up their greens....

What is also very interesting from a human dietary point of view is that 'weeds', which were eaten as the precursors of the modern cultivated vegetable, (in fact most root vegetables were considered by the nobility as fit only for animals), are often more nutritious and also obviously much easier to grow!

There is now a rekindled interest in wild edibles and I have seen various and differing nutritional contents for chickweed but I have sifted through and compared many research papers and articles and come up with what I hope and believe to be the most likely.

Ascorbic Acid – Vitamin C

Beta-carotenes – Vitamin A precursors
B Vitamins - notably Thiamine B1, Riboflavin B2, Niacin B3 and Folate B9
Bioflavonoids including rutin
Coumarins
Gamma-linolenic acid (omega-6 essential fatty acid)
Genistein

Minerals – including Calcium, Copper,  Magnesium, Potassium, Iron,  Manganese, Silicon and Zinc

Triterpenoid Saponins
Phenolic Acids
Cyclic peptides
Proteins

It is therefore no wonder, looking at this list, that this weed is now being trialled for a variety of pharmaceutical products including those for prevention and cure of Hepatitis b, cancers and heart disease.

Nitrate Accumulation and Oxalic Acid

This is one of the things that always impresses me with my chickens, they don't over-eat any single food item and they also eat 'the best bits' of everything. Leave apples for them in the garden and they will eat the pips first and then hollow out the fruit, leaving the skin, which contains most of the anti-nutrient phytic acid. When I used to give my poultry mixed dried grain, I always noted that they always consumed them in the same particular order. When I decided to reduce grain to the minimum and also only feeding it once sprouted, I chose the first grain they ate, triticale.

As discussed in an earlier post; Providing Forage for Organic Poultry Part 2 (link below), it is the dose that makes the poison. However, as with all forage, I am ever cautious when harvesting it in volume, as I do on occasions from my neighbours. They are organic gardeners but heavy on the manure due to sandy soil, I choose to harvest from amongst the cabbages, themselves hungry and competitive feeders for nitrate. As with all food that you introduce to your birds, be aware, if you are, for example, rehoming battery hens, that they may overdose on greenery. For all they know this is the one and only time you plan to feed them the essential nutrients they have been craving. Oxalic acid alters the uptake of calcium, so it is not something you want your laying hens, or young chicks to be gorging themselves upon. Stellaria media was measured by Bianco and Santamaria to contain 578mg per 100g which puts it slightly below spinach, which my birds will only eat in tiny amounts. The main thing is to put all forage out in an obvious form, I suspend it from bunches in the garden or put it on the ground. I would never think of chopping it up and putting it in their grated vegetables, for example. It is also an idea to put a mixed bouquet of weeds in, if you are feeding them on a regular basis.

Now if you'd like to sit back and watch the film. In it I also use the expectorant and demulcent virtues of chickweed to help with Rupert's head-cold.

If you have enjoyed this blog and found it interesting then please think about subscribing, sharing it and/or commenting. Please also feel free to ask questions. 

All the very best,

Sue

RELATED POSTS

Providing Forage for Organic Poultry Part 1

Learning from the past. If you are setting up a forest garden  to run your poultry through it, you are probably going to be short of certain wild pasture elements...read more

Providing Forage for Organic Poultry Part 2

Continuing an in-depth look into forage and discussing the what, when, where from and why...read more
 

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For centuries farmers and homesteaders raised poultry on a forage-based diet supplemented only by a handful of grain and the occasional table scraps..read more

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The idea of tree fodder is inextricably linked with the changing landscape, the full domestication of animals, the concept of farming and the clearance of the forests... read more
 

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For me the rose is the quintessential forest garden plant, from canopy to ground cover there are so many to choose from ... read more

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Interesting Reads:

Bianca, V.V., P. Santamaria & A. Elia. (1998). The Nutritional Value and Nitrate Content in Edible Wild Species used in Southern Italy. Proceedings 3rd International Society on Diversification of Vegetable Crops. Acta Horticulturae 467: 71-87.
Gerard, J. The Herball or Generall Hiftorie of Plantes. (1597)
Withering, W. A Botanical Arrangement of British Plants: Including the Uses of Each Species, in Medicine, Diet, Rural Economy and the Arts. (1787)

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©  Sue Cross 2016

Forest Garden Poultry - Organic Feed for Free, Forage - An Overview Part 2

This is the second part of my introduction of how we use 'greenfood', forage aka free organic food for our poultry. If you have just arrived on this topic and want to go back to the beginning then Part One can be found here. Below is our hen Dorothy a year on from her arrival, older, larger and wiser. In the background you can see our neighbours' ducklings, we had moved them over for a holiday, as they were having 'pecking order' issues at home.

Big Dorothy - A Cautionary Tale 

This is a proviso I'm adding to my thoughts on forage, sharing my experience of having observed the behaviour of a bird seeing unlimited free forage for the first time in her life!

The third hen we added to our flock some years ago was a Wyandotte cross, we called her Dorothy. She was part payment for looking after our neighbours' homestead aka smallholding whilst they were away on holiday. Dorothy came to us from living on essentially a beaten earth pad with a few tufts of grass, a regular supply of table-scraps and an occasional large specimen of Sow thistle, thrown over when my neighbour used to hand-weed his garden. At the time of Dorothy's arrival our garden was in transition from an open and very weedy field, thus including many large specimens of sonchus oleraceus or Sow thistle. This plant has amongst its other names, Hare's lettuce, as both rabbits and hare are said to be inordinately fond of it. Well coming into a garden chock full of green-stuff, this was I guess, the first thing that Dorothy recognised and like a kid in a candy store, she ate a great deal of it and with interesting results. Sonchus oleraceus is both a medicinal and wild edible, one of its virtues is as a purge for the digestive and urinary system, being both a diuretic and a laxative. Thinking back on this now I am actually wondering whether Dorothy didn't in fact know of this property (having eaten it on a regular basis in the past) and was using it as such to cleanse her system before moving on to a new life? I wouldn't have put it past her. The moral of this story however, is that if you are rehoming ex-battery hens or moving a flock into pasture for the first time, or perhaps more importantly offering them a particular weed, which has medicinal properties then you would be advised to go easy on the volumes.

Bringing in forage - What, Where from and When 

The first thing I would recommend is a couple of good books, one to identify the plant, either by photographs or quality botanical drawings and an old fashioned herbal or a modern wild edible book. I think actually there is now an app, which identifies plants as you zoom in on them with a phone! We are what we eat but we are also what everything we eat eats and this goes for plants as well. Plants are used all over the World in phytoremediation projects,  to clear up the chemical and biological messes man has left and still leaves, behind him. Everything from nuclear dumping and disasters, to old mining spoil and industrial waste can be removed with precise plantings. Many forage plants, including chickweed, have the ability to absorb and even feed off toxins.  Always be aware, not only of where you are harvesting your forage but that the very abundance of any single plant in one area can be a tell tale sign of the quality or state of the soil.  Here for example above, is a beautiful alkaline meadow, created by my father to illustrate soil types

Furthermore certain plants although actually botanically the same, have the ability to subtly alter their chemical constituents, due to climate, water, light levels and soil   The whole reason why quality Essential Oils, for example, are chemotyped is because the exact same plant, such as  thyme, Thymus vulgaris can furnish eight separate and unique oils, which may be used therapeutically for completely different conditions and in completely different ways dependant on location and climate.

The other variable on plants is stress,  this can cause changes in the chemical make-up of a plant and in, for example drought stress, high levels of  nitrate. Stress to a plant can also cause it to increase its potential to produce anti-nutrients or insecticides, with which to protect it in its weakened state from predators. However nitrates are mostly of danger to ruminants and hens can certainly detect the bitter taste of certain toxins and anti-nutrients but it is better to be safe and not pick in times of drought.

Too Much of a Good Thing?

In the normal way a hen would forage in a forest, an open meadow or hedgerow, she would be able to pick and choose very freely and easily from a whole myriad of forage. If like me you are having to bring forage in then the key to this is variety. As the 15th century botanist and philosopher Paracelsus, often referred to as the father of toxicology described it:

'Everything is poison and nothing is without poison, only the dose makes a thing non-toxic.'

As an illustration of this, a paper I read recently, experiments to the trialling of dried chickweed as a leaf meal for farmed Tilapia was found to be not as successful as hoped because of an increased level of oxalic acid in the plant material. This is why I believe forage needs to be as varied as possible and why I am so lucky to have the mowings from a meadow rather than a lawn. I also plan each year to have all kinds of additional and forest garden forage which allows my birds to pick and chose what and when to eat. This is particularly important for me in the Winter, when neighbourhood forage is rarer and grass, when available less nutritious but there are still a lot of choices out there and many people are only too glad that you are saving them a trip to the dump. Witness the above photo taken this morning of my birds enjoying the bounty of a friend's sweepings from a wild garden.

In Conclusion

In an ideal world we would all have enough land to allow our poultry a vast tract of old meadow or woodland in which to forage, free from NPK fertilisers and potential toxins, both self-induced and man-made, however, with common sense and a good wildflower/wild plant identification book and herbalist's vade mecum, we can make forage work well for us and our flock. Over the past few months I have been researching and also collecting photographs and films of my birds consuming various home-raised/grown and neighbourhood sourced forage, which I will be sharing in the coming weeks.

If you have enjoyed this blog and found it interesting then please think about subscribing, sharing it and/or commenting. Please also feel free to ask questions. 

All the very best,

Sue

RELATED POSTS

 

Providing Forage for Organic Poultry Part 1

Learning from the past. If you are setting up a forest garden  to run your poultry through it, you are probably going to be short of certain wild pasture elements...read more

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For centuries farmers and homesteaders raised poultry on a forage-based diet supplemented only by a handful of grain and the occasional table scraps..read more

Food for Free. Fabulous Forage Part 2 Chickweed

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Food for Free. Fabulous Forage Part 3 Tree Fodder & Tree Hay

The idea of tree fodder is inextricably linked with the changing landscape, the full domestication of animals, the concept of farming and the clearance of the forests... read more
 

Food for Free. Fabulous Forage Part 4 Roses for Food & Forest

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One of the main roses I use for both cooking, medicinals and which my hens very much enjoy is, not surprisingly, rosa gallica Officinalis, or The Apothecary Rose... read more

 

 

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©  Sue Cross 2016

Forest Garden Poultry - Organic Feed for Free, Forage - An Overview Part 1

If you are setting up a forest garden and intending to run your poultry through it, then you are probably going to be short of certain wild 'pasture-type' elements in their diet. I've already looked at bringing in grass, not only as a great source of nutrient and essential dietary fibre but also, as an additional resource, the uneaten greenery aids in the creation of the forest floor layer. This will in turn engender a suitable environment for invertebrates and foster the emergence of weed seeds.

On small farms raising poultry was often the preserve of the farmer's wife and 'egg money' went directly to fund the household budget. There was very little cost involved in keeping fowls as they were on what could be classed as a hen 'paleo' diet with table scraps, vegetables and some soaked or sprouted grains fed as the additional feed. With a small flock and a relatively large acreage, this feed was often only used as an enticement to get the birds into the coop in the evening and away from the fox. Organically raised poultry maybe today's recherché foodstuff but up until the First World War, all small farm country

-bred birds were kept this way. There was also a symbiotic arrangement in that the cattle kept on a farm would graze the grass to a level useful for the foraging poultry to find insects and other invertebrates. Old pasture also had a mixture of plants, with differing nutrients, there were also edible wild flowers and seeds and hedges providing further rich veins of nutrient. Once the hedges were grubbed out to make way for modern machinery that ecosystem vanished too.

In the handbook,  Practical Poultry Management written by James E. Rice and Harold E. Botsford, pastured 'green food' was already being referred to  as an additional foodstuff, in much the same way as organic food, once the only sort of farmed food available was/is relegated in mainstream supermarkets to the 'diet' or 'health food' section. In the 1947 edition of their book, the authors wrote this of green food:

'It is rich in vitamins and should supply any that are lacking in the other ration ingredients. In this sense it is a protective feed. A lack of it is often a cause of ill-health and low production. It acts as a tonic, stimulating the appetite and also aids the digestive tract in functioning properly securing for the bird a larger utilisation of the feed consumed.' 

It is interesting to note that although poultry had been pastured for centuries and the above book was first published in 1925, it would not be until a decade later or more from this date, that some of these vitamins would finally be identified and that one of the consequences of their having been so, was to usher in a packaged food for hens in the way of layer pellets.

The ability to analyse the nutrients; vitamins, minerals and amino acids, bioflavenoids etc.,. contained within the forage the bird selected for its diet, would eventually permit the rise of the synthetic vitamin, farm-cultivated protein, industrial minerals and feed additive enzymes. This in turn would enable the chicken to be removed from pasture onto deep litter and finally to be shut away completely severed from the land in the battery or broiler house. Intensive poultry production would also allow for the CAFO system to be self-perpetuating with skimmed milk, blood, bone and feathers becoming a major part of poultry food protein, vitamin and mineral content. In the U.K., for example and within a few short years of the World Wars poultry had gone from a peripheral farming exercise to one of intensive 'monoculture'. Even the linguistics had changed from Poultry 'Husbandry' to Poultry 'Science' and the Poultry 'Industry'. The idea of a bird foraging in a meadow for the whole or even a major part of its diet was out, now man would dictate what it was to eat. For most part too it would be the end of the meadow, hedges and pastured cattle, with vast fields of monocrop cereals, wheat, corn and in the U.S. ubiquitous soya, which was to become the next major alien ingredient to the poultry diet

The concept of using the products from 'rendering', however, was nothing new. The image of the feed bag above is reputed to come from a poultry breeder directory from 1891.

The idea of a food forest to me is not only to supply food for us but also to provide a return to as near as possible free-range foraging for our birds. Within the walls and hedges of our garden, there are several levels of potential foodstuffs from the floor, the sub canopy and the canopy itself. However, due to the actual size of our forest (1000m²) I am very much aware that green foods need to be brought in. To this end, we have over the years established various contacts which have allowed us to make up this shortfall. This includes 'harvesting' green-stuff from neighbouring gardens and fields.

Most people when they think about forage and free food will be thinking about the economic angle and of cutting feed bills but this is only part of the equation. At one of the organic farm open days we went to some years back, the main interest expressed by the conventional farmers, was in the minimal cost of veterinary bills per farm animal. The words of Hippocrates, of food and medicine being interchangeable should perhaps be taken to mean that food and medicine are one and the same because what good nourishing food does is prevent the necessity for ever needing the other. Green food such as chickweed, stellaria media is a medicinal herb, presently being trialled for all kinds of conditions and diseases but the chicken knows it as food. From observation, my birds also know not to over consume it, nor any other food item I present them with, which I find fascinating. That is of course unless there are special circumstances which I will discuss in the following article.

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All the very best,

Sue

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©  Sue Cross 2016