Frugal Friday

Well it has been a very full week and this Friday post is going up on Saturday!

Welcome to my blog today!

I won't talk too much here but I want to share what I have been doing with our hens and their food.

With all the stuff going on around the world and everything becoming expensive, I am trying to tighten the reigns where I can.

I have played with the idea of fermenting the hen food for awhile but didn't get around to researching and finding out how to do it, until I found a fabulous homesteader on YouTube who has lots of videos on how she feeds and takes care of her chooks and she made it seem so easy.

And it is!

And it's a very frugal way of stretching the food and it is actually better for their digestion too.

I know it doesn't look appetising but then we're not eating it so as long as the girls love it then I am happy and they seem to be enjoying it. Every day there is not much left.

So what I do is, every night before I go to bed I measure out 1 1/2 cups of pellets and add the same quantity in water, give it a stir and let it soak overnight. Some times I add in about a half teaspoon of garlic powder or dried oregano for their internal health. In the mornings I stir it around, add a tiny bit more water if needed and then I might add some seeds ( chia or bird sunflower seeds -  black oil ),  or maybe some wholegrain or rolled oats. These are treats so I only give a small handful a couple of times per week.

They seem to be really enjoying it and it also saves waste as usually there were always pellets flicked around the ground by their feeder and this way it is minimising wasting food and it stretches out our sacks of pellets.

Our hens do get greens from the garden or vegetable scraps every afternoon plus they have time foraging in the backyard most afternoons for a few hours so they can peck for bugs and have dust baths under the olive trees. They love doing this. 

I have also been saving their eggshells for awhile and then I grind them up in the food processor and use it as their grit to help with strong eggshell production. I do buy oyster grit from time to time but by doing it this way I save money and it stretches out the oyster grit to last longer.

I always make sure I rinse the eggshells and dry them out well before storing. Some people like to bake theirs in the oven but I haven't done this.

Being frugal can be fun and creative and once you get started on looking for more ways to do things it becomes a habit and then second nature.

We have had a huge amount of parsley growing in our garden this summer and early autumn and I didn't want it to go to waste so I picked a very large amount and dehydrated it for use in meals over the coming winter months. It will save on buying dried herbs too.

First I washed the parsley to make sure there wasn't any dirt or spiders.

Then I spread it out over several trays of the dehydrator and let it dry for a few hours on a low heat.

Once completely dried and cooled I scooped the parsley into jars all ready to go. I keep them out of direct sunlight in my spice/herb drawer.

Easy!

Hopefully this inspires you to get creative and find some fun and frugal tasks in your kitchen or garden.

Have a great week ahead.

Many blessings, Fiona

"Keep your lamp filled with oil. The King of Kings is coming." Matthew 25: 1-13