I made my kids eat wild tubers!

mneedham

mneedham

Joined
Jul 8, 2006
Messages
2,776
My wife and I have been teaching our kids about some basic edibles that can be found in our area... We found some Jerusalem Artichokes on our land and showed the kids how to ID them. They are pretty bland, but if you cook them with Portabellos and Garlic, serve them with chicken grilled over hardwood, and drink a boatload of Chilean red wine, they don't taste to bad....

Some Artichokes...
mike180.jpg


mike182.jpg


mike190.jpg


mike191.jpg


mike192.jpg


Yep, she ate some!
mike195.jpg
 
Hey MN, whereabouts do you live? They are some large tubers. Raw, they taste like Water Chestnuts, at least to me, so you might want to try them in a stir fry.

BTW, JA stalks make excellent hand drills for friction fire.

Doc
 
Koyote,

Yep, foraging is good. We would really like to get to Marty Simon's course in the future....

Doc,

I'm in upstate NY, near the Mass. border.
 
Had to chase those chickens all around the lawn:D! Actually, we are considering getting some chickens, I used to raise them on the farm when I was a kid... My neighbor has some, they just around in his yard and the road. I have to do a little research before I get serious though.
 
if you want eggs, consider khaki campbell ducks. they lay better. bit hard to breed, you need incubators since they don't brood well.

I'm also fond of the garden goose.
 
Koyote,

Hadn't really considered geese... My only experience with them was on a missile site overlooking a couple of communist countries back in the 80s. Our crazy Colonel decided to use them to guard the site and my group had to manage them. They weren't a lot fun to handle...

I'd be a little reluctant to get a bird that needed an incubator, do you have any of these ducks?
 
Duck eggs are a lot higher in cholesterol than chicken eggs, but that's why they're so tasty! Gees can get ornery, even when they've been hand raised. Do some research on the chickens, there are a lot of different breeds that are a lot of fun to raise. Check out Murray McMurray's Hatchery for an idea of the different breeds available. Also, check to see if your local library has Storey's Guide to Raising Chickens, a great book to get started from.

We have about 130 chickens right now, but 70 are destined for the freezer, they're a Cornish Cross meat bird. We also have a variety of dual-purpose layers (all brown eggs), some white pekin and mallard ducks... It tends to get a bit loud around the yard in the morning...

J-
 
3 or 4 geese aren't hard to handle- and plenty of dog breeds (and kids) herd them effortlessly. They are good weeders!

We've had a few varieties of ducks. as long as you have a bit of space for them they are easy. herdable, eat maggots, flies, skeeter larvae, slugs, and other bugs- but they *will* eat garden greens and such if they are too hungry or have too little standing water (for eating, they don't need it for swimming, though its nice)

they live for a few years, you don't have to incubate a whole lot - or at all, really. I'd do it oncet just to make sure i could if i had to.

we've raised pekins for meat and as egg layers, too. fine, but pretty big. campbells are tiny and lay up to 360 a year, with over 320 being common. And the eggs won't kill ya, they taste a bit richer
 
Great info and great timing, we were talking today about getting some birds... How is the feed cost?
 
You can also throw away the yolk and just eat the whites, in the long therm if you have a lot of eags would be the a smarter choice and that way you can eat a lot of eggs daily without any problem. They are very rich in protein, but without a yolk they will take little more to cook, so in every 4-5 egg-whites throw in a yolk there.

130 chickens, humm, how many eggs can they put out in a day? I can still maintain my bodybuilding lifestyle with 64 egg-whites daily :P

As mneedham asked, what is the feed cost?
 
Wish i had some land to grow some birds... Gees would be one of the first ones, damn all the dogs with enough of the Geese... 130 chickens ,,, what do you do with all those eggs???

Sasha
 
Great looking food brother, and the family looks good too. My landlord is just getting into chickens...she has 6 or so running around with some ducks in a pen. I'm bugging her about a garden next. Home-grown baby! The only way to go!
 
Nice job. Eye spy a nice nessie there.

If I can ever get my wife to move to the place in Mississippi, I want chickens, 2 coops. One for layers and one for friers. 1 pig. Lots of goats. And a few cows.

I also want a bunch of guinneas. They eat everything that pester you, lay really neato tiny hard shelled eggs, and I love their dark meat.
 
darklight said:
You can also throw away the yolk and just eat the whites, in the long therm if you have a lot of eags would be the a smarter choice and that way you can eat a lot of eggs daily without any problem. They are very rich in protein, but without a yolk they will take little more to cook, so in every 4-5 egg-whites throw in a yolk there.

130 chickens, humm, how many eggs can they put out in a day? I can still maintain my bodybuilding lifestyle with 64 egg-whites daily :P

As mneedham asked, what is the feed cost?
Click to expand...

Not needed. eggs have a *balance* of cholesterol that's pretty perfect. It's not the eggs that cause health problems, it' frying them in 1/4 cup of bacon fat ;)

Due to prices, we've been eating mostly eggs, with meat or fish once or twice a week (that'll be 3 or 4 times as fishing ramps up here) and it's fine. I do get my levels checked and I'm pretty healthy.

Feed prices are going to vary by area- but for us feed is a supplement. Or was, we just ate a bunch of duck and won't be getting another batch of chicks for a few weeks. But we feed a lot of table scraps and let the ducks forage.

Just remember to NEVER use chicken feed on ducks.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top