When you spill the feed, chicks are the answer!
We’ve all heard of “throwing money down the drain” but when you get a hole in the chicken feed bag on the way to the feed bin, you end up “throwing money down the lane”.
This past week, I bought a fifty pound bag of scratch and a fifty pound bag of crumbles. They were both on the tailgate of the truck. To make it simple to unload this time, I went for the hand cart which was closer than the wagon. The first bag fell right onto the flat of the two wheeled truck. When I heaved the 2nd fifty pounder, it hit the edge of it and a small tear could be seen. I thought nothing of the small hole and began pulling the bags toward their destination. By the time the two wheels had rubbed the small hole all of the way to the bin, a trail of rather expensive chicken feed could be seen from one end of the chicken yard to the other.
I tried the rake thing. The hoe thing was attempted. A shovel was pulled along the trail and yes, I tried a scooper but it only made the mess worse so I did the only reasonable thing. All of the girls in the barn yard were pressing their beaks against the wire doors of each run. If you have chickens, you know this scene. They were cackling, eager and down right pushy so I simply opened the run doors and out they came spilling onto the grain-filled chicken yard.
It was a delightful site to see all of the girls so happy doing clean up. While there was still some waste, there was also a lot of happy hens enjoying an unexpected treat. In the end, I felt as if I may get an extra egg or two from the surprise feeding event. In this case, it could be considered cashing in.