Did you know that you can make your own apple cider vinegar with just some apple peels and cores, sugar, water...and a bit of patience? I didn't know either until I started doing a bit of research.

We use lots of apple cider vinegar on our farm for its wide array of health benefits for us and for our chickens. I consider it one of the 'Holistic Trinity' of chicken keeping and vital to my and my husband's health, as well as a key ingredient in any good pie crust!

Adding apple cider vinegar to our chickens' water a few times a week not only makes the water more appealing to them, it also keeps the waterers cleaner and controls the bacteria both in the water and in the hens' digestive system. The vinegar boosts good bacteria and is thought to also even combat coccidia, which is present in most chicken runs, no matter how fastidiously they are cleaned.

Apple cider vinegar with the 'mother' in it, such as Bragg's, is raw and unpasteurized and has the most benefits. The mother is basically a yeast/live bacteria natural concoction that helps balance bacteria in the intestines of humans AND chickens. However, it's not cheap and we go through quite a lot of it, so I started researching how to make my own.

There are tons of blog posts and articles about making your own apple cider vinegar. I looked for the cheapest, easiest way I could find that seemed to yield good results on a consistent basis. Mother Earth News published an article that was the most straightforward of any I read (link below) and sure enough, it's not only easy, but you only need apples, sugar and water....and some canning jars and cheesecloth. No special kits or ingredients.

So the next time you bake an apple pie, save the peels and cores and make a batch of apple cider vinegar for yourself.

Here's how to do it:

Wash, peel and core 5-10 (preferably organic) apples. Another nice thing is that there's no set amount, you can make as much or as little as you want.


Place the peels and cores in a large glass or stoneware bowl and cover with water by an inch or so. Add 1/4 Cup of sugar for each quart of water you used and stir to mix thoroughly.

Cover the bowl with a heavy plate. The apple scraps need to be completely submersed in the water. Cover the whole thing with a clean kitchen towel and let sit for a week in a cool dark location. Between 65-85 degrees is a good fermentation temperature range, and be sure to keep it in a dark place, because UV light destroys the fermentation process.

The mixture will begin to bubble and foam as yeast forms. That's normal and in fact by Day 3, I had bubbling!

When the week is up, spoon off any black mold that has grown. That's also okay and will occur if the mixture isn't kept cool enough, but if you keep the bowl in a cool spot you shouldn't have any mold.

Strain out the apple solids and pour the liquid into sterilized canning jars, leaving about an inch of head room and discard the solids. Cover each canning jar with a square of doubled cheesecloth and screw just the ring part of the top on. (Hang onto the flat parts of the lids, you'll need them later) This allows the yeast to 'breathe' and prevents the metal from corroding.

Store the jars on a shelf in your pantry and wait about six weeks. A film should start forming on the top. The is the 'mother'. You can open up the jars and stir or swirl them so the mother settles on the bottom and more will grow on top.

After six weeks, replace the cheesecloth with the flat part of the lid and screw the ring back on. Stored in a cool, dark place, the apple cider vinegar will last indefinitely. By this point the yeast will have eaten all the available sugars and you will be left with a 'shelf-stable' vinegar. The flavor will develop and evolve over time.

Note: If you save some of the mother from each batch and add it to the next batch, the vinegar will be finished more quickly. It's been hard waiting the six weeks for my first batch, but I have several batches started now that will finish at the end of consecutive weeks, so I will always have a batch of homemade apple cider vinegar ready going forward.
  

Please visit my Fresh Eggs Daily blog and also join me on Facebook at Fresh Eggs Daily and Ducks Too so you don't miss a thing!

Autumn is the season for root vegetables. I love growing things underground because they are the one crop the rabbits don't eat from our garden and they are largely protected from insect damage also. 

It's so exciting to tug gently on the greens and watch as a beautiful vegetable emerges from the warm soil. Of course I plant extra to share with the chickens, now that the summer garden is depleted and their supply of lettuce, tomatoes and cucumbers has dwindled.

Here are some of my observations regarding feeding root vegetables to our flock:

Beets - YES! Beet greens and stalks are a favorite of both our chickens and ducks and both also like the beet itself. They can eat them raw or cooked.

The ducks have an easier time if you chop or grate raw beets, but the chickens will happily peck away at them as long as I slice them in half.

Beets are extremely nutritious and have blood cleansing properties, so they are a good treat choice for your flock. Just don't panic if you see hot pink or teal poop in the run after a beet-fest!

Carrots - YES! We always have carrots on hand for our horses. We also grow them in our garden. The chickens and ducks love the carrot tops and will also eat carrot peels.

Whole raw carrots should be chopped or grated, especially for the ducks to manage, but cooked carrots are fine for them all to eat in any shape or size.

As an added bonus, the beta-carotene in the carrots will turn their egg yolks a brilliant orange.

I also add carrots to the twice yearly pumpkin seed, garlic natural worm preventative I feed our flock.

Garlic - YES! There is a lot of conflicting information online about feeding garlic to chickens. Although part of the allium family which includes shallots, onions and chives, all of which can be toxic, garlic has natural antibiotic and immune system boosting properties. It also helps repel parasites such as ticks, fleas, mites and lice.

I feed my chicks minced fresh garlic in the brooder. I also add garlic powder to my laying hens daily feed. I have also floated whole garlic cloves in the waterers. In fact, I consider garlic to be one of the foundations of raising a healthy flock. Could garlic be toxic in large quantities? I suppose, but couldn't almost anything?

I can only tell you what works for me and how I choose to raise my flock, and I can tell you unequivocally that small amounts of garlic are not toxic - and are most likely very beneficial.

Onions - NO! Onions contain a toxin that destroys red blood cells. Onions don't have the same health benefits as garlic, so any possible positives gained by feeding onions are far outweighed by the potential for them to be fatal.

Excessive amounts of raw or cooked onion can cause anemia or jaundice in your hens. I never knowingly feed our flock onion, but if they end up eating small amounts, in restaurant leftovers for example, it probably won't kill them.

Bottom line, try to avoid onion in any form but don't worry if they inadvertently eat some.


From our pinterest 'Gardening' board

Parsnips - YES! Parsnips are a nutritious food source for your flock. They are related to carrots and parsley and can be fed raw or cooked. But again, raw parsnips are more easily consumed if they are grated or chopped.

Photo courtesy of 1840 Farm

Potatoes - NO! Potatoes are a member of the nightshade family. The leaves and vines are toxic to chickens. To make matters worse, the skins, especially green skins, contain the toxin solanine. The green color signals higher concentrations of the toxin. The flesh also contains solanine, although in smaller quantities. I feed potatoes very infrequently, if ever, and never any green potatoes, peels, leaves or vines.

Fortunately, solanine is poorly absorbed and rapidly excreted by mammals, so small amounts of potato flesh as long as it isn't green most likely won't be fatal, but potatoes have very little nutritional value anyway, so they aren't an optimal treat. I would recommend refraining from feeding potatoes to your flock, but like onions, if they eat some cooked potato mixed in with leftovers it probably won't kill them.

Photo courtesy of 1840 Farm

Radishes - YES! The chickens will love both radishes and radish leaves. Again, radishes are much easier for the chickens to eat if they are grated or chopped first.

Sweet Potatoes - YES! Oddly enough, sweet potatoes are not a member of the nightshade family like the white potato. They are a member of the morning glory family and do not contain the toxin solanine, so they are perfectly safe to feed to your chickens, along with the leaves.

Sweet potatoes contain loads of vitamins and nutrients. Your chickens will love sweet potato, but like most other hard veggies, cooked or grated is going to be the easiest way for the chickens and ducks to eat them.

Photo courtesy of 1840 Farm

Turnips - YES! Turnips and turnips tops are a great healthy treat, although the chickens have an easier time with them if the turnips are grated or cooked and mashed.

You can also toss a halved turnip in the run and it will keep them busy for quite some time pecking at it or put a whole turnip in a hanging basket for them to nibble on.

As with any new food, your chickens might view these root vegetables with much suspicion and you may have to try offering a particular treat several times before a few brave souls will give it a try. But be persistent and they will eventually dive in!

JOIN US ON FACEBOOK and follow our blog FRESH EGGS DAILY for more tips, tricks and advice on raising chickens and ducks as naturally as possible.