All the talk of contaminated feed/food animals has me uneasy

[RoseGarden]

I've been kind of uneasy about the whole food supply chain for a while now, considering how easy it would be and has been for our food and our livestock feed to be contaminated over the years. A while back it was BSE because animal proteins were fed back to cows, and we were thinking we'd become a nation of Creutzfeld-Jakob victims with brains as holey as Swiss cheese. Then avian flu which has thankfully not become the pandemic predicted to impact our food supply. Most recently strawberries, spinach, lettuce, and beef contaminated with e. Coli, peanut butter with salmonella, hundreds seriously ill. And now this concern over the contamination, apparently intentional, of animal feed by companies in other countries who obviously don't have our or anyone else's welfare in mind. And who knows what else that we are not aware of?

It's all too easy to ingest something that might harm or even kill you. If not now, then cumulatively, in the future. With this thought came the realization that I am not doing nearly as much for myself as I could be. Yeah, I have the garden, I have some chickens and the occasional turkey, I get good, wholesome eggs and some fryers and roasters on occasion. But I still buy about 2/3 of their feed, so that's going into the eggs and meat. Are those eggs and meat so wholesome after all? I have no way of knowing what's really in the lay pellets. And besides, I am paying more than double what I used to for feed just three years ago, and the price goes up every month or so. It's not so cost effective to raise your own meat and eggs anymore.

Well, with those sorts of thoughts in mind (except for the melamine thing, it hadn't come down the pipe yet) when I did my spring planting, I planted some things I have never tried before, in an effort to at least assess what will and won't do well for me, and so I will learn how to grow something new. Right now, I don't have a great lot of any one thing, but rather a few of each. I am trying a southern dent corn for feed, and it is doing very well. It even survived the terrible high winds and hail we had. I am going to plant some millet this week, as another grain source. I have greens to assess which will withstand the heat the longest. The list goes on.

I also made out my chick order with the intent of having some pure breeds to hatch and raise for selling, as well as the usual cornish for the freezer. I have yet to find a good chicken for raising as a fryer/roaster that I can breed myself, without ordering new each spring. Maybe the plain White Cornish, as they are a large breasted breed...

My intent is to get off my backside and invest more time, more effort, and more space to growing more food for myself and my flock. I'll still buy some locally grown grain products like Texas grown rice, US grown wheat, and scratch for the hens grown in Texas. But I want more control over what I feed myself, and my animals. I know this probably sounds silly to those of you who already have acres under tilliage, but for someone who is a small holder like myself, and has to do things economically, it's a serious endeavor.

[TxGypsy]

I'd highly recommend adding rabbits into your plans. They take up very little room, easy to confine. They're easy to care for and they have an excellent feed/gain ratio. Also some of the most delicious meat you can raise at home. The only problem I ever had was killing them. Lets face it...they are cute and fluffy. I normally get someone else to do the actual killing. Once they are dead I have no trouble doing the butchering. Oh, also, rabbits are very easy to raise supplemental food for. Plus their manure is wonderful to raise worms in or add directly to the garden.

[Sherrynboo]

Rosegarden, I have been having the same thoughts myself. I started making all of our bread when I read wheat gluten was the 2nd ingredient in the store bought bread. The flour I get comes from Montana so I feel safe with it. I have wondered about what is actually in the chicken feed. I would love to just do free range but they wouldn't last long around here. guess I need to look into growing more grains for them myself. It is scarey when you think about all of it and we are bombarded daily on the news.

Sherry in GA