peak food

[Tarrel]

Moving towards self-sufficiency in food doesn't have to be a big deal. Take this simple four-chicken system for example:

- Get some 2x2 and 2x1 wood and build a simple run 6ft x 6ft. Cover it with chicken-wire (obviously), including the roof to keep out Mr Fox.
- Build a small 2ft x 3ft coop from scavenged, scrap or (if you're feeling flush) new wood and a bit of roofing felt. Put it in the run.
- Install 4 x point-of-lay hens (abt. 16 weeks old). Get cheap hybrids, bred for egg-laying, at around 7 quid each. Check the small ads in any of the "Smallholder" magazines on the newsagent bookshelves.
- They will each produce around 320 eggs over a three year period.
- That's 1500 eggs over three years, or around 10 per week averaged over the year. (Around £250 worth of eggs over the three years, based on £1 per half doz.)
- Feed them Layers' Pellets; a balanced feed with pretty much everything they need. This will cost around £150 over the three years, worst case.
- Reduce the feed needed (and cost) by giving them scraps. They'll eat anything. (Technically these should not have passed through your kitchen otherwise you're breaking DEFRA rules.) Put a small board on the ground in the garden. Once a week turn it over and feed the hens all the insects that have collected under there. Give them foraged weeds. (They love sticky-weed, and chickweed, funnily enough).
- Get the kids to clean them out once a week.
- After three years, stick the hens in a stewpot and replace them with new ones.
- If you don't get through 10 eggs a week, sell the surplus on the doorstep (or build social capital by giving them away).

Such a system will:
- Assure you of a basic source of protein should TSHTF
- Make you independent of the supply chain for at least one fundamental foodstuff
- Insulate you from rising costs of same
- Provide you with enough chicken sh*t to turbo-charge your compost heap
- Fit into the smallest of back gardens
- Provide hours of entertainment

*Warning* - They can be addictive. We now have 20, having started with six.