In our area, the heat is harder on the chickens than is the cold. That’s true for a ‘lil old granny too! 🙂 During the summer, I will freeze yogurt in ice trays and throw out cubes to them, I often dump small blocks of ice in their water buckets, we save all our fruit peelings in the freezer and I will throw a few of those out to the chickens.
Recently, a reader, Hilary, mentioned that she runs her oversized zucchini through the spiral veggie cutter and feeds those to the chickens. That gave me an idea . . I could run them through the spiral cutter, freeze them and throw out frozen zucchini cubes to the chickens for a cool treat on a hot afternoon.
My old spiral cutter clamps to the edge o fa table and I don’t like clamping things to the countertop so I went searching for something different that would work. I ended up ordering this one because (1) it has suction cups and supposedly sticks to the countertop, though I wasn’t going to bet that it worked great (2) it had lots of positive feedback (3) it wasn’t terribly expensive.
Spiral Cutter
The suction cups actually work great and keep it right where I want it to stay!
Pile of Zucchini
Using the thicker cutter, it took no time at all to have quite a pile of zucchini.
Zucchini for Chickens
I ended up with 19 packets of zucchini, which I wrapped in plastic wrap and stacked on a cookie sheet, with parchment paper between the layers of packets.
Zucchini
Once it was frozen, I stuck the packages in the freezer pull out section. These packages are so easy to “serve”. I will unwrap one, cut it onto three sections and throw those out for the chickens. With 12 – 18 chickens in each pen, I will need to put at least 6 chunks in each pen.
It will take a whole lot of zucchini to keep my chickens cool over the next few months but I do believe my zucchini plants are up to the challenge. Why is it that no matter how few zucchini plants I set out, I’m always overrun with zucchini?
Ranch Wife says
LOL – I grow zucchini for the chickens too! Mine love frozen grapes too, but I can’t grow those in the garden. 🙂
Vivian Oaks says
I don’t think you’ll have too much zucchini now! Sounds like the chickens would eat all the zucchini leftovers after you’ve had your share! 😉
Judy H says
I have the same spiral cutter! I love it. I like that I can just put it in the dishwasher when I’m done!
JudyL says
Since I only cut veggies with it, I just give it a dip in hot soapy water, squirt it off, dry it and stick it back in the box. I don’t trust what the dishwasher will do with all that plastic but glad to know it’s working for you.
Mary says
I wish I had more room in my garden, next year I am adding squash and Zucchini.
Sheryl says
I’m not getting much zucchini and I love it! I would love to have your soil. We have a lot of tweaking with my little garden for the fall crop. I guess I need to start planning for that now!
Kathy S says
I don’t know, Judy. The way you spiral cut the zucchini looks soooooooo yummy. I need to go check out that cutter. I bet you have the most awesome kitchen gadgets! I use the automatic (gravity drip) waterers for my chickens. It took them a little while to learn how to use them. I freeze a 2-liter bottle and drop it in the bucket and they have cool water for several hours a day. Changing the water in these buckets is pretty important in this heat. Here’s where I got the idea. It’s pretty slick. I love searching for chicken toys.
http://www.communitychickens.com/2012/08/diy-chicken-waterer.html
Linda says
What a great use for too many zucchini! BTW, I love the look of the blog, and especially, the scrolling of the screen.