Ken, I have enjoyed your articles about homesteading in Croatia. I know nothing about the climate there, but what do they feed chickens in the winter? And cows (besides hay)? I am really interested in going off commercial feed and growing my own.

-- Cathy N. (keeper8@attcanada.ca), January 10, 2002

Answers

bump.......I am also interested Ken. :>)

-- diane (gardiacaprines@yahoo.com), January 11, 2002.

Two more questions to add to my list as I have tentitive plans to go back for another week in May - providing I can line up an interpreter. My cousin Alojz said they do not purchase any feed for their chickens besides stale bread from the village bakery. Not sure where their dried corn comes from since I don't remember seeing any in their garden, including sweet corn.

On cows, I suspect they fall into two categories, beef and dairy. The cattle I saw in the feedlot were fed on corn haylage, spent brewers malt and a bit of a mineral/salt mix, plus as couple of square bales put into the mixer if they had them. For cows on pasture, I suspect they just received hay during the winter. I saw hay being put up in several ways. Square baled, round baled, pitched up on a wagon and brought home one cart load at a time. On the pitched hay, I wish I would provide a photograph. On the way back from a short trip to Hungary we passed a field in which it was being done, so I had my driver turn around. Here was a new, probably 4- wheel drive, A/C tractor pulling a wagon on which hay was being tossed. Mother, son and wife. Was going to their dairy. I asked if there was any money in dairying in Croatia and he said no. Like the U.S. there are price controls. To make ends meet he spent summers on the Adratic Coast working in the tourist industry while his mother and wife tended the dairy. Now wish I had asked to follow them home to see their dairy.

-- Ken S. in WC TN (scharabo@aol.com), January 12, 2002.