Green Willow Homestead
  • Home
  • Blog
  • SHOP
    • EVENTS >
      • Bouquet Bar at Perlick Distillery
      • Family U-Pick Event
    • Farmers Markets
    • Florals
    • Build Plans >
      • Goat Tractor Build Plans
      • A-Frame Chicken Tractor Build Plans
      • Brooder Box Build Plans
      • Modern Rustic Bed Frame Build Plans
    • The Farm Store >
      • Bouquet of the Month Club
      • Mushroom Infused Salt
      • Cocktail Infusion Kits
      • Cocktail Bitters >
        • Smoked Cardamom Orange Molasses Bitters
        • Vanilla Sugar Plum Bitters
        • Spiced Orange + Plum Bitters
        • Pine + Spruce Bitters
    • Tractor Kits >
      • Tow Bar Kit for Chicken or Goat Tractor
      • Chicken Tractor Wheel Mounting Kit
      • Goat Tractor Wheel Mounting Kit
      • Milk Stanchion Mounting Kit
    • My Amazon Storefront
  • Podcast
  • FREEBIES
    • The Conscious Consumer Method
    • The Green Gifting Guide
    • The Green Wedding Guide
  • About
    • Interviews and Features
  • Home
  • Blog
  • SHOP
    • EVENTS >
      • Bouquet Bar at Perlick Distillery
      • Family U-Pick Event
    • Farmers Markets
    • Florals
    • Build Plans >
      • Goat Tractor Build Plans
      • A-Frame Chicken Tractor Build Plans
      • Brooder Box Build Plans
      • Modern Rustic Bed Frame Build Plans
    • The Farm Store >
      • Bouquet of the Month Club
      • Mushroom Infused Salt
      • Cocktail Infusion Kits
      • Cocktail Bitters >
        • Smoked Cardamom Orange Molasses Bitters
        • Vanilla Sugar Plum Bitters
        • Spiced Orange + Plum Bitters
        • Pine + Spruce Bitters
    • Tractor Kits >
      • Tow Bar Kit for Chicken or Goat Tractor
      • Chicken Tractor Wheel Mounting Kit
      • Goat Tractor Wheel Mounting Kit
      • Milk Stanchion Mounting Kit
    • My Amazon Storefront
  • Podcast
  • FREEBIES
    • The Conscious Consumer Method
    • The Green Gifting Guide
    • The Green Wedding Guide
  • About
    • Interviews and Features

How To Set Up A Food Waste Recovery Program To Feed Your Chickens And Save On Feed Costs

2/21/2018

4 Comments

 
How To Set Up A Food Waste Recovery Program To Feed Your Chickens
Here at Green Willow Homestead, we have 40 chicken mouths to feed (and counting!). Our chickens are definitely spoiled. We allow them access to pasture, they freely browse a MOSA certified Organic Chicken Feed, and we give them all our chicken-approved kitchen scraps. When I started to keep track of our expenses though, reality smacked me right in the face. We were spending nearly $175 a month on organic chicken feed! With 40 laying hens producing 3 dozen eggs a day, we technically can rake in $450 a month in egg sales, unfortunately, in the winter this just isn’t the case. Egg laying slows way down as we lose daylight, but the amount these cluckers eat stays the same. I had to put my thinking cap on. How can I cut my feed costs when egg laying can’t foot the bill? Enter a food waste recovery program!
To put it simply, a food waste recovery program is when you partner with a local business that produces food waste, i.e. a restaurant or food shelf, to collect what would otherwise go to a landfill and, instead, compost it or feed it livestock. This partnership can be set up however you want it to: you can volunteer for food waste, you can barter for it, or you can just take it off their hands no questions asked. There are two types of food waste in the restaurant business: pre-plate food waste, which is all the prep scraps that come before food hits the plate; and post-plate food waste, which is what the customer leaves behind instead of bringing it home as leftovers. Both of these options can be recovered in a food waste recovery program.

In this blog post, I’m going to take you through why food waste recovery is necessary, how we got started doing it at Green Willow Homestead, and what equipment you need for successful implementation.

Read More
4 Comments

How To Make Your Own Toxin-Free And Zero-Waste Kitchen Cleaning Supplies

2/13/2018

1 Comment

 
How To Make Your Own Toxin-Free And Zero-Waste Kitchen Cleaning Supplies
In my last post, we talked about the biggest toxic offenders lurking in your kitchen cleaning supplies. In this post we are going to go over the cheap and effective toxin-free cleaners you can utilize instead. After spending years with generic cleaning brands, the switch can be a little bumpy. Due to this adjustment period, I want to take you through how what we use to clean our homes works on a technical level. Let's dive in!

Read More
1 Comment

The Toxins In Your Kitchen Cleaning Supplies

2/6/2018

0 Comments

 
The Toxins in Your Kitchen Cleaning Supplies
I grew up with familiar names like Windex and Dawn in our cleaning supplies at home. These brands and many others are ones we’ve trusted to keep our kitchens clean and sparkling for decades. Unfortunately, the trust we have placed in these brands has been taken advantage of. Household brand names in our cleaning supplies are full of toxic chemicals and the findings only keep mounting. From heightened risk of miscarriage to developmental delays to cancer, nearly all of our common cleaning supplies are wrought with problematic ingredients that have dire consequences. I want to take you through the biggest offenders to give you a snapshot of what you are up against when you clean your home. In my next post, I’ll provide you with some easy toxin-free DIY or Conscious Consumer approved alternatives. ​

Read More
0 Comments
    Picture

    Meet Kelsey,

    Thanks for stopping by Green Willow Homestead! From chicken rearing to composting, we've got our hands full and we love sharing what we've learned along the way. Follow along as we turn the 80 acres we call home into a farm that serves its community and a homestead that nourishes us throughout the seasons.


    Picture

    Grab the Ebook

    LEARN MORE

    Picture

    Listen in!

    SUBSCRIBE

    The Conscious Consumer Method Free Download

    FREE Guide!

    DOWNLOAD NOW

    Tune into our Green Willow Homestead YouTube Channel

    Tune in to our YouTube Channel

    SUBSCRIBE

    Inspirations

    1. Rachel Carson
    2. Robin Wall Kimmerer
    3. Temple Grandin
    4. Bea Johnson
    ​6. Harvey Ussery

    Categories

    All
    Broody Hen Care
    Farmer Resources
    Holistic Healing
    Homesteading Plans
    Organic Gardening
    #PackagingForThePlanet
    Raising Dairy Goats
    Raising Pastured Chickens
    Recipes
    Sustainable Living
    The Farm Stand
    The Food Forest
    The Positively Green Podcast
    Weekly Homestead Update


    Favorite Books of 2024

    1. Erosion
    2. Braiding Sweetgrass
    ​3. As Long As Grass Grows
    ​4. The Small Scale Poultry Flock
    5. The Zero Waste Solution


    Archives

    May 2025
    February 2025
    January 2025
    November 2024
    February 2024
    November 2023
    September 2023
    August 2023
    March 2023
    February 2023
    November 2022
    August 2022
    July 2022
    June 2022
    May 2022
    February 2022
    January 2022
    November 2021
    October 2021
    September 2021
    August 2021
    June 2021
    May 2021
    April 2021
    March 2021
    February 2021
    January 2021
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016

FOLLOW KELSEY ON INSTAGRAM!

View this profile on Instagram

Kelsey Jorissen (@kelseyjorissen) • Instagram photos and videos


Picture

As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

About Kelsey
Interviews + Features
​
Kelsey's Favorite Amazon Items
On The Blog
The Holistic Home Ebook
The A-Frame Mobile Chicken Tractor

Privacy Policy
CONTACT KELSEY

© Green Willow Homestead, LLC. 2025