Ground cherries for the chickens

A patch of ground cherries sprang up under one of my peach trees last year, and I left it alone under some vague recollection that the fruits were edible.  Later, I read that Native Americans in our area did exactly the same thing, weeding around wild edibles like ground cherries that popped up in their corn fields then eating the "wild" fruits.  Unfortunately, I missed the last step --- actually eating the ground cherries --- so I was surprised to notice that the fruits were still present and in good shape at the end of January.  Chicken feed?

The flock says a resounding yes!  It took a minute for the rooster to figure out how to get through the papery hull to the sweet fruit, but then he taught the whole flock and soon not a single ground cherry was left.

Since late winter is the time when a chicken flock is most likely to be malnourished (no wild bugs! no copious kitchen scraps!), I decided it would be worth planting some ground cherries for our chickens to consume next year.  I squeezed out the insides of a few fruits and then put them in a container of water just like I would with tomato seeds.  After about a week, mold forms on the surface of the water, which is your clue that the fruits have rotted enough to let the seeds float free.  Remove the mold, pour off the water, rinse the seeds, and dry them for spring planting.