Chicken Feed

[Beekissed]

Man, I wish you were my neighbor, OFG!!!!

Truer words were never spoken. All these years I grew up around Grandma's chickens, then our own, then mine, I never knew they would become idols of worship and on equal footing with humans.

Swim on over here, the water is NICE!

 

[homesteadmomma]

Freemotion makes her own whole grain mix that looks yummy and I think is less expensive than layer mash/pellets.

I only feed once in the evening for my free ranged flock. They waste less and the rodents don't pack it away...you'd be surprised how much you may be losing to rodents.

I also cut laying rations with some cheaper whole grains in the winter time of slow laying. I will mix in cracked corn, oats, alfalfa pellets ($6 for 50 lb here and it helps replace the greens they don't get in the winter) and a little BOSS. I throw the BOSS into the deep litter so they will keep it fluffed and turned for me.

I also cull strictly in the spring and fall. I realize some birds slow down in molt but I like to keep birds that still lay occasionally in the winter. I refuse to keep free loaders out of sentiment...well...except one old BA that I really like.

My older flock, mostly 3 year olds, are being turned into breast filets and raw dog food shortly, as they have slowed down tremendously. I am currently getting 2-3 eggs from 13 hens.

All of these things keep my expenses down.

This is one of the big problems of my chicken expense, I really need to cull the hens that are older but to be honest I have no idea how is laying and who is not. I also don't want to feed free loaders because here you have to do a job or you get the axe! :/

 

[Farmfresh]

i'm convinced that BYC is now entirely peopled by teenage girls who carry their chickens around in their purse. and vegetarians. for heavens sakes how many posts do they need to cover the "how can you eat your own chickens" issue?

golly.

you'll do just fine, honey. if they start bullying you over there you just let us know and we'll saddle up the posse and come on in.

Of course the people on THIS site are often known to walk around with poults in their bra!

Homesteadmomma just take a deep breath. There are LOTS of ways to feed a chicken (and other poultry) and keep them healthy and producing lots of eggs. Chickens are omnivores. They can eat anything!

There were no specially prepared mixes and diets hundreds of years ago. People have had chickens as a daily part of their lives since the Roman times. Without all of the scientific studies and judgements, they still got eggs and the occasional chicken dinner.

Yup. You just best hang out over here for a while.

 

[homesteadmomma]

Let me guess....you got totally flamed for not providing for your chickens at the expense of your mortgage/rent and food for your kids....

I started on the whole grain path due to my philosophies (no soy and no trust in what goes into anything that is in the form of a pellet or mash! A lot of garbage can be hidden in there, as all the recalls have proven) and my love of a good experiment but now the bad economy has really hit my family hard so I am very thankful that I am positioned to save and have the confidence that my animals are actually BETTER OFF NOW.

Whole grains are cheaper for most people...they are hard to get here! But cheaper than layer feed. In short, you need a carbohydrate source and a protein source. The carbohydrates should be a mix of at least 2-3 grains to balance nutrient issues in certain grains. The protein can be a number of things...what can you get ahold of? It can be field peas, soy if you are ok with that, meat, and bugs in a free-range situation. You can raise live protein with things like soldier fly larvae.

Or you can sprout barley. I do this and add animal protein as often as I can get it in the winter when no bugs are available. This means mashed bones from broth and catfood making, old milk and kefir, cooked eggs that were cracked or too soiled, fat scraps from rendering lard and suet.

You can get even more creative with foraging. I've picked and chopped dandelion greens for my more confined birds (broody hens and chicks, for example) as well as grass. Most veggie scraps will also be eaten, better if run through the food processor.

I recently got a lot of overripe sweet corn in the husks for my pigs....a group of young cockerels in my flock no longer comes to eat when I feed the rest of the flock. They eat corn right off the cob with the pigs.

Another thing I do that saves a tremendous amount of feed....almost cut my feed bill in half the first year I did this...I toss the feed to the flock twice a day, and that is what they get. Period. No food left in feeders for the vermin to take away and store underground somewhere. I scatter the grains a handful at a time until they lose enthusiasm. I make sure the shy ones get a chance before I stop.

If I will be late in the winter, I leave something for them like an apple or a squash or pumpkin to peck at in their coop where the goats can't steal it and the vermin aren't really interested.

And glean, glean, glean. There are opportunities all around you. Many farmers and gardeners hate to see stuff go to waste.

Actually if you want the truth I didn't even bother to go over there as I HATE confrontation and knew it would come to that. I have never felt I fit in over there, I quickly quit posting on any topics that my answer varied from anybody else to avoid the madhouse. I am trying to support my family on as little as possible and that is not the common thought over at BYC! I posted once about a rooster that I thought I should cull and after that experience with that thread I really don't go there much. I did just list two things on the For Sale thread but that is a pretty safe area, I think!

 

[Beekissed]

but to be honest I have no idea how is laying and who is not

I cull twice a year and I've tried all the methods for determining who is laying, who is not. All have been faulty except one and many folks think this is just nuts and uncalled for~but it works.

I pick them off the roost at night, glove up and gently insert a fingertip into their vent. If you feel the hard, rounded shape of an egg, that hen will lay the next day. Your finger will not be in the egg canal but you will be palpating through the intestinal wall. This does not in any way appear to hurt the birds and I have had no ill effects from utilizing this method.

I do this two nights in a row. The hens that have an egg one or both nights get to stay. The hens who have no egg two nights in a row have gotta go.

 

[deb4o]

homestead-

is there any way you can separate a few of your gals, to see who is laying and who is not? This is how I do it so I can cull.

We are of the same line of thinking if your not carring your own weight then-off with your head- and into the freezer you go!

 

[homesteadmomma]

I have to tell you I appreciate you all coming to my defense LOL! I love this site so much more. I was convinced for the longest while that my animals were being abused because I don't have this or that or they don't have this amount of space or so forth. I look at my animals and know that they are well taken care of and loved in the sense they have a purpose. My pig is a good example of this, I truly love the little turd but he will be butchered late this fall. I think I will love him more in the freezer.

 

[Farmfresh]

I was convinced for the longest while that my animals were being abused because I don't have this or that or they don't have this amount of space or so forth. I look at my animals and know that they are well taken care of and loved in the sense they have a purpose. My pig is a good example of this, I truly love the little turd but he will be butchered late this fall. I think I will love him more in the freezer.

It is a crying shame that other people want to make you feel that way.

I always try to do my very best for my animals. Sometimes the very best is not always what other folks think it is!

Example: Horses When I was a kid growing up we had horses. They spent their days on pasture and had a three sided shed as their only shelter year round. Other kids in my 4-H group used to make fun of me and my pasture horses. Trying to make me feel bad because my horses were not in a fancy stall and covered with blankets in the wintertime. Years later I read a scientific study that showed horses had far less problems both physical and mental if they lived in a pasture with a shed than did stall horses. Cheaper is often better.

It is just another sign of the times that people are not realistic about farm animals.

 

[ohiofarmgirl]

Of course the people on THIS site are often known to walk around with poults in their bra!

HA! well thats entirely different altogether.. i'm sure
;-)

HA!

i was talking with a city friend last nite and telling her about it and she said "oh doesnt that make it hard to eat them?"...um.. no.. i was eating a turkey sandwich at the time. yep from ours.

hee hee hee

HSM - believe me. you'll love that pig more in the freezer. for sure!
and dont feel bad. people are crazy. i get a lot of flimflam too but you know how that goes (not too well for the other guy)
;-)

we are always shocked at how low we can go with our feed and upkeep. if you have the time, and gumption you can totally keep a barnyard on the cheap. the dairy goats were our best investment because they can feed almost everyone - including us. the start up costs are kinda high.. but once you get rolling you'll be bringing in the savings.

Bee - if you were here i'd hand you one of these peach preserve scones i'm eating for first breakfast! its delish!

 

[Shiloh Acres]

I was VERY interested in an article I read online that talked about planting a (city) yard with food-producing plants of all kinds and then cycling your chickens around the property to take advantage of leftovers.

My setup is different, but I have a pretty big yard fenced off for my chickens and rabbits. 2/3 of it has lots of treese around 3 sides and a big one in the middle and 1/3 is open and sunny with trees around the fenceline.

I am interested in putting food producing plants out there forthem. I read that mulberry trees produce food over a long season. There USED TO BE blackberries out there but the chickens killed the vines too. Too fragile maybe. I planned to plant corn spaced a few weeks apart and sunflowers in the sunny area.

But I am mostly interested in plants like a mulberry tree that don't have to be replanted and can produce year after year for a long season.

I'm in the early learning stage for now though. But I thought this was a most cool idea.

I'd like to learn of forages to plant for the goats too.

But we do have a large feed company about an hour away that, as soon as I can be confident of what to buy, I want to get feeds from there. Cost is about half or less of processed stuff.

This year I fed my chickens lots of scraps and they forage a lot on what I DO have. An old-timer up the road I used to buy eggs from was the NICEST man and he's raised chickenns around here for 80 years. He told me to be sure they had plenty of water but cut way back on the feed in summer and offer scratch instead, to help them deal better with the heat. It was opposite what I heard on byc -- that scratch would keep them warmer -- but this gentleman seemed very knowledgeable, so I did limit the crumbles and gave them lots of scratch. Well, scratch costs 1/2 as much as pellets here, and mine eat few pellets now. I buy 2 or 3 times as much scratch. Not sure how their eating may change once the bugs and vegetation run out though.