Buying chicken feed in volume / bulk and feeding scratch vs layer feed

duckinnut said:

Layer feed has more calcium for egg production,you might be able to get by without layer seeing that they free range but you should at least provide them with oyster shell.
As far as bulk buying you could probably check out your area to see if there is a commercial egg producer in your vicinity ask them if they can put you in touch with their supplier or buy a ton off of them. Also go to where your buying the fifty pound bags and ask them if you order forty bags of feed if they can cut you a deal and pay in advance. Dont know if you will have luck with Purina or Blue Seal but give them a call,maybe they have a facility in the Pacific NW.

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I have mostly mixed flocks of laying hens, roosters, growing birds and older infrequent layers. I feed a 16% protein grower to all of them. Chicks get fishmeal mixed in 10:1 to up the protein. I keep a container of oyster shell next to feed and next to nests with each flock. It's been working well and no kidney problems.

BoltonChicken said:

How many chickens do you have? I would not buy in bulk because of storage/pest problems unless I had over 100 chickens. Two fifty pound bags
of feed will store in a galvanized garbage can and will feed 100 chickens for a decent amount of time.

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I know most people recommend metal containers for rodents but if one is in a hot humid climate, like summer where I live. Metal will sweat and possibly mold the feed.
I have plastic bins that each hold about 80# and no rodent issues in the last 3 years (at least not in the bins)

kingsfarm said:

BoltonChicken --- I have 87 chickens and have to feed 100# starter-grower a week.....What am I doing wrong? 32 free range (fed twice a day) 19 roosters ( 6 in one cage 13 another because age diff) 26 pullets in another area --rest in brooder....is it because they are spread out? how much should I be feeding them? am working to get the 26 pullets to free ranging with flock....Help...

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You aren't doing anything wrong. I go through more than that and about half of which is fermented and that goes farther.
I have no forage yet. Everything's still brown and all bugs are dormant.

BoltonChicken said:

I didn't realize that DE could work as a drying agent. I heard that the main benefit to adding it to feed was to kill insects. Am I wrong here?

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It isn't a drying agent it is an anti-caking agent for mash and crumbles.

beatua said:

Thanks everyone for the responses. I am currently buying purina 50# bags and going through about 200 #s per month for our 33 layers. I like the idea of making my own feed, I'm going to price that and see if I can do better than the ~$15 per 50 #s I'm paying today. There is a feed company nearby that sells several feed grains at about $8 / 50 #s. So I was thinking about trying that, but I am concerned about the protein amount. Given our chickens free range all day I think they should get enough protein and I can leave oyster shell for calcium.

Thanks again,
Mark

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I know you want to save money but IMO you don't have enough usage to buy bulk. I sometimes have 100 birds and I don't have enough birds to keep the feed from getting stale and lose nutrients. I try not to feed anything more than 2 months from manufacture date.
Commercial egg and meat companies have their own mills and their birds get feed within a couple days of manufacture.
If you can get fishmeal, meat meal or a poultry concentrate based on those, you can then feed more grain.
The problem with the feed grains is their amino acid configuration is limited by some of the essential ones for optimal growth and production. You could also get a legume like winter peas and sprout or heat treat them for complementary amino acids. The legumes will be much higher in price though.
I've been through the thought processes you are in and in the end, The bagged feed works best for me.

mandelyn said:

Whole grains will store longer than milled, with the milled types you'd want to look into the old freezer storage option to get added shelf life. Or something else to store it in that will seal. Whole grains can protect themselves from going stale, once it's milled or cracked that natural protection is gone. Same with pellets and crumbles as well, no protection, but the bags are designed to keep it fresh.

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I'm in a feed co-op as well, we all order at the same time, I think we're up to about 60 people now. Initially they offered a milled 17% protein (non-GMO) layer feed, but now that we're over 2 tons of buying power, we get a custom whole grain mix layer with 19% protein.

It would be cheaper if it wasn't bagged, but with it getting split up the way it is across the city, we need it bagged. Someone needs to buy a silo!

I store mine in galvanized garbage cans after squirrels decided they needed to taste the new feed mix. Never an issue until we switched to the new mix, now the squirrels know about the sunflower seeds and corn kernels.

Birds are doing great on the new feed, very little waste. They only thing I add now is meal worms since we're fresh out of crickets in the yard until the weather turns. The birds aren't fans of winter... grass is short, bugs are gone, and they don't care for the damp. Spoiled they are!

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We do the same thing. A central person gets the feed delivered and we all pick it up there. They have so many different types of feed and supplements. I'm now getting a 16% organic grower that is the base for the whole flock. For chicks and molters, I mix in 60% protein fishmeal. A 10:1 ratio gives 20% protein feed. I still have dry feed available but they're all getting the feed fermented as well which really cuts down on waste.
We also get feed grade grains and legumes in 50# bags as well as oyster shell, 3 sizes of grit and lots of other supplements.

The above mentioned co-op out of Arizona, just started offering organic soy free hog feeds.

18% Organic Hog Early Grower SOY FREE - 50lb bag - $27.56
16% Organic Hog Late Grower SOY FREE - 50lb Bag - $26.08
14% Organic Hog Finisher SOY FREE - 50lb Bag - $25.45

It seems a lot of people were interested in this because now a lot of the groups order seem to be of these go feeds. I know several people on the west coast are ordering these hog feed by the pallet and the co-op is sometimes able to get the feed delivered (by the pallet) for the same price as listed above. Maybe this isn't that relevant of information on a chicken website, but it seems there might be as many hog growers as there are egg raisers.

Arizona organic feed cooperative:
http://www.phoenixorganicfeed.com/

3E ranch said:

Wanted to know from person mixing their on feed.Where do you buy 50lb bags of peas,flaxing seed,Brewers yeast,etc.

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You can get all these ingredients at any good feed mill that mixes there own feed.

I buy 1 ton bulk starter (non-medicated) to feed to my birds. I have no idea how many we have at this point. It's the summer, and chickens and chicks are coming and going. Usually it lasts us 8-10 weeks. It is mixed to order. We usually have to order it a week before we need it. It does not sit around at all.

I save $200 doing it this way, and lots of back ache, because we use the tractor for the entire thing.

We store it on wood pallets off of cement in the garage. We end up buying two totes and getting them to split the ton into two because we can't take an entire load on our truck, so yeah.. That's what we do.

I'm sure if you looked around you can find a feed mill nearby.

You need at least 100 chickens I think.. We have about that many adults, and too many young ones to count. It fluctuates too much. This is why we feed starter.. Because we would rather not deal with different feed rations for the different age groups. They get oyster shell on the side for the layers and have free range of our property + the woods behind our property.

Go to the feed store and look-ee see-ee what a 40 sack pallet of chicken feed looks like. That is how big of a storage container volume wise that you will need to store 2,000 pounds or (40) 50 pound bags of chicken grub. This bin also needs to be cylindrical, and cone shaped, as well as head high or higher, so that the feed will flow freely into your feed bucket under the effects of gravity.

Yes, DE is a drying agent or anti caking agent but I fail to see the difference. DE is even what some Oil Dry is made from. DE's drying properties will also kill some soft bodied pests like snails and slugs, or some stages of soft bodied insects like maggots, but only when they're liberally dusted with dry DE. If you already have snails, slugs, or maggots all the DE on the planet won't help matters and wet DE is even more useless. There are dozens if not 100s of statements from others on this forum attesting to DE's ineffectiveness on chicken insect pest, so please don't take my word for it.

I have 120ish birds and i use 600 lbs of feed a month. I get mine at coop in van buren ar for 9 cents a lb. 250 lb chops 250 ddg 100 oats.

I buy my feed by the pallet which I get a discount on. You just have to ask around.