How to save money on chicken feed?

[ignatz]

With so few birds and just that making you worry about the cost of feed and them not even full grown and laying yet, you might not be prepared yet for raising chickens. You go getting skimpy on feed and it'll show - they won't weigh well when it comes time for butchering (whether you're raising them for that or not) and the eggs will be fewer and smaller in size. If you need to try and supplement what amount of feed they get, kitchen and table scraps. If they're hungry, they'll eat most anything and they know what they can and can't eat far better than any human.

 

[Scooter&Suzie]

With so few birds and just that making you worry about the cost of feed and them not even full grown and laying yet, you might not be prepared yet for raising chickens. You go getting skimpy on feed and it'll show - they won't weigh well when it comes time for butchering (whether you're raising them for that or not) and the eggs will be fewer and smaller in size. If you need to try and supplement what amount of feed they get, kitchen and table scraps. If they're hungry, they'll eat most anything and they know what they can and can't eat far better than any human.

Actually they are full grown and laying. I have had the chickens almost for a year - they are egg layers, and I allow them to eat as much as they wish, they always have food in their feeder. I'm not going to ration the feed, I just wanna save as much money as I can. No way would I ever let them go hungry!

 

[vickiw]

 

[srd5757]

Chickens can eat almost anything people eat. We keep all our scraps and what not (alot of wasted food w/ 2 kids) and that goes to the chickens. Our are also free ranging all day in the yard so they don't eat that much chicken feed at all. Now the chicks that we have inside on the other hand go through a ton!

 

[Webwopper]

This Duckweed stuff is amazing! Says here it lives on ammonia. So Just pee in a jar and distribute to your buckets. hehe

http://www.mobot.org/jwcross/duckweed/duckweed.htm

Only downside is it won't grow in cold climates. I'd have to replant every spring.

 

[Webwopper]

Actually they are full grown and laying. I have had the chickens almost for a year - they are egg layers, and I allow them to eat as much as they wish, they always have food in their feeder. I'm not going to ration the feed, I just wanna save as much money as I can. No way would I ever let them go hungry!

I have also been known to ask grocers for vegetable waste.

Did somebody mention raising worms and grubs yet? I walk ahead of my chickens sometimes and just flip over rocks so they can get more worms and bugs.

 

[Davaroo]

There used to be an entire industry in wartime Britain that collected, processed and distributed kitchen wastes as animal feed. It was a booming trade and centered around a particular north London district, Tottenham. The product was known as "Tottenham pudding," a steam-cooked mixture of household waste food which was converted into food stuffs for pigs and poultry. Potato peelings and pea shells were the main ingredients, but ALL meat, chicken, fish and other comestibles went into it. If it was too sparse or rough for the family, it "went to the pigs." Slogans were shouted and handbills posted, encouraging folks to recycle their waste.

To this end, each household was supplied with enameled bins, one for dry goods and the other for kitchen wastes. Each of these was emptied into larger cans on the local street corners, usually by the children of the family. Food fights were often seen around the bins, as the kids found some diversion from the bombings and general wartime malaise. The collected waste was picked up weekly in trucks and ended up in large yards.

There it was cooked up in huge vats, then semi-dried into a bread-pudding like affair. This was mostly done out-of-doors and to say it was a smelly business would be understating things. Finally, it was loaded back on trucks and sent around the countryside to be sold to pig and chicken farmers for a small charge. They would mix it back with water into a mush, to feed to the animals. The smell, of course, went with the trucks - for all to enjoy.

The "pudding" was named by Queen Mary herself, interestingly enough. In fact, during wartime England it was technically illegal to give chickens ANY kitchen scraps, as it was expected that it would be collected as part of the war efforts... by order of the Queen!

Tottenham eventually was absorbed into the township of Haringey, but it still continues to be a front runner in recycling food waste. Today, the modern 'Tottenham pudding' is the compost produced and distributed for free to residents and community groups in the area...

 

[WinklerFarms]

Actually they are full grown and laying. I have had the chickens almost for a year - they are egg layers, and I allow them to eat as much as they wish, they always have food in their feeder.  I'm not going to ration the feed, I just wanna save as much money as I can.  No way would I ever let them go hungry! 

I have also been known to ask grocers for vegetable waste.

Did somebody mention raising worms and grubs yet? I walk ahead of my chickens sometimes and just flip over rocks so they can get more worms and bugs.

I am the meat manager at a small local grocery store so I get tons of old lettuce, potatoes, carrots, cabbage and asparagus just to name a few. My layers love this stuff and it really cuts down on the feed costs even though mine is already low at only $8/ 50 lb bag. Mine get what is called lean gain 75 hog mash. I only have to supplement calcium. The hog mash has everything else the layers need.

 

[Davaroo]

I am the meat manager at a small local grocery store so I get tons of old lettuce, potatoes, carrots, cabbage and asparagus just to name a few. My layers love this stuff and it really cuts down on the feed costs even though mine is already low at only $8/ 50 lb bag. Mine get what is called lean gain 75 hog mash. I only have to supplement calcium. The hog mash has everything else the layers need.

There you go - thinking outside the box. The analysis is what matters, eh?.....

 

[vickiw]

Does anyone buy their feed at Fleet Farm? That's where I get my "good" pellets from but was wondering what you think of the Fleet Farm brand Sprout, layer crumbles.