A rescue house! That's an investment!
Aggiemae, please give more details. So, you are feeding your hens what percentage of ferminted oats/grains? What is sprouted BOSS? And what else do you feed them?
Mine have not been laying for a month now due to illness. No eggs, but plenty of appetite. Our last $30 bag of feed only lasted a week or two. I can't keep this up; I need an alternative.
We usually don't foster any animals larger than goats but we took in a really skinny rescue HORSE for the local shelter because they where desperate.
This is what we feed our chickens:
ALMOST FREE:
Sprouted BOSS= Sprouted Black Oil Sunflower seeds. They are expensive in the store but I grow the sunflowers myself (we got 20 pounds from the head of one of last years crop this year) and sprout them in cookie sheets until the sprouts have two leaves.
I grow pumpkins to have on hand to feed as a treat over the winter. The seeds are a natural worm preventative.
FREE
I pick up a big box of produce overripe and trimming from our grocery store
Grubs- grown intentionally in our compost
WORMS- raised for casting/fertilizer. They reproduce quickly in the spring we sell them but mostly We feed the excess to the chickens. We get about 4-6 oz per bin so one pound per month of pure protein. I could probably do this more often if I had too
Produce- Trimmings from the garden, table scraps and mostly the rimming and overripe produce we pick up for the grocery store twice a week . What the hens don't eat goes into our compost or worm bin. Most stores will do this as it saves them disposal fees.
LOW COST:
FERMENTED GRAINS- I feed them all they can eat in half an hour, twice a day. It's 40% (or less) of their diet. in summer and probably close to 60% in winter. Fermenting increases the usable protein in Oats from 11% to 18% and
HULLED OATS can up to 66% of a layers diet. I buy what ever grain is cheapest. The (hulled) whole oats where $8.00 for 50 lbs, The previous bag was milled mixed grains and cost $16.00 for 35 pounds.
You can ferment commercial feeds. I have read that it cuts the monthly cost of feed in half. I never measured the exact amount but I think my hens eat about 1/3 to 1/2 less that they ate before I started fermenting.
I also keep an eye out for expiring
active culture yogurt, sour cream and buttermilk and feed about 8oz sprinkle with cayenne pepper seeds as a worm preventative once or twice a week.
EXPENSIVE:
Cascade Organic Feed- it's about $35.00 for a 50 pound bag but I bought it in April and have about 10 pound left. We use this when we are away from home because it's best not to make things to complicated when someone else is caring for your animals and garden.
Hope this is helpful.
