Anybody make they're own feed?

[Erica]

You won't be able to do it more cheaply than feed store formulated feeds. I respectfully suggest you save yourself the trouble of trying.

By the way, I do make up my own feeds, and it's as near as I can get to a complete formula, but there's no way it's cheaper. That's how I know.

 

[wattsjadajoe]

Quote:
I have 36 acres and I can/plan free range. My main concern is preditors. I know about the Cyote issue and I have designed an anti-Cyote fence.
Questions I have are; Do prarrie dogs pose a threat? How big must the peeps be before they are safe from large birds? Are they ever? And most important, will the chicks come back in at night on their own?
Befor I complete my containment design, These are questions I should answer. Any comments?

 

[ih66series]

Quote:
How do they only eat 50lbs in 2 weeks? I have 10 that go through it that fast! But, I use crumbles. Is there that much waste? Mine free range most of the time.

 

[ih66series]

Quote:
I have 36 acres and I can/plan free range. My main concern is preditors. I know about the Cyote issue and I have designed an anti-Cyote fence.
Questions I have are; Do prarrie dogs pose a threat? How big must the peeps be before they are safe from large birds? Are they ever? And most important, will the chicks come back in at night on their own?
Befor I complete my containment design, These are questions I should answer. Any comments?

Birds of prey can easily pick up a mature hen, but I don't think they would try.

 

[wattsjadajoe]

Quote:
I have 36 acres and I can/plan free range. My main concern is preditors. I know about the Cyote issue and I have designed an anti-Cyote fence.
Questions I have are; Do prarrie dogs pose a threat? How big must the peeps be before they are safe from large birds? Are they ever? And most important, will the chicks come back in at night on their own?
Befor I complete my containment design, These are questions I should answer. Any comments?

Birds of prey can easily pick up a mature hen, but I don't think they would try.

Do you know about the Prarie Dog?? I have some little ones on my property. I know they will get bigger and I don't like to remove any living thing unless it causes me problems.
Does anyone know about the chickens returning to the coop at night? Do they need a nudge? I have always had caged hens before...not free range....LOL

 

[ih66series]

The prairie dogs (we call em groundhogs in PA) don't pose a threat. As long as the chickens know that the coop is their home, they will always return at night.

 

[wattsjadajoe]

Thanks for the information.

 

[Fireraven0613]

Quote:
Birds of prey can easily pick up a mature hen, but I don't think they would try.

Do you know about the Prarie Dog?? I have some little ones on my property. I know they will get bigger and I don't like to remove any living thing unless it causes me problems.
Does anyone know about the chickens returning to the coop at night? Do they need a nudge? I have always had caged hens before...not free range....LOL

I would keep them in they're coop/run until they're of a mature size. By then they'll realize where they're home is and from what I've been told, will return there every night around dusk. I have yet to let mine out of the run but after an in depth discussion with a farmer who has had chickens for years, I'm going to let them out in the yard tomorrow.

 

[Fireraven0613]

Quote:
I decided to give it a try today. I bought corn, oats, wheat, black sunflower seeds and soy meal. In total I bought about 250 lbs of "stuff" to make feed with and it worked out costing me $5 more then it would for the same amount of feed. I mixed together 50lb of corn, 50lbs of oats, 60lbs of wheat a couple pounds of the sunflower seeds and about 1/2 of the 50lb bag of soy meal. I don't quite know what this will work out to protein wise and I'm not quite sure how to figure that out either but we'll see how it goes. I would have rather stayed away from the corn and soy meal but my feed store doesn't carry fish meal and I'm not sure what else I could use for protein. I didn't grind anything, left it all whole and provided oyster shell in a separate dish for when they need it. They went right for this mix of food and seemed very very happy to eat it.

 

[jtr]

Quote:
x2 have a cheap brand of scratch feed in the mix not very much because of how young they are but you need to stick with starter til they are anywhere between 15 and 18 weeks old
they can have some scratch when they are like 8 weeks you could probably mix it half and half