Best Budget Food

[JacksonPearce]

Hi all! I've been feeding my hens New Country Organics, and while I love it, I'm trying to save a little money for the next few months. New Country is $40 per 50lb bag, and I go through two bags each month (though hopefully less now that I've solved a rat problem!); does anyone recommend a quality organic feed that's a good deal cheaper? If there's only a small price difference I'm inclined to just stick with New Country, but if anyone's got a solid choice that could save me some big bucks, I'd love to hear about it.

 

[Wolfefarmyard]

Hi there!

Wow that’s an awful lot of money for feed!

If you don’t mind me asking, what makes you prefer organic feed?

 

[Mybackyardpeepers]

Good evening! My daughter works for a feed store and your off brand run of the mill cheap food can/is still equally healthy. Just like us buying off brand compared to name brand.

 

[FortCluck]

I feed flock raiser by Purina or Nutrena all flock if the Purina isn't in stock. Nutrena is $15.99 per 40# bag and Purina is $17.99 per 40# bag. I have 11 chickens and 5 ducks, I usually go through 2 bags a month but they forage a lot so sometimes it's just 1 bag.

Is there a reason you prefer organic?

 

[Quackter]

Not being sarcastic, but at $0.80 per lb, pretty much anything else.

 

[GC-Raptor]

I don't buy Organic feed, but If I did. I would buy this. . It's ingredients are similar to this brand. . I believe it's made by them for TSC. Both are also available in Crumbles.
If you're OK with Non-GMO. You could save a lot buying this. . It's new, I haven't checked it out. GC

 

[Cindy in PA]

I second GC, Dumor is Made by Nature's Best organic. Nature's best in the 40 lb. would translate to $31.50/50 lbs. & Dumor is $2 less for 40. There may be others that are cheaper also. Here in PA I can get several local brands of Organic pellets with in an hours drive, One Vermont made for much less & one local organic grain mash for less.

 

[JacksonPearce]

You guys are the best! Thanks so much. I prefer to go the organic route whenever I can just to reduce the amount of chemicals I consume, but I’m not 10000% devoted to it if there’s another quality option.

 

[gtaus]

does anyone recommend a quality organic feed that's a good deal cheaper?

I am not interested in organic only feed at $40 per 50# bag, I buy my layer feed from the local mill at about $12 per 50# bag and/or I'll buy commercial brands at the local farm supply stores if they go on sale. Anyway, to save even more money, I put my chickens out on a grassy run during the day and their commercial feed consumption was cut in half. After they ate all the grass in the run, I started dumping my grass clippings in the run and they would eat that. Because of predator concerns, I don't let my girls free range. Also, I am now giving them kitchen scraps and they seem to enjoy that too. Now that the leaves are falling, I am dumping the leaves in the chicken run and they spend most of the day scratching through the leaves and eating whatever chickens eat. Although I have commercial feed available to them 24/7, they always prefer to eat the natural grass, leaves, or kitchen scraps first and that has saved me lots of money on feed.

If you have not considered growing fodder for your birds as an addition to your feed, I would suggest you take a look at it. You can turn 1# of barely, for example, into about 5# of greens and sprouted root mat. Not only do you get 5X the value in weight by feeding fodder, but I am told that whole grain is only about 30% digested by the birds whereas fodder is about 80% digested. Also, sprouting grains into fodder increases the nutritional value of the feed compared to the whole grain itself. I posted an article called My $10 Inexpensive DIY Fodder Tower with Dollar Tree Dish Bins and listed my personal results on growing fodder. Point is, if you still want to buy organic grain, you could probably increase it's nutritional value and increase weight by 5X. That would certainly reduce your organic cost.

 

[Chicken Heel]

I have fed organic feed to my chickens along with the standard commercial feeds and the chickens don't seem to have a preference. Calling something organic just makes the company a heck of a lot more money in the long run.