feed costs

[AccidentalFarm]

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Is the rice just plain white rice that can be bought off the lower shelves at the grocery store? How long does the 25# bag last your 15 birds? Do you feed them a few times a day, or do they have free access to the food? This is so very interesting, I'd like to try it with my birds. I plan to switch to organic, but this sounds so much better/healthier for the birds.

 

[Barnyard Dawg]

We currently only have 8 adult chickens 7 are chicks. We purchase our rice from an Asian Supermarket they seem to have lower prices especially rice and even produce and you can purchase it in larger quantities. My wife will cook a full rice cooker a day and feed them some in the morning what they don’t eat will go to the top of the pen so the dogs don’t eat it. When hungry they will fly to the top of the pen and eat. When my wife returns home from work mid-afternoon she will feed them some more then again in the evening, she leave the rice in a stainless steel bowl inside the house until she is ready to feed them. You would really enjoy watching them on a cold morning eating freshly steamed rice with some steam coming off it they seem to love that but make sure it is not to hot, warm is fine.

 

[byrnejansen]

we are paying about thirty cents. a pound, fifteen dollars a 50lb. sack, organic. but this is washington, and i purchase from a small mill.
only problem with organic is the corn thats either missing or at best lacking. when the birds do get it they go nuts, acting like chow hound dogs.
so...we are planing on growing an acre of corn this year, and having the mill blend the rest, protein, vitamin from fertrell, kelp. we have around seventy five egg-layers and grow broilers spring-fall, that should be plenty of fertilizer to grow enough corn to feed the flock. i figure how ever many chickens you have, two to two hundred, theres enough manure to grow enough corn to feed them the next year.
as far as humanure, havent tried it, but we're building a composting toilet this summer. its been done for centuries, though it should always be done right. we'll try it on the fruit trees and flowers first.
p.

 

[AccidentalFarm]

'humanure' is far beyond my diy spirit..

But I applaud those who try! I'm going to give the rice a try. Between that and the garden 'extras' and the organic feed and some free-range, I can hopefully keep costs down.

 

[Barnyard Dawg]

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You can supplement your chickens occasionally on rice and add some of your feed to it that is what we do, and if you use DE, mix some of that in also. I know they will enjoy a change of pace.