Feeding chickens for cheap

[MareeZoCool]

Sorry to repeat everyone's words;

There MUST be a lot of wasted food in the feeding area. Sounds as if those chickens are fussy, and kicking or pecking around the plain feed to pick out the tastier bits and pieces.
They might not be hungry enough to eat their food properly.

 

[twentynine]

Without questioning philosophy-- why are you spending that much on organic feed?

If the chickens are free ranging you can bet they are picking up some "non-organics" on their own.

A responding poster is paying $25 for a 88# sack of organic feed. At that price organic feed is not much more expensive than the commercial non-organic feed I am using. Only $.004 per pound more expensive. I could and would give it a try at that price.

At $30 per 50#, that's 214% more expensive than what I am using, no way could I afford, or justify it.

Chickens don't know about being organic. All they understand is hungry!

As for amount of feed being used--

10 full grown chickens, 9 hens, 1 rooster, I feed a little less than 50# per month of 16% laying pellets, add an additional 10# or so, per month cracked corn given a few handfulls at a time. Plus all the kitchen discards.

The OP doesn't number the chickens they are feeding so I can make no direct comparisson, chicken to chicken, feed to feed.

I don't brood chicks in the big chicken enclosure. The "biddies" are keep in a brooder in the barn and then moved to a tractor at 4 weeks. Only when they attain adult chicken size, 5 months or so, do they go in with the big ones.

 

[goobhen]

Quote:
OP states she is feed 25 chickens.

 

[extraordinaryfowl]

As everyone else is saying make sure they can't waste feed - scratch it out of the the feed trough or whatever it is in, etc.

I feed scratch grain in the morning which is half the price of mash, and they fill their crops and are quite content on just that and grass.

In the evening mine get mash and/or scraps from the field or the house.

Mine are all confined in portable pens, but if they were out free-ranging 3-8 hours a day I would definitely feed them less, they will be finding all kinds of greens and bugs and other things to eat. Maybe even withhold mash until evening, which will get them up and moving in the morning to find food.

I also feed all organic, but the price at my mill is a little less then 30$ a bag. Maybe are there any other mills around? Or if you had a place to store it you could maybe buy it in bulk for the year or 6/months or something. Usually if you buy more it costs a bit less. Best of luck, MW

 

[SteveBaz]

I went to the local grocery store not a national brand store but a local one and got friendly with the produce manager and he introduced me to his store manager and got permission for; old breads, muffins, bagels fruits and veggies for free. Not only free but more than I need so I started a huge compost pile for food only and plenty for my worms.

Well now I have been supplementing a lot of the foods the girls eat with all this throw away stuff from the grocery store including broccoli, spinach, kale, lettuce, cabbage, and every kind of old semi spoiled fruits. My food cost to feed the girls now have dropped substantially being able to fill in with all this wasted foods.

 

[wanttobefarmer]

Yeah I did the math and I agree that $40 dollars a month is about 10 chickens. I guess the reality of so many chickens has hit. We have about half that are laying and the others half is 2-4 months old. So that is several that aren't laying yet to offset the cost. I need to give more attention to finding a cheaper organic food source. I don't need any organic labels, I just don't want to feed my chickens food that is sprayed with the pesticides or any chemicals. Thanks so much for your help

Fred's Hens :

Adjust your flock size, I suspect, will be the only answer, in the end. If you cannot afford 25, then you'll have to do what you have to do. If your budget is $40 a month in feed? That might compute to around 8-10 good hens or so. It's the right thing to do. Not saying it's easy, but unless your finances change, there' only so much that can be done with alternative feeding, especially with winter coming and most ranges deteriorate in quality of foodstuffs available.​

 

[wanttobefarmer]

You know I was excited about not leaving food out free choice and reducing my cost, then I did the math of 4oz of feed per chicken and came to 6.25 pounds a day at 187 lbs a month. That is actually more than they are eating now. I think that I just have to realize that I have 25 chickens and the cost has gone up. I need to research a cheaper organic feed and grow cover crops in my gardens between plantings so there is more for them to eat. Thanks again I really found your information helpful.
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[wanttobefarmer]

Yes I just brought home a case of the outter leaves of Romaine lettuces that the cooks remove before making salads. He said that they have about 3 cases a week that I can have. 3 large boxes a week is perfect! thanks for your advice
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[LiLRedCV]

I'm with you on trying to keep the chemical intake down as much as possible! There's just way too many chemicals in our everyday lives as it is.

We feed our gals 90% organic and they free-range on our property - which hasn't had any pesticides or chemicals used on it since we bought it 9yrs ago. Our neighbors also don't use chemicals on their properties. Why? We all have private water wells and we don't want them to end up in our water supply. Many are hay farmers too and never till their fields... they just let Mother Nature take her course as she intended. Some years are good. Some bad. But you get that whether you use chemicals or not anyway, right?

Contact your local grocery stores, Farmer's Markets, and/or restaurants for fruit and veggie scraps! I'm sure even the organic old stuff at the stores & Farmer's Markets is tossed out and you could benefit from that.

In our state (WA), there are more than a handful of restaurants who only serve organic anything and everything, but we're a more progressive state in that dept too. Occasionally, I'll see advertisements from such places on CraigsList looking to "recycle" this free of charge as they don't want it to end up in the dump. Unfortunately, most of those ads involve a 2hr drive for me, so I haven't been able to take advantage of them.

Anyway, it's worth a shot to ask around...

 

[wanttobefarmer]

Quote:
Ok I really appreciate it.