Feeding organic... cost of commercial vs. homemade feed?

[Want Less]

Quote:
Wow, I did a search online for organic BOSS and best I found was over $100 for 25lbs. Geez! *let's grow our own!*

(because I need ANOTHER project to fuss over.....)

 

[happymorrows]

OK, I am sure I sound like a complete newbie, but, what is BOSS?

 

[Want Less]

Black oil sunflower seeds

 

[CityChicker]

We are starting to mix some of our own ration using basically a combination of several recipes. It is a lot of money! Most of the expense though has been some very specialized ingredients that I really want our birds to be on like fish meal. Anyway, the basic ingredients that we are using (not including the grain) was about $450 for basically about 350 pounds of ingredients- fish meal, vitamin premix, minerals, brewer's yeast, kelp, etc.... We have a lot of flexibility on the grain though and truthfully, I am fine with using non-organic for some things as well. I wanted to mix some of our own feed simply because there are a number of things not typically used in commercial rations that I wanted included (especially for our waterfowl). As luck would have it, a lot of the ingredients were easier to find in organic.

 

[Organics North]

Quote:
Yup..I came to the same conclusion......

So, it looks like one must make plans to grow their own, specialty grains.. Hmmm, guess I will need to toss in a test plot of sunflowers this spring. (Those chickens better get pooping, I am going to need more fertilizer!)

I like this site for cultural info on alternative grains..
http://corn.agronomy.wisc.edu/Crops/Sunflower.aspx

CityChicker,
What kinds of grains you using? I am OK with my 80% organic mix, however, I may be looking to become Certified Organic in the future, I ideally want to get to 90%+ organic.

For all you "alternative" type folks out there check out Azomite as mineral supplement. I am giving it a try, it looks like interesting stuff.
http://www.azomite.com/index.php?op...d=23:poultry&catid=25:feed-products&Itemid=75
ON

 

[WoodlandWoman]

Want Less, you can always ask the feed stores to order you some organic feed, while you figure out what you want to do. They should be able to do that for you.