hand powered feed mixer

[TheWaddler]

Heh, I go ghetto fabulous and just use a small 5 x 5 tarp. Then I either get help from another or do it myself (granted can be a slight pain in the kiester to do it alone) and just grab up the corners and work it around. Works fairly well and folds up into my outside storage closet! Forgot to add that I have mixed 150 lbs of feed this way for my chickens at a time.

 

[ChickenCanoe]

Chickensaresweet makes great points. Nutrition is very important but jungle fowl and paleo man didn't find and eat every type of food every day.
If I'm living off grid I would make my own mixer. The mixer is the easy part. Grinder/hammermill is tougher but can be done.

 

[Chris09]

I mix mine in a 2 wheel contractors style wheelbarrow about 200 lbs a week, but you can try -

http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl...b3cDw&esq=9&page=1&ndsp=32&ved=1t:429,r:1,s:0

Or if you are handy you could make something like this -
http://www.newdawnengineering.com/website/brickandtile/mixer/


Chris

 

[junglebird]

x2 ... wheel barrow and a shovel

 

[centrarchid]

I am trying the wheel barrel method as it requires resources I already have. Problem to overcome is poor dispersion of pre-mixes, mineral and vitamin throughout mix. Larger pearticulates mix great.

 

[ksf59]

Quote:
If our particales are not the same size, it won't matter. You can mix until you are blue in the face and small paricales will sift to the bottom. The chiken will eat all the big peices and all the minerals will be in the botto of the feeder. Thats why you either need to fee a ground feed, so particals are same size, or crumbles/pellets so the are in the pellte.

 

[Chris09]

Quote:
Add some molasses to your mix it will help hold all the smaller, finer material together with the coarser stuff.
Molasses is also a good sores of manganese, copper, iron, calcium, magnesium, B6, and selenium.

Chris

 

[BJnMe]

I mix mine in a 5 gal bucket with an old ice auger. It is not very sharp, I haven't bored through the bottom of the bucket yet.

 

[ChickensAreSweet]

Quote:
Add some molasses to your mix it will help hold all the smaller, finer material together with the coarser stuff.
Molasses is also a good sores of manganese, copper, iron, calcium, magnesium, B6, and selenium.

Chris

Do you mean molasses powder or liquid? I presume the powder would be a little sticky too, is why I ask.

 

[ChickensAreSweet]

Quote:
If our particales are not the same size, it won't matter. You can mix until you are blue in the face and small paricales will sift to the bottom. The chiken will eat all the big peices and all the minerals will be in the botto of the feeder. Thats why you either need to fee a ground feed, so particals are same size, or crumbles/pellets so the are in the pellte.

You would be surprised how many small particles the chickens do get! I put kelp meal in my mix, and by the time I get to the bottom of my bin where I had mixed it in, there's just normal mix there!! No ocean of kelp meal to be found.

There are some leavings as I remove all food at night each night, and top off my bucket in the morning to dump out there...and those do eventually turn into mainly flax seeds and pumpkin seeds (and oats)- their least favorite components of the mix. There are some crumbles too from feeding organic layer pellets mixed in some as a treat. I would imagine there is also kelp meal in there.

But all in all, I do see my chickens cleaning up the small particles too. Kind of like they were fed some mash mixed in.