Homemade feed cheap in Alaska ideas!

[Monkeybean415]

I'm trying to figure out a homemade organic fees option that's more affordable. We're currently feeding scratch and peck and while we love it I want to get our cost down especially since we're going to try out meaties in a couple weeks.

I typically order from azure and I tried to add a bunch of ingredients to my cart but it seemed to come out to about the same price as the ready made feed $.75-80/lb and that doesn't include the $.30 barge fees I pay for living in Alaska. I don't have anything local available.

Any advice is appreciated

 

[triplepurpose]

In Hawaii we're often in similar straits. Organic feed is between 30 and 40 for a fifty pound bag of layer or starter, because of shipping costs and the lack of any local alternatives.

Our solution has been to grow or divert whatever we can to supplement that, and also to ferment the feed.

We grow extra starchy tropical root crops (eg cassava, taro, malanga, sweetpotatoes). These are cooked and added to a mash--we often make use of older, less desirable surplus crops in this way. We will also use bananas and cooked squash in the mash when available. In Alaska I suppose your equivalents to these things would be mangels, fodder beets, turnips, carrots, potatoes, etc.

We ferment the feed and cooked roots with commercial feed 2 to 1 or 1 to 1. You can find lots of info on byc about fermenting feed. This sldo makes the feed go further.

We also make full use of scraps, garden wastes, azolla grown in tubs, and have access to a compost run.

Many people grow worms or bsf. You might have trouble with that in winter, but you could slwsys freeze for later use maybe?

Anyway, good luck. I feel your pain....

 

[RichnSteph]

Look into sprouting feed. It can be done in a green house during the summer months and probably in the people house during the winter up there. You can turn several pounds of feed into a few hundred pounds with a few simple steps. You'd still have to pay the upfront cost of getting the seed of course but it might be well worth it if you sprouted it.

RIchnSteph