Homemade Feed Recipe

[BlessedChaosHomestead]

A standard Presto pressure canner will also work in a grid-down scenario. I plan on getting a pressure canner and a water bath canner though.

I have both!

But now that I’m thinking about it….can you use a pressure canner over an open fire??

 

[U_Stormcrow]

This is the recipe I came up with so far:

31% winter wheat
30% brown rice
25% soybeans
10% peas
3% oyster shell
1% dried seaweed

19% protein and 6.2% fat. I see no way to get the fat down and keep the protein high with the types of food that you'd grow yourself. I guess normally fishmeal would be used.

I would also supplement with mealworms as I have a nice little farm going. Started off with 2000 mealworms and they all pupated and now have maybe 1500 darkling beetles in 2 boxes. I'm switching out the tray underneath every 2 weeks so hopefully will start to have countless mealworms soon.

If you extract some of the oil from the soybeans....


Which is why soy meal is so common in commercial feeds. Not only is it cheap and nutritious, but extracting all that oil actually improves its value as a feed by reducing the excess fat concerns.

 

[Zeoliter]

Interesting. I could definitely get some kind of oil press. Could even make sunflower oil from it.

 

[New Chicken Mamma]

Just something to think about .... I asked because I have two mills.
First, the Country Living mill which was one of the best two hand-cranked mills on the market at the time - over twenty years ago. It is still one of the best but there may be more top notch options now; I haven't looked thoroughly recently.

I've used it twice. It is smooth and obviously well made. It just takes an enormous amount of cranking to get even coarse flour. I bought an electric mill that I actually use.

I kept the hand crank mill because it can be used without electricity so I feel safer. And it is quite cool. If I ever use it again for anything other than letting my grandkids learn how hard it is the mill flour (I don't have grandchildren yet) - I will set up a belt to a bicycle at least. Possibly to a windmill or watermill or some sort of devise to use draft animal power.

Hand cranking to just crack wheat rather than make flour is much easier. You wouldn't need grain ground much finer than cracked for chicken feed.

I have the Mochmill which is amazing. For a SHTF hand crank option, I went with the Grainmaker, I got the small one; it's quite amazing and is Heirloom Quality.

 

[New Chicken Mamma]

I have the Mochmill which is amazing. For a SHTF hand crank option, I went with the Grainmaker, I got the small one; it's quite amazing and is Heirloom Quality.

Oops, I meant the Mockmill

 

[Zeoliter]

@U_Stormcrow in this thread we came up with a post-apocalypse feed that is rice, wheat and soybeans with oyster shell and seaweed. If I was to feed this to chicken do I need to cook the rice first? If not, do I feed them white rice or the unpolished husked grain? Thanks!