How much feed do you buy at a time?

[janiedoe]

Ahhhhhh, finally someone who deals with my very problem! ANTS!!!!! I HATE them and they are my nemesis! And more specifically, FIRE ANTS! Everyone talks about PESTS, but no one ever lists ants as one of them.

I have a brand new, large Grandpas Feeder (the expensive treadle feeder) sitting in its box. It took all of FIVE minutes for the ants to find the feed. All my chicken feeders are hanging, just because of the ants. Of course they gather on the ground under the feeders, but I dust underneath them once a week with Garden and Poultry Dust which kills the ants in minutes...and keeps working.

Now to the containers you mentioned. I have never seen nor heard of them. They look like very sturdy, hard plastic. Ants can chew through most anything, but these look like it’d be dang near impossible for them to chew through. And the plastic looks opaque which would keep light out. Awesome! Thanks for posting about these little storage solutions.

Fire ants are horrible. My chickens try and stay out of their way. I use the poultry garden dust too. Chewy and tractor supply both carry the vaults. Amazon does also.

 

[NatJ]

I wouldn't throw out a bag of flour or cornmeal because its a year old. I dont see why properly stored feed is different. I store my feed in my house. Most people seem to store it outside unheated, in the humidity ect. In that case maybe it will spoil in 6 months but i have never had an issue.

The feed doesn't usually rot or otherwise seem to go bad (unless it gets moldy.)
Like the flour or cornmeal, the calories will still be there and safe to eat.

The problem is the vitamins that are added to the feed. They do change somehow (probably similar to how iron rusts and copper turns green outdoors and wood weathers to gray color.) The vitamins do break down into something that is not useful to chickens, so then the chickens have various health problems.

 

[deidreg]

Ahhhhhh, finally someone who deals with my very problem! ANTS!!!!! I HATE them and they are my nemesis! And more specifically, FIRE ANTS! Everyone talks about PESTS, but no one ever lists ants as one of them.

I have a brand new, large Grandpas Feeder (the expensive treadle feeder) sitting in its box. It took all of FIVE minutes for the ants to find the feed. All my chicken feeders are hanging, just because of the ants. Of course they gather on the ground under the feeders, but I dust underneath them once a week with Garden and Poultry Dust which kills the ants in minutes...and keeps working.

Now to the containers you mentioned. I have never seen nor heard of them. They look like very sturdy, hard plastic. Ants can chew through most anything, but these look like it’d be dang near impossible for them to chew through. And the plastic looks opaque which would keep light out. Awesome! Thanks for posting about these little storage solutions.

Oh boy I am so grateful there are no fire ants in Connecticut! My hens have never met a bug they didn't like.

 

[Stoney Meadow Maple]

Oh boy I am so grateful there are no fire ants in Connecticut! My hens have never met a bug they didn't like.

I find myself saying this about many things... however the rest of the country doesn't have ticks like the northeast..especially Connecticut, my wife's family has a farm in Melrose, you literally can't get near the place without being loaded with ticks, we get our beef off that farm and they always run small, I think the ticks stunt their growth.

 

[RJKnott]

I usually buy a bag a month and keep it in a plastic pet food container. Worked good over this past summer keeping pests out

 

[Stoney Meadow Maple]

I usually buy a bag a month and keep it in a plastic pet food container. Worked good over this past summer keeping pests out

How many do you feed?

 

[melleo]

Chewy sure is convenient, but yikes! I have never seen or heard of Kalmbach, maybe it is a regional thing? Or is that the Chewy brand? I suppose you are paying shipping with them one way or another. The batch I just picked up of Nutrina Country Feeds Flock Raiser was 15.25/50 lb bag. Their flock maintainer is 25.64 if you auto ship, 6 bags at a time that is over 60 bucks difference or almost 4 more bags of feed. Tough math there fir a little convenience.

 

[melleo]

Kalmbach feeds are located in Ohio

 

[RJKnott]

How many do you feed?

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