HOW TO FEED YOUR CHICKENS if there is no scratch or pellets?

[U_Stormcrow]

Hello!! Great thread. Does anyone have a recipe of grains that we can use that will be ok for chickens and ducks if the complete feed becomes too difficult to find or too expensive?? Something we can store longer than the pelleted feed. (three months) I understand grains will last up to two years, but I am getting conflicting info on the web as to what to combine. I live at 6,000 feet in the mountains of Arizona so the soil, rain amount and short growing season makes planting difficult. It is also a challenge to get some of the grains that are available in the Midwest, like milo. Thank you!

HomeBrew feed recipes are almost uniformly pretty bad. Most of the people making them don't know what they are doing. I won't attempt it, and there is the illusion that I'm starting to know what I am doing.

I would recommend you start with Justin Rhode's recipe. He has a lot of experience over years, not seasons, and a bunch of anecdotes, but more importantly, if you put the ingredients into a calculator whose data has been independently sourced from a reliable site, the recipe reflects a good understanding of the state of modern poultry feed science.

If you find you can't source one of the ingredients, that's only one thing you need to research substitutions for, instead of starting from (ahem) "scratch".

 

[Beamerz]

I'm following this link as I too am concerned about grain "Storage" for my flock of 14. I've been keeping some of it in an old upright fridge in an outdoor shed ( over the winter) and I'm trying to figure out what farmers do to store grain. I also watched a very informative vid on you tube which I'll post the link to here.. (if that's ok).. it 's about how chickens can survive strictly off of a compost pile. "Justin Rhodes"- I'm into my 3rd year of chickens and gardening and so far my compost has flunked.. too much browns and not enough greens but I just dumped a lot of chicken coop ( poop and industrial hemp mix on the top of it.)

Hoping people will continue to "brain storm here". Thanks y'all.

 

[Andolyn11]

Thank you U_Stormcrow! I wish to add that this would be a temporary diet to keep them alive until the proper feed is once again available. My plan is to identify the best short-term diet and store the ingredients in an air-conditioned room on the chance that the worst happens. I currently feed Purena Flock Raiser and they seem to be thriving. (Welsh Harlequin Ducks and Bahama Chickens, still babies). I have done some searching and Fish Meal is super expensive, $165 for 50 lbs before shipping, the alternative seems to be soybean meal. Does that fit the bill??

 

[Alagirl]

I'm following this link as I too am concerned about grain "Storage" for my flock of 14. I've been keeping some of it in an old upright fridge in an outdoor shed ( over the winter) and I'm trying to figure out what farmers do to store grain. I also watched a very informative vid on you tube which I'll post the link to here.. (if that's ok).. it 's about how chickens can survive strictly off of a compost pile. "Justin Rhodes"- I'm into my 3rd year of chickens and gardening and so far my compost has flunked.. too much browns and not enough greens but I just dumped a lot of chicken coop ( poop and industrial hemp mix on the top of it.)

Hoping people will continue to "brain storm here". Thanks y'all.

well, eventually it will decompose.
the 'green' stuff just heats it up faster.
And turning the pile speeds things up, mixing the outsides of the pile inside, etc.
But who has time anymore!

Don't get discouraged: getting a garden going takes time. I wish I had the garden my Grandma had, but that plot had been worked for over 100 years at the time! (and now they don't do a big garden anymore. the family has dwindled, no large gatherings, my cousins have jobs and my Uncle and Aunt are in their 80s now)

It takes time to clear, and time to establish soil quality, and with that your greens will come - although you seem to chase them through the chickens first.
You will get there
And an old teacher of mine once said 'you can never own enough garden books' and I have ever since picked up any I could find on the bargain tables. Compost alone could fill a library! leave compost, pine compost, perfectly mixed compost.....consider how it happens in nature: stuff drops to the ground and eventually decomposes (that is also why the European approach of shoveling everything into a pile did not work out in the rainforests. Just dump it out and let t do it's thing......)
You should have some sort of County agent or extension office to tell you specifics for your climate.
And see if you can pick up 'The Victory Garden' penned by the guys who did the PBS show in Boston! I love the book!

 

[saysfaa]

I'm following this link as I too am concerned about grain "Storage" for my flock of 14. I've been keeping some of it in an old upright fridge in an outdoor shed ( over the winter) and I'm trying to figure out what farmers do to store grain....

Large scale farms store it in elevators or silos. The small scale farms usually buy it from people who stored it in elevators.

The old-timers stored it in corn cribs, granaries, or (more recently, last 50-60 years or so) in silos.

It is important to store it whole or ensiled it until you are relatively close to using it.

As long as the seed coat is intact and it doesn't get too hot, grain seeds will keep alive for millennia. Once the seed coat is not intact, the oils start to go rancid (other nutrients also begin to degrade but the oils are the first and/or most important.

The seed coat can be opened by grinding it (or rolling, crimping, etc). It can also be opened by sprouting, soaking, molding, insect damage, rodent damage, scorching, .. probably a few other ways. Keeping it dry enough will prevent the first three and help with insect damage. Keeping it dry pretty much means either good ventilation or sealing it in a vacuum with oxygen absorbers.

Your refrigerator in a shed works well in cold enough weather. Not so much through the summer because of the lack of ventilation. The more humidity your climate has, the more important the ventilation is. Possibly, there are climates with enough humidity that ventalation isn't enough to keep it dry enough. The ventilation has to get to all the seeds. That is why corn cribs are so narrow or have screen tubes up through the middles. I am less sure about small grains. Our barns had granary rooms and I've explored granaries as separate buildings but haven't seen them used much. My dad and grandpas used them through the winter; I don't remember summer use but I don't know if it is possible or practical.

Screening keeps insects out. Hardware cloth keeps rodents out.

The alternative to dry storage is silage. That is anaerobic fermentation. It needs the correct amount of moisture and to be sealed so oxygen doesn't get to it. By themselves, grains don't have enough moisture (possibly other things also). They are usually harvested before they are ripe and mixed with the stalks and leaves or maybe added to grass. I recently learned it can be done on a small scale. I'm planning to try it in a 55 gallon barrel this summer. I don't know enough yet. (Hm, about doing it at any scale).

 

[saysfaa]

I watched the video. Three hundred eggs from 600 hens. In May.

I get that he has some hens that are two, three, four, and five years old. Rule of thumb is to expect 15% drop in egg production for the first four or five years after the first year. Then ten percent. So his oldest hens should be producing about half what they did their first year. He doesn't say how many are older but unless a large majority are four or five years old or he chose breeds that don't produce many eggs then they are not producing to their potential.

They didn't look to me like polish or any of the other breeds that have a genetically lower egg production potential. If they are, that would be important to other people trying to do something similar. If they aren't, production lower than their potential is important. It is not only about how many eggs you get. It is also an indication of how healthy the birds are. The nutritional element that is the limiting factor in their egg production is likely also a limiting factor in other aspects of their health.

I'm quite curious about how many of his birds are four or five years old.

 

[U_Stormcrow]

I watched the video. Three hundred eggs from 600 hens. In May.

I get that he has some hens that are two, three, four, and five years old. Rule of thumb is to expect 15% drop in egg production for the first four or five years after the first year. Then ten percent. So his oldest hens should be producing about half what they did their first year. He doesn't say how many are older but unless a large majority are four or five years old or he chose breeds that don't produce many eggs then they are not producing to their potential.

They didn't look to me like polish or any of the other breeds that have a genetically lower egg production potential. If they are, that would be important to other people trying to do something similar. If they aren't, production lower than their potential is important. It is not only about how many eggs you get. It is also an indication of how healthy the birds are. The nutritional element that is the limiting factor in their egg production is likely also a limiting factor in other aspects of their health.

I'm quite curious about how many of his birds are four or five years old.

I've seen his video, too - apart from the ages of the birds, there are no doubt some number of roosters in there as well - so his per hen egg production is likely somewhat higher than first glance.

Of course, he's also gathering kitchen waste at commercial scale - and if your plan is surviving/thriving if it all goes to a certain piece of metaphysical real estate, it seems *reasonable* to assume that commercial scale trash pick up from restaurants and cafeterias likely won't be available...

So while I find his video vaguely interesting, for purposes of this thread, I find it almost entirely irrelevant.

 

[Ebony Rose]

I've watched many of his youtube videos in the past. He raises poultry for both eggs and MEAT. He raises A LOT of meat birds. This may be what is skewing the numbers.

 

[SourRoses]

No. My pond is way too big for a small solar pump. I've looked. Imagine a "pond" measuring 20' x 30' by about 3' deep - almost 5' in the rainy season. That's 18-30k gallons.

It's all about how the water is made to move. An air pump is the least efficient because of waste heat. A water pump moving water within the larger mass needs to be large to have sufficient effect, as you point out.
But if you use a solar pump to remove water from the larger mass, and run it over some varied small rocks to create turbulence, then you have a concentration of super aerated water running back to the pond. A hybrid creek/ waterfall with a lot of small rocks and minimum depth for maximal benefit. You don't have to go crazy on pump wattage for that to be effective.
It's how nature aerates water (turbulence).
Additionally, a fine rockbed provides housing for beneficial bacteria to comprise the biological filter processing the ammonia and nitrites.
The resulting nitrates make food for aquatic plants. You could do a small shoreline with sugarcane or rice. Which also provides breeding grounds for fish. In my ideal setup, I would pick guppies or mosquitofish since they're both omnivores that will eat bugs, algae, and fallen plant matter, and both reproduce rapidly making them a sustainable food source for poultry. Larger fish take longer to grow and can be harder to manage a successful breeding population while balancing water quality.

 

[U_Stormcrow]

It's all about how the water is made to move. An air pump is the least efficient because of waste heat. A water pump moving water within the larger mass needs to be large to have sufficient effect, as you point out.
But if you use a solar pump to remove water from the larger mass, and run it over some varied small rocks to create turbulence, then you have a concentration of super aerated water running back to the pond. A hybrid creek/ waterfall with a lot of small rocks and minimum depth for maximal benefit. You don't have to go crazy on pump wattage for that to be effective. It's how nature aerates water. Additionally, a fine rockbed provides housing for beneficial bacteria to comprise the biological filter processing the ammonia and nitrites.
The resulting nitrates make food for aquatic plants. You could do a small shoreline with sugarcane or rice. Which also provides breeding grounds for fish. In my ideal setup, I would pick guppies or mosquitofish since they're both omnivores that will eat bugs, algae, and fallen plant matter, and both reproduce rapidly making them a sustainable food source for poultry. Larger fish take longer to grow and can be harder to manage a successful breeding population while balancing water quality.

Yes, a bog filter.