Making feed for cost savings

[chaneg78]

Is anyone making their own food and saving money over buying feed from the store? I have room to plant different plants that i would need, but i was wondering is it a big cost savings, is it worth the trouble? Right now we are buying about one hundred pounds of feed a week.

 

[Fred's Hens]

I see you are also in the midwest. Sure, we can garden and raise things the birds enjoy. But let's face it. 80-90% of their diet, apart from free ranging, is going to come from their feed, for most of us. A local feed mill often sells a locally ground feed for roughly half what a "rural lifestyle" store sells pre-bagged, fancy label feed. That's where the savings come from.

If I had to buy all the ingredients, along with a vitamin/mineral pack, I'd not save a penny. I know. I've done the math a dozen times. We pay $19.50 a hundred for a complete, 17% layer formula. FWIW.

 

[ChickensAreSweet]

I mix my feed (see my BYC page) but it is more expensive due to my ingredients. If you can find a lot of it from a farmer or grow it yourself then it would save money maybe.

 

[Ardizzone7]

I am curious about this too. I am also in Indiana. My neighbor just gave me a bag of different seeds for growning my own chicken feed. Is it really worth my while. the bag contains 4oz white proso millet, 4oz dundale peas and 2oz grain sorghum. How easily do they grow in Indiana soil? We have a lot of clay here. Any information would be appreciated.

 

[ChickensAreSweet]

http://www.themodernhomestead.us/article/Making-Poultry-Feeds-1.html

http://www.gov.mb.ca/agriculture/livestock/poultry/bba01s20.html

http://www.mofga.org/Publications/M...r/Summer2003/Chickens/tabid/1481/Default.aspx

http://www.lionsgrip.com/protein.html

Here are some fun pages if interested.

 

[louloubean]

i'm heading into year three of keeping chickens.
thank you so much for this thread, and those links!

that answered a lot!

i have found that giving the birds all my kitchens scraps, leftovers and fridge cleanouts, i save some money and they get some extra nutrition.
i use what i rake out of the coop on my gardens (after at least 6 months of composting) and this system is working out very well for us.

 

[Fred's Hens]

Is anyone making their own food and saving money over buying feed from the store? I have room to plant different plants that i would need, but i was wondering is it a big cost savings, is it worth the trouble? Right now we are buying about one hundred pounds of feed a week.

100 lbs of feed, per week, is 2 1/2 tons of feed per year. Growing a few tons of feed, harvesting, drying, grinding and storing it all requires a commitment, space, acreage, equipment, labor and know-how. That which can be grown, processed and stored will be of great cost benefit. That which must be purchased? Not so much.