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- #31
ChickenTender1203
Chirping
- Mar 9, 2022
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Murdering our chickens is NOT an option and never was. We saw some cheaper feeds that were under $20/50lbs in nutrena brand and Tucker Milling. I'll try to see if we can go back and look at what feeds are available. Would a layer feed without the added calcium be alright for roos if I put some oyster shells separately for the girls? And my mother says that we are overfeeding our chickens by leaving our feeder in the coop full of food. I read from multiple different sources that they eat 1/2 cup food each day which would mean that they would finish a 50lb bag in approximately 13 days so I dont think they are overfed unless 1/2 cup is incorrect. We ran out of food about 2 days ago so they haven't had food for a couple days except the bag of peas I gave them yesterday.Your local feed store may have a store brand for the chain or they may carry feed from a local mill that's less expensive than the Purina.
I'm not convinced that I'd save any money by feeding layer rather than all-flock because they always eat the bag several days faster if I have to buy layer since the all-flock isn't available.
This is not something you'd want to hear, but one of the best ways to save money feeding your chickens is to reduce your flock to the ones you REALLY want to keep.
Unless, of course, you're successfully selling eggs so that they earn their own feed.
I tried to explain to my parents how malnutritional homeade food is going to be and how they are not going to lay well (she only cares about the number of eggs they produce). I said that we should have researched the nutritional value of everything and learned about what chickens need in their diet BEFORE we went and bought a bunch of stuff. Looking into it, I realized how badly making homeade food is going to be for them. Many websites I looked at said that those ingredients should only be given as treats and not as a main part of their diet. They are full of carbs and don't have a lot of nutritional value (which I tried to explain to my parents). I looked at adding that fertrell nutribalancer and fish meal but they were very expensive and would have not made it cheaper. My mother responded with saying that they are my chickens so I should just go get a job to pay for all their stuff myself since she was apparently always wrong about everything. (I can't get a job and she knows that bcs I dont have my license yet) She told me that she watched a whole 5 videos and I didnt actually look into how we are overfeeding our chickens and we shouldn't keep the feeder out there for them because I just wanted to see how bad homeade food was for them. She said that I was just looking for how bad doing this was going to be for them (I was looking up the nutritional value of each ingredient, not how is making homeade chicken food bad)