Actually I always think its the guys who thinks bigger is betterWhy are gals always fixated on size?
The trailer is just a regular sized.... 6x9 I believe. Couple of 4x8 sheets of OSB, scrap wood front, ramp is the back door, some 2x4 braces and roof support.... Learned it all here somewhere....
simple. Bigger equals room for more chickens. Duh!Why do guys always have to go BIGGER when they build things?
Originally Posted by cywiar merch
Two pieces of advice... first, do the math.
NEVER take someone else's recipe and take it for gospel.
There are many recipes floating around out there... 99% of them are NOT what I would advise as a balanced ration - especially for chickens.
Know what you want... how much protein, how much animal protein, what your ingredient options are, how much kelp or fish meal you "shouldn't exceed, what your constant requirements are (limestone and nutribalancer for instance).
KNOW what you want to achieve as an end result... then the rest is easy.
I look at and calculate many other rations all the time because I am always willing to work with a new ingredient... but I research that ingredient thoroughly.
I also know what I am and am not willing to do... for instance I am not willing to feed beef or lamb as a protein source to my chickens... I have too many humans to feed who need that quality protein... nothing goes to waste here. There is no such thing as "leftovers" or "waste".
Everyone has to know their own limits... my chickens don't get human food, they get bugs... that's just me.
My feeds all have 3 parts - grains, premix, and "other"
My grain portion of my ration is non-gmo corn, field peas and oats (most of the time - Barley and/or wheat every once in a while. Barley has the same protein as oats so I use those interchangeably.)
My premix for chickens is nutribalancer, limestone, alfalfa meal, fish meal, and kelp (salt and kelp etc for other livestock)
"Other" is BSF then according to how much I have that week.
All ingredients (or even possible ingredients) are entered with protein into a large, multi page, excel spreadsheet I created years ago for developing and balancing rations.
Anyone who is interesting in learning to balance rations can pull prepackaged ration balancers off the internet if they want (I developed my own because I knew exactly what I wanted and my background is in software development)
I have target percentages of proteins and min/max limits for certain other ingredients depending on the type of livestock.
(For instance the cows get a little copper, but I make sure the sheep never get any. Sheep get selenium. Chickens get BSF)
Each type of ration is entered into it's appropriate section and draws from the main data so that if I add a "possible ingredient" it affects all rations.
For instance... sometimes I feed whey to the chickens, and when I'm feeding pigs (which I rarely do - ugh!) they always get whey.
On the rare occasions I'm talked into spending several months raising out a few pigs I always make sure I do it when I have an excess of milk and am making a lot of cheese - whey fed pigs are healthy pigs.
So... all I have to do is manipulate the grains to the combinations I want... for chickens right now it's corn, field peas, and oats.
The grains are more than 3/4 the total dry weight with corn being about half that 3/4s, peas being about 3/4 the other half of that 3/4s, and oats the remaining.
Then enter the premix to get the correct combinations and there for the protein I want according to the BSF I have and the limits I've set.
Mostly this involves adjusting the fish meal amount down as the BSF level goes up.
This is important to maintain not only the animal protein levels I want but because fish meal is something I can't grow or get locally and it's the most expensive ingredient, I want to feed as little as necessary to keep expenses down.
(I personally feel that someone who believes animal protein is not necessary for chickens either doesn't understand chicken's nutritional requirements or they are making excuses to not provide a more expensive and/or labor intensive ration - just my opinion, but that goes back to knowing what you're willing to do)
The current chart I have hanging in the feed room has the same combinations of grains for chicks and laying hens.
That way I can use the same batch of ground grains for everyone and then just add the appropriate premix according to the BSF I have available.
I match the lbs of BSF to the chart on the wall... and scooping and weighing is a 10 second process... easy because all the work was done beforehand to make the chart.
I didn't used to use the chart with various possibilities, but because BSF crawl off amounts vary according to weather, I found I wanted to adjust my premix accordingly once a week and that was a pain... so just keeping a chart is easy. When BSF crawl off is high I don't need any Fish Meal at all.
One more important thing to note... Math required here...
If your premix to dry grains ratio is 1:3 (mine is not exactly that but I'll those even numbers for an example) then you need to calculate what your FF grains weigh relative to your dry grains.
For example: If one lb of your dry grains weighs 2.25 lbs after fermenting, then to calculated your premix ratio for each lb of fermented grains you need to use this relative ratio. 1:6.75 (in other words, for every lb of FF grains you need to add .148 lbs of premix)
Yes, you need to have a good scale to do this.
For me, because my BSF crawl off changes, my premix changes... so that's why I have a chart according to my premix to dry grain ration to give me my premix to fermented grains ratio according to BSF availability. I don't mind using my brain while sitting in front of the computer without distractions, but feeding several hundred animals everyday should be fairly mindless... so this makes it not only mindless... but easy for someone else to follow in an emergency.
Hope that makes sense...
hmmmm, seems one of the lady's... the one who started the thread took the BIGGEST trailer she could find and make a coupe ( a really nice one at that) out of it. The evidence says the lady's think bigger is betterActually I always think its the guys who thinks bigger is better
(p.s. you always seem to come back for more harrasing)
Regardless the trailer is a great idea for a brooder
Bigger IS better.hmmmm, seems one of the lady's... the one who started the thread took the BIGGEST trailer she could find and make a coupe ( a really nice one at that) out of it. The evidence says the lady's think bigger is better
Bigger IS better.
Our barn will be 48 by 30.
