What to do about feeding?

[turnerstar31]

Ok with all these floods and everything feed is going to go sky high so I wanted to see if there are any ideas out there on what to do about that.
I heard on here somewhere can;t remeber where that they feed squash all year round to help limit the amount of grains that they feed their chickens. I am taking that to heart and am raising much more to at least help me get through fall. I have a cellar so storing them won;t be to bad. It is not that I can't afford feed it is just that I want to be able to save some money with the prices of everything going up and it is always good to have other options when things do get really tight.

 

[s6bee]

Veggies are good in general for them. Just make sure that if you supplement with fresh vegetables that you are getting them the nutrients the feed gives them. Really have it available at all times. If you are afraid of prices going up, you can stock up and store correctly too if possible. Pumpkin, squash, things like that they love. If you free range you should be fine too.
Do you have enough chickens to get eggs to sell? Try to earn enough to cover the cost of feed.

 

[Hangin Wit My Peeps]

I've been thinking of this very same thing! Free Range seems like a good bet!

 

[turnerstar31]

Quote:
Mine free range and to be honest their really is not a great market for eggs my way but am going to start selling some hopefully here pretty soon. Really I was just looking for other ideas to subsitute a day or two to cut back on the feed. I am growing pumpkins and stuff to help feed them a little more. The price of corn is suppose to jump up like 30 percent so it is going to be a little more expensive to feed them. Not that they would ever go without just was trying to see what others had for ideas to help cut back.

 

[funkychicken]

hi...I got a tip from wolf-kim about supplementing with maggots (EEEWWW) I know!!! but it is free food for the chooks...she makes a "feeder" that the maggots drop out of...if your close up to your home it may not be do-able but if you have a place out...I definatly would with the price of grain...I will be doing this when I get my gals in...going to experiment with finding things that arent too smelly to draw the flies...we will see