What would you feed if you couldn't buy feed?

[BarredBuff]

I have thought about it too. We live on a 6-9 acre lot with three orchards, a big veggie garden, a honeybee hive, a chicken coop, and possibly another coop, with what used to be a huge flower garden. I have done the free range deal and in a week I lost three maybe four RIR pullets when I just had RIRs. I have room for them to free range, but I live in the Mountains of Eastern KY and every kind of critter lives here and you cant have anything for them. One time I had a raccoon get in the garage and get in the bucket of corn. I could sow some corn in the garden and wheat in the winter, mine would have apples galore when we get apples in the fall, garden scraps, kitchen scraps. The fact that our economy is sour is influencing me about the breeds we pick Rocks for their carcass & eggs, Australorps because of their eggs, Orpingtons due to their broodiness. James

 

[weirdmuse]

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Don't waste any time clearing away the brush and undergrowth. The goats will much prefer to graze on this than the grass. Just fence the worst area of questionable scrub that you have, supply water and add goats. They'll do the rest.

I always strech the chicken food budget by walking my neighbor's corn field after harvest. There are usually quite a few missed ears of corn especially at the corners and other turns.

 

[ChicksR4Me]

This may sound like a dumb question but would you cut the fish up or what? Give it to them whole and let them tear it up? I'm asking because I love going fishing in the summer and throw back a lot of fish that are too small to clean. Lots of bluegill. I could keep a few for the chickens if i knew how to feed it to them.

 

[Foxhound lady]

This was heard second hand but my grandmother never bought chicken feed for her chickens during the depression or even during the WWII, the chickens free ranged and were feed the scarps the pigs didnt eat. They lived in very rural Alabama and lived on very little money. We were told that they had Barred Rocks and Leghorns later one.

 

[Cindiloohoo]

I hunt and fish, so they would get excess body parts from cleaning. I'd cook them rice, and their own eggshells for calcium. I'd trap as well, something I have been wanting to learn anyway, and they would get predators, which would not only feed them, but protect them as well. Then they'd get veggie scraps from the kitchen. I do garden but even if I didn't, I think we could manage pretty well. I've not been faced with that yet....but we're actually getting closer to facing just that, so I have given that a lot of thought lately. We'd also hatch and sell a lot more than we do. Around here animals generally earn their keep. That's the goal...self sustenance.

 

[Ariel301]

As one who is raising her own food on zero income right now, this is very real to me. My husband and I both lost our jobs a year ago and have not been able to find work since. We've run through all our savings, and only get any money by selling things we own that we don't need, doing the occasional odd job, or donations from our religious group for my husband's teaching. We just plain can't afford feed, but when you are Jewish and live in a town with a Jewish population of less than 10--and only four of them practicing as far as I am aware-- kosher meat and dairy products are not available at all in grocery stores. So we have to raise our own.

We've got five goats--two milking does, our stud, one that we're getting ready to butcher, and another young doe we will start milking this year. We eat the males born from our girls and sell the females as milk goats. They don't bring any money around here though, it probably costs more to produce them than we get for them. We also have right now three chickens, but are saving up to increase to a flock of about 25, for eggs and meat for our family and some friends.

We buy hay for the goats because even though we have 7 acres, it is desert and they would eat everything on it in a few weeks if they were let loose. We can't buy the top of the line hay, we have to get whatever is the cheapest and sometimes pick through it to get rid of mold spots. I also allow them to graze about half an hour at a time a few times a week, under supervision. If it came down to not being able to get cheap hay, we are backed up to miles of open land where I could take them out all day to graze (under management so they don't destroy anything!). We are able to get leftover grain mash from a local brewery at $15 for about 300 pounds of it, which we feed to the chickens. The goats nibble at it too, but don't eat much. The chickens get all the food scraps from the kitchen--vegetables, fruit, meat, eggs, fish, dairy...whatever we have left over. I feed them egg shells for calcium instead of having to buy oyster shell, and they get their grit by picking up gravel off the ground. They also get some supervised free-range time. Protein here won't be a problem in the summer with so many bugs and lizards running around. In the winter, we could shoot rabbits to feed to them, I suppose. We shoot them anyway and throw them out for the coyotes, since we have too many rabbits around here. I'm also looking for a store or restaurant that would collect some food scraps for us to pick up, but if we have another serious depression, that would probably not be an option anymore. Since I have the means of gardening, I suppose I can also grow foods for the chickens.

I expect things to get a lot harder than they are now, so I am purposefully going to crossbreed chickens that are good for eggs/eating but good at feeding themselves and surviving on free range where there are lots of predators. I'm going to mix Cornish, several egg laying breeds, and some game breeds together and hopefully get a decent dual-purpose bird that's tough enough to stand up to predators and will raise its own young. If it comes down to it, I will just set them all loose to fend for themselves and then we can still eat them and collect their eggs.

"Back in the day" many farmers never bought feed for chickens. The chickens fed themselves, and maybe got some scratch just to keep them tame and make them stay around. That's how I raised them as a kid, and got more eggs than I could handle--most of my hens laid daily. Chickens in less developed countries live very well without layer pellets.

 

[Sissy]

I have extra bags of rice and store brand oatmeal.
to cook up for my flock.
also dry cat food for protien and all table scraps
but am going to a bigger garden this year.

 

[IggiMom]

Ariel, I am so sorry for your economic problems. Many people are right there, but it sounds to me as if you are handling it better than most.

Do you hatch your own eggs? I am hatching a whole bunch of Heritage RIR's from Taterschickens, and I will of course tell people how they do, but I think that perhaps the chicken you are creating might already exist!

It is true that chickens can get a lot from free ranging, and mine do, but I am in West Virginia, and there is no way they can find enough to eat in the winter.

We do catch a LOT of raccoons, though, in a trap that my husband got. I think it is a Tomahawk, and he says it is a very good trap. If you do not have a trap, sometimes the local DNR will loan you one. I never thought of feeding the raccoons back to the chickens! Like with the fish, I am not sure how you would feed it to them. I guess I could feed a raccoon to the dogs though--they are pretty good at butchering their own given the opportunity.

BTW, the Angelfood ministry is a very good way to get inexpensive food and they exist in most areas. They would not be Kosher, though.

My son in law is Jewish and my daughter has converted. They are expecting their first baby in March, and I am going up to Pittsburgh to cook until the Bris, but I have already given notice that I do not know how to cook Kosher and I am too old to learn. I will just of course not cook anything pork or make anything with dairy and meat together. That's it. However, they do not have your problem with obtaining Kosher food, because they live in the Squirrel Hill area of Pittsburgh which is mostly Jewish.

One of the reasons I raise my own eggs is to make sure that my daughter has a healthy source of eggs--no hormones and such.

I so admire people who can make do throughout thick and thin.

Catherine

 

[gsim]

Quote:
Don't waste any time clearing away the brush and undergrowth. The goats will much prefer to graze on this than the grass. Just fence the worst area of questionable scrub that you have, supply water and add goats. They'll do the rest.

I always strech the chicken food budget by walking my neighbor's corn field after harvest. There are usually quite a few missed ears of corn especially at the corners and other turns.

No way I will clear anything except the fence line itself. I definitely plan on letting them forage in the brush. But I do dread clearing that fencerow. Even with a track loader, it will require a lot of piling and burning to keep from getting piles of rodent-riddled brush. It will definitely be a winter project, likely next winter because I ma 67 and I will not be doing something like this in the summertime. It is 6 acres and likely 2000 linear feet (7 rolls) of fence and close to 300 T-posts. It is a $2,500 project BEFORE buying the goats. Needs to be 48" field fence to deter dogs, etc. Still need a donkey or an Anatolian shepherd dog to stay there, 24-7.

 

[Ms~Silkie~Girl]

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Haaha, we wouldn't feed that to the chickens, we would eat it! LOL, my dad hit a turkey with his truck and we ate it, and another time a lady who was driving in front of my dad hit a turkey, and we ate that one too, lol

But I would feed the chickens stuff from my garden, and pumpkin patch. Pumpkin seeds, and lettuce and corn, stuff like that.