Winter Feed Cost and Growing Fodder

[Iowajones]

It is winter here in New York. My flock has been cooped (pun intended) up inside for the past month and a half. They are going through food like crazy and not laying eggs. I need a solution to this and I found two options, fermenting feed and growing fodder. I already have the fermenting process working but one issue that has arisen is because of the cold temperatures, the feed freezes if the chickens don't eat it fast enough. Any suggestions on this would be helpful!
Growing them fodder is my next excursion in chicken keeping. I have read around the web looking for inspo and articles on how to do it. I found a few that use aluminum pans, I got those today. I understand the process of growing the fodder but finding the grain is where I'm having issues. The articles that I have read on fodder don't say where they get the said grain. Most of them say that they get their grain from their feed store but TSC neither Runnings sells grain like that. The few articles that do state where they get the grain online, it is usually very expensive. I found that the articles say that growing fodder is economical. From what I am seeing, it isn't. Where are you all getting your grain? I would prefer to grow wheatgrass/ wheat berries but I am having no luck finding them. I have also seen people suggest using BOSS in YT videos and in articles. Would BOSS work well? I could easily find this inexpensively as a worst-case scenario. Thanks I just ordered a drywall pasture mix from Peaceful Valley Gardens. Seems reasonable relative to most. You can buy scratch grain and sprout the seeds too but the cracked corn could get yucky.

 

[Iowajones]

I can't help you out with advice on the feed but I see some good suggestions here. Are you aware that they need a certain amount of daylight to lay? We gave ours a night light, 75w bulb, to keep an owl away & so far this month they beat their record number of eggs for 3 months last year during the Summer. By the end of this month they could exceed their monthly average of last year. I was late turning the light on one evening & that's when I noticed the owl & got the light turned on just in time. We convert table scraps into eggs as much as possible. I read somewhere to boil potato peelings before feeding them to the chickens because they're toxic to them.

You don't think your chickens should get a break laying if nature intended that? I don't enhance lighting and still get a descent amount of eggs. I think giving your girls a break will keep them healthy and laying for many years to come but that's me.

 

[TOPChickens14]

You don't think your chickens should get a break laying if nature intended that? I don't enhance lighting and still get a descent amount of eggs. I think giving your girls a break will keep them healthy and laying for many years to come but that's me.

I have considered this and I think that because my family needs the eggs, I am going to have them keep laying.

 

[TOPChickens14]

I can't help you out with advice on the feed but I see some good suggestions here. Are you aware that they need a certain amount of daylight to lay? We gave ours a night light, 75w bulb, to keep an owl away & so far this month they beat their record number of eggs for 3 months last year during the Summer. By the end of this month they could exceed their monthly average of last year. I was late turning the light on one evening & that's when I noticed the owl & got the light turned on just in time. We convert table scraps into eggs as much as possible. I read somewhere to boil potato peelings before feeding them to the chickens because they're toxic to them.

Yes. I am adding an hour each week.

 

[littlecoopnextdoor]

do you think there's a Canadian equivalent of Azure? Seems awesome.

 

[U_Stormcrow]

How many birds do you have? I can't get me feed cost that low, over several years of trying with 65 in a mixed flock.

I'm not sure if you meant to ask me how I get my feed cost that low, but... I'm in an economically depressed area of FL (low cost of living generally), just across the border and less than 50 miles from a local mill (in an even more economically depressed area), right on a major railway line. I buy from a family feed store, in bulk (more than 500# at a time) and pay cash for the discount. Its cheaper from them than it is buying from the mill directly. The mill, btw, appears to be the main supplier for a large number of nearby commercial poultry ops for names you'd recognize - Tyson, ConAgra, Wayne Farms, etc...

"Layer" was $11.85/50#. 18% Grower was $13.70. 24% "Game Bird" (which I frequently mix with layer to make a 20% protein that's a bit high on calcium (doesn't matter to me for a host of reasons - but I don't recommend doing this for most people) was $15.90. ROughly $12 plus roughly $16 = $0.28/lb when the two get mixed together.

Last year, "Layer" was under $10/50#...

 

[Iowajones]

You have the day you deserve!

 

[Gone Quackers!]

The website where you buy your grain looks good. Thanks for the suggestion!

We have bought food for our family and items for our farm from Azure Std for over a dozen years. As far as I can tell, they are an ethical company and a very reliable co-op type company to do business with.

 

[dannicorth]

I use this fodder tower https://www.backyardchickens.com/ar...odder-tower-with-dollar-tree-dish-bins.75190/

and buy my fodder here https://www.azurestandard.com/

I do notice when I feed the fodder, since I don’t feed it every day, that my chickens go crazy over that instead of their feed. I free feed but my chickens love to have their grass every week. At the rate I grow it with the tower I’m able to feed them fodder three times a week. I did not make my tower as large as the one in the link but if I had I probably would be able to feed them more.

I did not see a link for the fodder

 

[Sally PB]

I did not see a link for the fodder

Look for "sprouting grains."