Prepping > Homesteading

Chicken Feed

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Patriot222:
Hello, I am curious does anyone make their own feed for their chickens?
Every way I have looked so far it is a lot more expensive then store bought feed. But I’m trying to go off grid and don’t see how this part works. I grow my own food but buy chickens food🤷‍♀️ Tips and any info is super appreciated and needed. Thank you

RWS:
First let me say I dream a lot.  I just purchased a BOL in region 2, farm land.  My closest neighbor has a goat and chickens.  Not many of each.  I have two spring fed ponds I plan to clean out and stock.  I plan to grow corn and grind it into cracked corn for chicken feed and corn meal.  I will try and barter chicken feed for eggs and fish for goat milk and meat.  Just dreaming here.  I think we all need to try and set up local bartering now so as to be prepared later.
In region 8 I have 3 vegetable gardens and about 100 blueberry bushes.  I currently have barter agreements with several local people.  I trade for pecans, pears and figs. 
It looks like you are 30 miles East of my BOL.

Abigayle:
Patriot 222, Have you looked into growing Amaranth?  You have to be careful with it as it is invasive.  Remember that 25% of your chickens diet can be greens.  Our really love Bac  choy,  which is easy to grow, along with kale and other greens.  Any bad tomatoes (not moldy) are also appreciated.  You can crush some egg shell in the food and raise meal worms, if you are so motivated.  Bugs and worms will start a ball game in your run with  entertainment included.  We also fed layer crumbles, which really went up in price, but we could not see our way around it.  Some corn or scratch in cold weather for a treat (it produces some heat).
One mistake we made when we first started having chickens was having more than we needed.  Even lately, we were lucky to barter our extras for honey.  If you are not careful and have to give them away, it is a loosing deal, for sure.  There are good pickled egg recipes on line.  Good Luck!

HogJowlHomestead:
We have done fermented chicken wheat, you can buy in bulk from azure. They were not totally impressed as the meat chickens left some behind after feeding. We have also done fermented corn that was purchased bulk off a farm silo but ended up being full of rodents. At this point we only make our own feed for the milk cow because we’re drinking the milk. I think for economic reason we will go back with Tucker mills non gmo feed and let them free range the rest both meat and layers.

For maple (moo moo) we mix a Cobb diet, Milo, oats, barley and alfalfa. If you do grain feed your chicken or other animals make sure you add kelp for vitamins and a mineral block. Good luck, there’s so many options out there.

Fixit:
What a lot do here is Tucker milling 6 way scratch non gmo that they sprout before feeding.

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