How to save $ on Chicken Food

02/11/2015

As some of you know, I have dreamed of having a farm since I was a child. In the next two years or less my husband and I are really hoping to make that dream come true! I'm planning it all out now, despite the fact that its a plan contingent on 3 big factors: 1. A job somewhere else 2. Selling our current house 3. Financing!

In planning I am considering feed costs for every animal I have or want to have and how to lower them. Here is what I have come up with for chickens.

1. Grow your own- This is of course the most economical option and there are many people who mix their own to give you an idea of what to grow and how to mix it.

2. Mix your own- Especially if you want to follow specific diets this is your best option (organic, no corn, no gmo, etc)









3. Grow your own mealworms- these are EXPENSIVE to buy at the store, however they are very low maintenance and virtually no upkeep costs after you start your own colony. Read HERE on a BYC'ers experience with it. The picture to the right shows their setup. Mealworms are prolific layers so they populate quickly, they are also cannabals though which is why the 3 bin/drawer is helpful to get the most live mealworms for your effort!

4. Worm Farm- I started a worm farm just to compost faster. I personally use red wrigglers. These are not super fast reproducers so mealworms are a better option if you are just wanting them for chicken food. I bought these for composting though so the fact they make great chicken treats and bait is just an added benefit. To make them a central part of your chickens diet you would need a LARGE setup with LOTS of worms.

5. Fermented Foods- some say birds eat 50% less of fermented feed that dry. One BYC user said with their flock it is closer to 30% less. I have only had 2 small successful batches to date so I can't speak on how much less my flock consumes.

5. Fodder- I have experimented with this option. It is explained fully here. All it is is sprouting seeds in under a week to create lbs of fresh food for just 1 lb of seed. Very cost efficient. I did have some molding issues though, and grew this for my rabbits (chickens are in tractors so they always have access to fresh vegetation and are moved to make sure of that). This is a great option for people who don't free range or use tractors!

6. Local Feed Mills- many BYC'ers pay about 1/2 of my costs because they buy direct from a feed mill... I bet the food is a heck of a lot better too. I don't have one in my area but if you do than check it out!

Since I mentioned mixing your own feed here are a couple chicken keepers blog posts with their recipes:
http://www.gardenbetty.com/2012/06/garden-bettys-homemade-whole-grain-chicken-feed/
http://www.whistlepighollow.com/2013/08/13/homemade-chicken-feed-recipes-soy-free-corn-free-fermented-sprouted/

Fermenting Feed

02/11/2015

I know I failed to do a blog about my chickens... but I have chickens! I have 6 at the moment, but if your on BYC than you know that only 1 of those count, so I need more! I have 5 silkies and 1 hamburg. Of those silkies 3 are still chicks, one is a rooster, and the other is my only laying hen. The hamburg is a hen who has yet to lay =) (the only one that counts according to BYC'ers is the laying one)

BYC was my tool in all information chicken related, and it is there that I stumbled on fermenting feeds. I also consult other sites like Natural Chicken Keeping and The Chicken Chick. Here is a quick explanation of fermented feeds and the benefits from Natural Chicken Keeping.

The fermentation process uses naturally occurring bacteria to partially break down the food, improving its enzyme content and increasing its levels of vitamins B, C and K. It also makes food more digestible, and boosts the "usable" protein level by about 12 percent.

The other benefits to using fermented feed:

• Feed consumption and waste will drop by 1/2 to 3/4 (this will save you money)
• Poultry on a diet of fermented feed are generally healthier and less likely to contract disease
• There is almost zero waste as chickens don't scratch through it, kicking it out of the feeder
• Stools become more solid and many people report less smell in the coop and run!
• Egg yolks of eggs laid by hens on fermented feed will become noticeably larger, and shells will be more solid.  

Additional studies note that:

• Wet feeding increases the feed intake and growth rate of Chickens.
• Pre-soaking of broiler feeds for 12 and 24 hours significantly increased dry matter digestibility and body weight gain in male broilers (25-40 days of age) compared with dry feed.
• Bacterial fermentation of barley and wheat whole meal flours with b-glucan-degrading LAB (Lactic Acid Bacteria) has improved growth and early feed-to-gain ratio in broiler chickens.

Regarding Chicks:

• Early access to semi-moist diets for day-old chicks stimulates gastrointestinal (GI) development and prevents dehydration during transport from the hatchery.
• Rapid GI tract development after hatch is essential for optimization of digestive function and underpins efficient growth and development as well as a full expression of the genetic potential for production traits. 
• The moisten capacity of the crop of chicks during the first weeks of life is also believed to be a limiting factor for the optimal functioning of the gut when standard solid diets are fed.
• Benefits of wet feeding have been attributed to decreased viscosity of gut contents, greater development of the layer of villi in the digestive segments and reduced crypt cell proliferation. 

So I didn't read ANY negatives but a long list of positives. What originally made me interested in it was that BYC users were saying that it created less food waste and their chickens devoured it! It wasn't until I researched it that I found MANY benefits. 

The first time I tried to ferment feed I got one good batch and a couple moldy, so I stopped for months. I began wetting my chickens feed prior to feeding to stop as much food waste and because the chickens prefer it; now if I feed dry they will peck at it a little than leave it and just look at me, sometimes even bhach at me like whats this nonsense! 

Since I know all the benefits I decided to try fermenting again. I talked to some BYC'ers who had success and they told me it was really simply but it needed to STAY covered in water to prevent mold growth. I had read somewhere else equal parts water and feed. I made a batch a few days ago and it turned out PERFECT. The chickens love it!

Here is an image of what it looks like fermenting feed:

Today I started 3 new batches of fermented feed =)

I may need to scoop off the top of all three and start a fourth. My fermented feed is actually a mix of 4 different feeds. I have all flock crumbles, layer pellets, wild bird seed, and a few rabbit pellets that were left over from when my Isabella died =/, I also have a powder vitamin formula you see on the window I sometimes add in!

If you have children, and especially if you have multiple feeds like me than they will LOVE making this stuff!

A Horse of a day

02/11/2015

While we had a heck of a day the other day. My husband is back on night shift, and since I'm home I usually try to adjust to his sleep schedule. We got up late the other day then got ready to go get some Peat Humus for our garden beds.

As soon as we reached the street we saw two horses leads on in the middle of the road, traffic backed up on both sides. Me being me I jump out to get them, and hope they are friendly enough that I can catch them. I do, call our county and they ask us to keep them in our backyard til they can reach the horse ranch who we all assume is where they came from... they also specify even if they are the horse ranches I can't turn them over to anyone without their permission!

That night we reach the ranch, they aren't theirs. 2 ladies from the ranch do come to look them over and bring hay for them though, sweet ladies! They can't stay at the horse ranch due to coggins, a deadly disease in horses that these horses COULD have. Later after they leave and when its dark outside we get someone knocking on our backdoor; for reference we have a 6 foot privacy fence all the way around our backyard and a padlock on our gate! It is this man that looks wild saying these are his horses. I ask if he has paperwork or coggins on them and he says no, then I tell him that the county will have to give me permission to hand them over, and I have my husband drive him home since he walked here (and so we know where he lives). I gave him the number for the county and told him when they open.

The next day at 8 I call the county. Due to his lack of proof of ownership they tell me they will send out an officer to talk to him and decide if they want to turn them over. I drive to his house to let him know what they said and when they said they would be here. They are late so I call them again and they come about an hour late, talk to us, see the horses than leave to talk to him... telling us we would more than likely have to keep them another night because the horse guy isn't working that day and he has no proof of ownership.

The guy shows up right after animal control leaves for his horses. I tell him they are on their way to talk to him and he calls me a liar than says I'm a horse thief, goes to leave and threatens us... this is a guy that just broke into my backyard the night before and is known around the neighborhood to shoot off guns!

Animal control arrives as he is walking away and he goes up to them and says we are stealing his horses etc. They try to talk some sense in to him, doesn't work! They get on the phone and whoever they talk to tells them to let him take the horses...despite him having NO proof of ownership! These horses also had no vet care in years and were both under weight and had no coggins tests!

I've called the county police twice, the first officer we got was just a jerk. He said the guy did nothing wrong when he jumped my back fence and that if I didn't want people doing that I should have no trespassing signs! He also refused to press charges against the guy from the horse farm who DOES have no trespassing signs, and the guy was in their barn and never knocked on their front door!

The second cop was nicer, and he felt bad since I started crying because I'm really upset that I can't take my dogs outside at night in my fenced in backyard and feel safe with that lunatic around now! He couldn't do anything but was mad about the first cops behavior and told me if the guy is near my house just call him!

Anyway, one heck of a 24 hours! For that day we couldn't let our dogs in our backyard for fear of the horses.. and I had one of them try to run me down =/! The last part of this saga happened yesterday and we just cleaned up the MANY piles of poop an hour ago! Makes good compost!

I can't believe anyone in their right mind would say I'm trying to steal horses when I called animal control, the sheriff, the horse ranch, and I have LESS THAN 1/3 of an acre fenced in! One of my plants is like 1/2 the size it was because of their grazing and my yard had enough poop to fill a wheelbarrow after just 24 hours!

At least my compost pile and red wriggler worms will enjoy the by product:

My Cheap Chicken Tractor

02/07/2015

So, this is not going to be a how to post to explain how I did this because I didn't. I intended too, but hubby took over. If I did it it would be prettier but he made it and its 100% functional so that is good enough! In the future I think we should work as a team more on these projects though....

Anyway here it is:

Now this is NOT predator proof, but where we live there are NO predators other than my dog, and he recognizes that its a Shadow Free Zone! This is also NOT perfect... You can see gaps in it, but we will just say that is for added ventilization ;) If it proves to be an issue I can always put a board in back to seal it up around the top!!

How did we build this for under $25? Easy

Cull lumber (for frame) 4 for $2

Clearance Chicken Wire 2 rolls for $8

Wood for coop leftover from other projects (and we deconstructed the rabbit house for wood since my beloved bella passed away in December)

Hinge $2

Tires $10

The coop is probably less than 20 lbs, which if you have predators in your area could be a problem, but if your like me and don't than its awesome because even a child could move them around!

This tractor is SMALL! I wouldn't keep more than 2 birds in it, 3 bantams would be possible but I wouldn't do it because I like mine to have more room. 

This tractor is ideal for:

1. Chicks

2. Broody Hen

3. Mama Hen with Chicks

4. Sick Birds

5. A couple bantams

The black and white chicken shown is a hamburg, she is of laying age which means she shouldn't get bigger, this run is okay for a couple birds around her size full grown as a permanent housing option!

Since the run part is fairly small I expect to move this every day or every other day.