Feed prices!

[mike692]

This is getting a little crazy!

My last trip;

200 lbs of cracked corn

200 lbs of oats

200 lbs of laying mash

100 lbs of rabbit pellets

My bill; 118.00

[mooreorless]

Mike can you break down what you are using everything for? I guess the rabbit pellets are self explanatory.

[mike692]

When I feed my hens, they get a coffee can full of oats, cracked corn, and laying mash. That helps save me money on laying mash. Sometimes I substitute wheat or barley for the oats. All that feed will last me almost 2 months.

[Greg]

man i'm feeliing it too. i'm going to start planting my own this year

[kyboy]

$10-$11 for a 50# bag of layer pellets, $12.50 a 50# for starter/grower .......$8 for 25# of rabbit pellets

[jdp4202007]

if ya think that is bad try being a rancher a ton of cake is like $225 dollars a ton

[trappersam164]

i agree with ya jdp, these feed prices are getting a little outa hand. for jsut over a ton it is $310 jsut for grain. i am only 13 and i can still remember when we could get a ton of grain for less than $150. i think this year we are going to try to sell hay at the stock yards jsut to pay for all the grain we need.

[jdp4202007]

i think the grain mix we are feeding to are yearlings was booked at 150 a ton and i think it just wen't higher ya it's not a bad idea sellin more hay but god with the price of diesel as high as it is

[oblio13]

We're planting a lot of Indian corn and sunflowers for ours this year. I have winter wheat coming up all over that I sowed last fall as a green manure and for erosion control, and they eat a lot of that, too. Not much of it lives long enough to produce berries. I do the same thing with buckwheat every year - just broadcast handfuls of it along our hedges and things. It looks nice with big leaves and white flowers, and it controls weeds. The chickens eat the leaves and seeds, and hang out underneath it all day.

We live next to a lake, and I'm always using seaweed and buckets of muck from it on our garden. Great mulch because there are no weed seeds in it. It's full of little wigglies, though, and the chickens come running when they see it. There are also lots of freshwater mussels. I toss them up in the yard and step on them. The chickens eat both the meat and pieces of shell.

I hang Japanese Beetle scent lures in the coop. The hens stand around under it waiting, and it's pretty funny to watch them when an unlucky beetle arrives.

I figure we go through about 50 pounds of layer pellets per hen per year, almost all of it during the winter.

[mike692]

Great ideas oblio! I tried the japanese beetle thing last year, and it works great. Another thing I read about, was a guy who put his leftover beaver in a five gallon bucket that he had drilled holes in the bottom of. He would hang these in the coop and the blow flies would lay eggs in the meat. When the maggots would migrate from the bucket they'd be eaten by the chickens! What a great way to get some free protein for your birds and get rid of some of your leftover carcasses!

[mooreorless]

Apr 20, 2008 19:54:23 GMT -5 mike692 said:

Another thing I read about, was a guy who put his leftover beaver in a five gallon bucket that he had drilled holes in the bottom of. He would hang these in the coop and the blow flies would lay eggs in the meat. When the maggots would migrate from the bucket they'd be eaten by the chickens! What a great way to get some free protein for your birds and get rid of some of your leftover carcasses!

I think I'll pass on that one!

[mike692]

The guy said he lined the buckets with oak leaves and there was very little smell.

I found the whole article online;

themodernhomestead.us/article/Feeding-Chickens-Maggots.html