Chicken Feed Calculation

Bags and buckets of ingredients.

Since one week after the chicks arrived here last March, I have been making their feed.

Now this requires several bags of bulk grain to be stored at any given time, but it has provided much freedom in what my chickens are fed. I typically mix up 50 pounds of feed (equivalent to most pre-prepared feed bags) every 2 weeks. 

I am only over-wintering 10 chickens - 9 hens and 1 rooster. 

Antique coffee grinder works hard (and creates lots of dust).

I follow the idea of Harvey Ussery, found in his book, The Small-Scale Poultry Flock, or also his amazing website. 

Over this past (almost) year, I mixed my organic whole grains, knowing that I was feeding my chickens the freshest and best possible feeds. 

I also listened to my husband's comments on the regular purchases of expensive materials. I know that there are certainly cheaper feed options out there, but in keeping chickens for food, I want to raise them to be as high-quality as possible. 

I thought that I was spending a lot more on my prepared feed, but compared to a popular organic feed, my mix is actually less expensive. 

That made me happy.

Ingredients, price per pound and amounts of protein.

The table shows that my feed is about $60 per 100 pounds. To compare it to Scratch and Peck, which comes in 40 pound bags, mine is about $24 while theirs is $28, when discounted. I did not expect that! 

If things change and I no longer have the time to mix feeds, I'm sure I will switch to Scratch and Peck, but in the meantime, my feed is certainly more fresh, and apparently slightly less expensive. Yay!

Fermented feed with a side of stale bread crusts.

I will also continue to tweak the feed, and enjoy having that freedom. 

I recently started fermenting some of the feed, which is supposed to help lessen anti-nutrients along with increase absorption, just as it does for people food. 

One day I will try sprouting grains as well, but I have barely gotten around to that for us, so the chickens will have to wait a bit for that.