This lesson will explain and show you how you can reduce the cost of feeding your chickens.
1. FEED THEM KITCHEN LEFT-OVERS.
kitchen left-overs are a great source of carbohydrates and proteins. Instead of throwing away kitchen left-overs, just give them to the chickens and they'll be happy. Also go to your nearest restaurants and ask for any food leftovers.
2. FEED THEM VEGETABLES.
Vegetables are rich in vitamins, so when you give your chickens vegetables you are giving them extra vitamins. Other vegetables such as spinach are also rich in calcium and chickens need calcium to lay eggs.
3 FEED THEM WEEDS AND GARDEN WASTE.
Weeds such as purslane, blackjack leaves, gallant soldier and dandelion are a great source of free chicken feed. They are also rich in various nutrients.
4. FEED THEM EXCESS FRUITS.
If you grow fruits such as strawberries, guavas, mangoes, peaches and many other fruits that you can easily grow or get at no cost, feel free to give them to your chickens and they'll get vitamin c for free.
5. FEED THEM MAGGOTS.
Maggot farming is another way of making free chicken feed. One easy way to have maggots is to raise rabbits. Maggots easily manifest from rabbits droppings it's almost effortless. Just keep rabbit droppings in a bucket for 4 or more days and you'll see baby maggots at the bottom of the droppings. Keep them longer and they'll grow bigger.
6. FEED THEM YOUR OWN GRAIN FEED.
If you have enough land or if you can source grains at a much cheaper cost, then sunflower seeds, soybeans, sorghum and maize or corn can be mixed to make an excellent home-made grain feed for chickens. You may need to first grind the maize grains as they are often too big for easy and complete digestion.
7. USE CHICKEN FEED CONCENTRATE.
Concentrate feeds have very high crude protein percentage. They are designed to be sold to farmers we have access to their own or cheaper milled maize so that the ground maize can dilute the high crude protein and increase the volume of the feed in the process. The mixing ratio varies from one poultry feed manufacturer to the other but in most cases it's often between 1:2 and 2:3. You mix the concentrate feed with ground maize or milled corn.
8. FERMENT GRAIN CHICKEN FEED.
Fermented chicken feed has so many benefits to the chickens themselves and to the farmer's pockets. What would normally feed 10 chickens can easily feed 15 to 20 chickens when fermented for 3 days. I have already made a video that explains the whole process of fermenting chicken feed and you can find the link at the top of this screen. I will also put another link to that video at the end of this video.
9. BUY FEED IN BULK.
Due to economies of scale, buying anything in bulk and in the largest quantities available is often cheaper than buying in small quantities. In some cases you may also get discounts when you buy in bulk.
10. LET THEM FREE-RANGE.
This one is pretty simple and straightforward. They are called free-range chickens because they know how to look for their own food. So let them do what they know best let free-range chickens be free-range chickens. However, you will need to supplement what they scavenge on their own with some quality feed that we have discussed in the previous nine points that we have already talked about. Also remember that while chickens can free range exclusively, however, their growth rate will be super slow.
