CUT CHICKEN FEED COSTS BY 35%
What you’ll need:
Commercial Feed (Preferable Organic)
Food Scraps
Food grade Bucket
Water
Steps:
1) Count your Chickens (I have 17)
2) Multiply the # of chicken by 1/3 (1/3 is for the daily amount, in pounds, one chicken needs) So, for my 17 chickens… 17X.33= 5.61. I round up to 6 pounds.
3) Now, 20% of your chickens diet can come from greens and/or food scraps. So, take the amount of food you’ll need and multiply it by 20%. In my case, that’s 6X.20=1.2. So let’s round down to 1 pound. I’ll need just one pound of food scraps a day (that’s easy for me). If you don’t have the food scraps, just skip this step.
4) Subtract your food scrap poundage from your total need. For me, that’s 6-1=5. I’ll need five pounds of dry commercial feed.
5) If you soak and/or ferment your feed you can cut it 15-25% more as it’s easier to digest! So, we’ll be conservative and say 15%. Take your dry food requirement (after food scraps) and multiply it by 15%. For me it’s 5X.15=.75, so let’s say 1 pound. That means I can subtract one pound of feed from my total need by simply soaking! Bringing my total dry feed requirement to just 4 pounds
6) Weigh out found pounds of feed in some sort of scoop and take note of how much it was. That way you don’t have to weigh every time.
7) Put your dry feed in a food safe container and fill with water at least 4 inches over the feed (you don’t want the feed to soak up the water and be uncovered, so give it plenty of water. I don’t think you can do too much.
8) Let sit overnight to soak, or three days if you want to ferment.
9) On the day of feeding, strain your water and feed in a container OR do like I do and cast the entire bucket on the ground, letting the Earth (in my case, the garden) absorb the water.