Feed for chickens?

[tortoise]

We're experimenting with feeding our chickens dog food as part of their overall diet. We have a source for free dog food. So far, we boiled some, added crushed eggshell, and extruded it through a meat grinder. Looks like worms! DH said they went crazy for it. We would need to find out a way to process it into chicken-edible form faster. This first time, all we got was a 4# bag. Sometimes we'll get a 40#bag, so we need an efficient way to process it!

They are still free-fed layer pellets, oyster shell, crushed eggshell, kitchen scraps, and free ranging.

 

[Beekissed]

Why not ferment it and feed it out as a mash, along with all your other chicken food?

 

[Denim Deb]

MH, how much land do you devote to growing this feed and how many animals are you feeding?

 

[Mini Horses]

Too many! LOL But, I actually purchased some of the deer food plot seeds from TSC when it was on sale at end of hunting season here, so February "ish"....and broadcast it onto some freshly roughed up areas &/or bare & raked lightly in some of my smaller pastures (1 acre) & in a more lightly tilled 1/3 ac area I was going to use for this purpose & then graze goats, range layer hens as the area needed (this will be an expanded effort now--blocked sections do well). In pastures, I ran goats &/or minis. Of course, I let it come up first and in the small section by coop I had the sunflowers, comfrey, kales, radishes, etc. This was easy to hand cut with a long blade knife or scissors. Then throw to birds, goats. The Australian peas are still re-growing in the one pasture I tested when I cut it a couple days ago.

So, I have now purchased a couple more bags & intend to sow more this month. I live in Eastern VA, close to NC line, so my weather is good for winter grasses, etc. for another month or so and germination is normally good. I'll also throw out some winter wheat, which will be grazed and not head up, then will die out in Spring. It's an hr or so every couple days for the horses, to give them something green.

The concentration in the small area was amazingly productive and while there was only a small area of the milo, it just forms a tassle head at the top, which can be cut and tossed in a bucket to dry and use. I look for what can be easily hand harvested. Once heads are cut the goats love the leaves. It looks like corn coming up but get about 3' then heads. plants close together and 1/4 acre could be very helpful for feed. Small flock you could feed with the various milo, dried corn, etc.