Struggling to reduce your feed costs?
We know that the rising prices of feed can be concerning. That's why we've put together this list of ways for you to reduce your costs. Some methods are easier than others, but all of them will help you save money in the long run.
Feeding your animals can be expensive, but it doesn't have to be. Try out some of these methods and see how much you can save. You may be surprised at just how much you can cut down on your expenses by making a few small changes.
Listen to this week's episode for more information on reducing your feed costs!
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Struggling to reduce your feed costs?
We know that the rising prices of feed can be concerning. That's why we've put together this list of ways for you to reduce your costs. Some methods are easier than others, but all of them will help you save money in the long run.
Feeding your animals can be expensive, but it doesn't have to be. Try out some of these methods and see how much you can save. You may be surprised at just how much you can cut down on your expenses by making a few small changes.
Listen to this week's episode for more information on reducing your feed costs!
We're so happy you listened to this episode of the Grounded in Simplicity Podcast!
If we were able to help you in any way, please share this episode with a friend. We hope that you found this podcast helpful, informative, and engaging.
We would love it if you left us a review on Apple Podcasts too!
You can also join us over on Patreon at Grounded in Simplicity and help to support this podcast as well as become a patron and get a behind the scenes look at the creation of our podcast and even have some input on future episodes.
We're so grateful for your support and hope you continue to enjoy the Grounded in Simplicity Podcast!
Welcome back to the grounded and simplicity podcast. I am Danielle from the rustic elk, joined by my good friend Bonnie from the not so modern housewife. And this week we are talking about feeding livestock on the cheap. So animals are expensive to feed. And they're getting more expensive to feed because there are great shortages and we've had no rain, Indiana, so expect more?
Bonnie Von Dohre:Well, yeah, I mean, here we are. We normally in Florida, we normally start cutting hay in May. Here we are the end of June and no one has started cutting hay yet. Our locally grown hay, which is normally $60. Around roll is up to $100. Around roll out. Yeah. So that's one of the things we can talk about today is how we're saving money on Hey,
Danielle McCoy:can you really save money on Hey,
Bonnie Von Dohre:it well. I'll talk about how we're doing it. I think I think we get into that right? Well, sort of kind of we're let's just say we're stretching our high budget. But it's still not doing a whole lot for our grain budget. Because that's going up. And you know, I mean, we do pretty well, because we buy from a local mill. And they're half the price of like bag feed from Tractor Supply. But I mean, even there's, there's, it's been going up and yeah, it's getting more and more expensive?
Danielle McCoy:Well, I think, you know, I think we have to think outside of the box when it comes to feeding our animals. Because like, if you really think about it commercialized pelletized feed is not really the norm. And it's not something that's been around all that long in the grand scheme of things. And even though it was around in some form for, you know, over 100 years, people couldn't afford it. So it's, it's a fairly new to think that you have to have this, you know, like commercialized specific diet for your animals when we used to just feed him out in the backyard.
Bonnie Von Dohre:Right? I mean, and I will say like, there are definitely there are pros and cons. I even when I'm trying to reduce the amount of grain that I feed, I still end up like feeding some, I just tried to find other ways to supplement it. Because what we have noticed and you know, and it's probably more of a recent thing, too, we we kind of expect more production from our animals than we have historically. Right. I mean, and, you know, a lot of this is we've gotten spoiled by the grocery store, like we expect the milk to be free flowing and the eggs to be available 365 days a year, you know. So we have like, we've tracked egg production when we've changed different feeds, with our chickens and things like that. And we definitely see the best egg production with grain. But I, I also think that there is a balance that can be struck there where I don't necessarily need top production from my chickens, because when they're given me top production, I have more eggs, and I know what to do with. But I think that there are ways that I could cut my feed bill and still have enough x. Right? Well, you know, you
Danielle McCoy:think about like, these hybridized meat breeds and stuff like Cornish cross, they have to have grain like you can't raise them just on free range pasture. And so I definitely think I agree with you that we've kind of developed this. I don't know, where, like, even a lot of cattle like dairy cattle and stuff, even, you know, like some of the Heritage breeds and things like that. They've been fed grain for so long for so many generations that most people can't even just pasture their dairy cows, they have to give them some grain ration at least when they're in milk. So we've kind of made ourselves dependent on it.
Bonnie Von Dohre:Yeah, I mean, like, no, like we were we were looking at the dairy cow. I think it may have been last year or maybe the year before. And just a lot of it really comes down to bloodlines. And so it comes down to like selecting for the qualities you want. And she was just one of those cows when she was in milk. It didn't matter how much you fed her. Everything was going into her milk production. And so you could I mean, you could just be dumping pounds and pounds of grain into her and she was not going to gain an ounce as long as she was in milk. Right. And personally that's, that's really not a bloodline. and that I would want to perpetuate. Like, I would prefer a cow that's going to be able to maintain their condition. Right, while also, you know, producing the milk that we need. But I also don't need a cow that produces 10 gallons a day. So, but you know, you look at the commercial side, just to be able to pay their bills and keep the lights on, they need those cows to be producing 1020 gallons a day. Right. And so, you know, you have like, the bloodlines that are being perpetuated for commercial production, and to keep up with those demands, but then it's almost like a totally separate, you know, bloodline for the family milk cow. Right. I mean, and you kind of ran into this with your rabbits to because you had, you still have that one dough, right? That lost her condition really bad.
Danielle McCoy:Yeah, yeah. When she has kids, she just everything, everything goes in her babies instead of, you know, keeping. I mean, as soon as they were weaned, she put her condition right back on. Like, it's not like she was she didn't and she didn't look emaciated or anything, but she was not as fluffy as she normally is by any stretch. So yeah, definitely would not be a back to back reader for that one. She's one that would have to be.
Bonnie Von Dohre:Yeah, she needs a rest so that she can recover.
Danielle McCoy:Right? Yeah.
Bonnie Von Dohre:So anyway, but yeah, I guess that's something else to think about when we're talking about feeding livestock is paying attention to those animals that can convert the feed the best, regardless of how you're feeding them. You know, you're going like, I use horses as an example. I had one horse who I always joke that she'd get fat on air. She up and I mean, up until she was like 28 years old, she did not need grain. She she could be on grass, and she could maintain and look really good just on grass. But then I have had other horses that like would look emaciated if they were not getting 10 pounds of grain a day. Right. So if you are trying to feed less grain, then really pay attention to those bloodlines. And like if you are buying from a breeder, trying to find a breeder that is selecting for animals that can maintain on pasture and less grain. Like you had mentioned Cornish crosses, I actually the Cornish crosses that we raised last year, I was still giving them some grain, but they were specifically selected and bred for being raised on pasture. And I do know one other producer who uses the same chicks from the same Hatchery and just raises them on pasture and has great she has massive chicken tractors. And she's moving them every day. So they have plenty of fresh ground, and they can get what they need. Right. And a lot of this is going to come down to the amount of space if you have a smaller space. And you're like you're gonna have to find other ways to supplement and you're gonna have to do more supplementation, if you don't have like the pasture space,
Danielle McCoy:but right, we did some Cornish cross and some heritage Cornish this year, that are kind of more like, I don't know, they looked a lot more like freedom Rangers, but they weren't. And they actually grew out almost as fast as the Cornish Cross did. And they were a lot better at converting feed, like the amount that we fed them versus the ones that we fed the you know how much we fed the Cornish cross. We had to feed them less feed and they ended up almost the same size as the Cornish at the same Oh yeah, they were? Well, on a pound.
Bonnie Von Dohre:Yeah, we raise kosher kings last year. And I really do want to run like a trial of raising the Cornish or the Cornish crosses next to the kosher kings at the same time. And really compare the feed conversion and the growth rates. We ran out of freezer space before we got a chance to butcher the kosher kings. But honestly, like the hens out of those from those kosher kings, because we just got straight run chicks have been some of my favorite layers. Like they are a nice big hen that lays a nice um, because they're, they're crossed with barred rocks. Right and it's like we've got one in particular that she just looks like a really big full Barred Rock hen. And I'm like heck, I would raise a whole flock of those just as layers because they have a bigger body that better capacity for egg production that laying really nice large brown eggs and they're good for it. yours. But anyway, we're still not talking about feeding livestock. Okay. So first how we save money? This is this is a big one for us, and I mentioned it before is finding a local feed mill, I realize they can be hard to find in some areas. You know, especially if you're in a more urban area, the local females are usually more in your rural areas, or areas that have, you know, suburban areas that have built up around rural areas. But
Danielle McCoy:there's just like everywhere.
Bonnie Von Dohre:Yeah, I mean, I know, like we had one. We had one in central Ohio, that I mean, it's, it's still there. And just to see them, like they're really a fairly small feed store, but they supply so much grain to like the Tri County area. And every every farmer I knew was getting their grain from, from failures one way or another, like even the dairy was getting it. They had a cart that or I don't know, or it's like a hopper that they would take to fellas get it filled full of corn. And then he could just come and like, open up the thing and fill the buckets. And so
Danielle McCoy:to local females is they usually have a minimum. And that minimum can be quite
Bonnie Von Dohre:Yeah, I think it depends. Because I mean, all the all the meals I've known, you could still buy 50 pound bags of feed. It's just if you're and we'll get into talking about buying in bulk in a minute, but it was if you wanted a custom blend, or if you wanted to buy in bulk, then it got more expensive. But even if I'm because i mean i How many bags feed? We're probably buying close to 1000 pounds of feed every two weeks.
Danielle McCoy:What the heck are you feeding?
Bonnie Von Dohre:pigs, chickens and goats? Yeah, I mean that well, maybe maybe more like 750 pounds, but it's Yeah, so but I'm still buying it in 50 pound bags, right? Because it's, they're easier for me to store and move around and everything. I could buy in bulk, and put it in the 55 gallon drums. But you have to have a front end loader on your tractor, I don't have a front end loader to be able to move the barrel around. Okay, sorry, I'm just, I'm just uh, I just pretend to be a farmer, I don't anyway.
Danielle McCoy:Well, we'll go to buying in bulk, because it kind of goes along with the local feed mill, if you find a local female, a lot of them have bulk buying options available. Where you can buy copious amounts of feed, like you have to like every local feed mill around me, you have to buy in bulk, and they have 1000 pound minimum.
Bonnie Von Dohre:So they don't have it by the bag at all.
Danielle McCoy:Not the feed mill near us now.
Bonnie Von Dohre:Oh, wow, that really surprises me. You have to have your own containers.
Danielle McCoy:And you have to buy 1000 pounds minimum.
Bonnie Von Dohre:Well,
Danielle McCoy:and this is like this is chicken feed that they mix. Like it's not like lots of people around here use it. But I will mention that the catch to buying in bulk is you can only keep grain around for so long before it starts to mold. And you don't want to feed your animals moldy grain. So you have to make sure first off that you're storing it properly. And second off that you're not storing so much of it. That's when we sit around for more than like three months. Because once you especially in the summer here, and I would imagine in Florida all the time. Well, that's
Bonnie Von Dohre:Florida i That's why I only buy two weeks worth at a time right? Now in the winter. I can buy a month's worth of time and be fine. But even within two weeks, we're starting to see mold, right? Be just the condensation and everything.
Danielle McCoy:Yeah, you get all that humidity and the change in temperature like up here. We went from 48 to 90, and so you get a lot of condensation. So we have airtight containers and they're and they do pretty good. But I still honestly they say three months but I'd say I wouldn't go more than like a month at a time.
Bonnie Von Dohre:Yeah stores selling or during the summer. Even going more than a month. You're you're looking at the possibility of weevils and grandmas like, right, it's not just mold. So there's definitely other issues, right. So
Danielle McCoy:if you're going to buy in bulk, you have to think about the fact that you need a way to store it and you can't store more than you're going to use and a month or so it's time without you know, possibly running into problems that you don't want because yeah, like I said, I know Got your animals
Bonnie Von Dohre:mold, you want to be able to rotate through it. Obviously, if you have a storage area that's air conditioned, then you can extend that time a bit. I do know, some farms that will add pesticides to their grain. But I mean, you have to know what you're doing because there have been people who have poisoned their animals because they put too much of the pesticide in the grain. And obviously, you know, most of us are raising our own food so that we can reduce the number of pesticides. So we, you know, it doesn't really serve us to add pesticides to our grain. But yeah, I would definitely say that if you're going to buy in bulk, then you need to make sure you are rotating through what you're feeding and making sure that you can feed that amount within a set amount of time. All right, growing fodder. I know we've we've done this to a limited degree with our poultry. We did it more so for the rabbits probably because the chickens and turkeys eat a lot more rabbits do. Actually, the turkeys were afraid of the fodder. Like you would think that we just put a snake in their feed bucket.
Danielle McCoy:Oh wow.
Bonnie Von Dohre:Free Range turkeys aren't known for being the brightest. Well, I am. I am trying to give them more free range time. The problem is I have three different Tom's have three different breeds. And they all want to be top dog. So I can only let out like one flock at a time just mainly to keep them from fighting. Yeah,
Danielle McCoy:we actually I shouldn't say me free range them but what they're in tractors. So we just moved the tractor around every day. We're using the tractor that we had our meat birds on and they're they're all gonna go in the freezer is they are all mailed at one. We Yeah, we have six turkeys. And five of them are Tom's
Bonnie Von Dohre:Well, we I did not get any pulse patch this year, because my dog kept eating all the turkey eggs. She would I have I have a broad breasted White who kept trying to hatch eggs. But she was doing it in the kids play house because the broad breasted whites free range. So the dog was going into the kids play house chasing her off the nest and then eating all the eggs. The other two that are in pens, she would go to the outside of the fence and somehow she could like I think she was pushing the fence in enough to where she could roll the egg out and then she'd eat the egg Yeah, I
Danielle McCoy:wish not a very good livestock Guardian but
Bonnie Von Dohre:I mean she's eating the eggs and not the turkeys so I guess well yeah, but that's just especially garna all Guardians don't really one eggs or eggs or food they're not an animal for the dogs because they're and they don't bond to poultry really so. But after the after I let the standard bronze out free range. One of the broad breasted whites ended up in the standard bronze pen and amazingly enough the standard bronze are still laying and she was trying She's trying her darndest to hatch the eggs that the standard bronzes are laying so
Danielle McCoy:maybe you'll get lucky.
Bonnie Von Dohre:I mean a this turkey is two years old Why is it standard or why is the Brooks and White still alive at two years old? And b Why she broody? Oh my Yeah, I attract all weird and we tried we tried to
Danielle McCoy:let our goose hatch her eggs this year. And my chickens decided that they wanted to be egg eaters. And they go Oh, that sucks. Yeah, so
Bonnie Von Dohre:I knew goose once again as soon as the temperature heated up. All of my astral arcs went broody. And I don't know why I can't convince my husband that when they go broody, we need to pull them and put them in a separate pen to protect the eggs and the chicks. So I ended up with hens who aren't broody eating the eggs, chicks hatching and then getting trampled. Like I have another coop. I need him to use the tractor to move the coop away from the giant oak tree that he decided to park it in front of
Danielle McCoy:I'd probably rather just use the tractor and do it myself but
Bonnie Von Dohre:you I would probably break the chicken coop the tractor and some body part. If it's not a small coop like it is six, seven feet tall because it's up on stilts, and probably eight feet long. So what he does is he, he puts the bucket of the tractor up against the chicken coop. And then ratchet straps the chicken coop to the bucket and then lifts it and very, very gingerly sit somewhere else. But we also need to like figure out why our hydraulics on the tractor are leaking. So Oh. And just the coop needs cleaned out from the last time we actually had stuff in it. But there's in the next podcast episode, let's talk about the never ending list of chores that come with having a homestead. Alright, so anyway,
Danielle McCoy:we can do it while I'm on drugs.
Bonnie Von Dohre:While you're while you're not doing any of the chores, yeah. Yeah. So anyway, in terms of growing fodder. Alright, so there's a couple of things we learned with it. One is there's definitely a trial and error involved with it. We figured out some seeds are better for fodder than others, we figured out that you really do need to sanitize the seeds. So we I know some people will soak them in food grade hydrogen peroxide, I think we were using a diluted bleach solution, just because it's a lot cheaper than the peroxide. But I could be wrong, my husband was kind of handling most of that. But it's an even with that. We still struggle in the summertime, because of the humidity. With fodder or with a mold growing on the fodder. You can sprinkle cinnamon on your footer to prevent some mold. And you definitely need to make sure your trays are level because we had an issue where if our trays were slightly tilted, one end of the tray would sprout and the other wouldn't. Because the whole thing needs to stay evenly moist. Well, yeah, otherwise, I mean, like, we'll do it in the wintertime. And it's a really good supplement. And you also have to factor in like, really, wintertime is generally going to be when it's going to be more expensive to feed your animals, because that's when you're going to have less access to grass and pasture and everything. So it's usually when you're going to have to feed more grain, more hay, all of that. But have you have you guys done fodder or what's been your experience?
Danielle McCoy:We have not done fodder. We've talked about it. And every time we talk about it, we find something else to talk about. So I've gone into it. And plus I, I mean, I'm sure it's cheaper, but at the same time, like Sita isn't super cheap when you're talking about, you know, see for fodder, and you have to use grow lights and you know, just the whole thing. Like I don't know if it's going to be worth the hassle for us. Because
Bonnie Von Dohre:yeah, I think that you could probably because I mean we do all of ours outside. Granted, yes. If you had like an indoor environment that you could do it, you could avoid a lot of the mold issues, but then you're having to use more grow lights. You could probably even set up like a cheap greenhouse. Or, you know, a high tunnel or not even a high tunnel. You just like
Danielle McCoy:you find me something that's cheap. In today's Well, okay.
Bonnie Von Dohre:alibaba.com you just have to wait two months for it to be shipped from China.
Danielle McCoy:Still not cheap, like it's not as cheap as it was two years ago. So there's
Bonnie Von Dohre:no mail, but that's mainly because of the shipping. But yeah. One thing I will say is my husband absolutely trashed all of the groceries that he was using for the fodder. So, I would recommend like if you're if you're seriously going to do it, go to bootstrap farmer and buy the really high quality trays that aren't going to crack easily. They are going to be a lot more expensive, but they're going to last few a lot longer. Because I mean, you're going to be rotating through trays of fodder on at least a weekly basis. Let's move on from growing fodder.
Danielle McCoy:Okay, fermenting feed.
Bonnie Von Dohre:Again, we ran into a lot of mold issues doing this in the summertime. And so a couple things. I definitely noticed a drop in egg production. When I did fermented feed, which was my biggest reason for not the Yeah, that was my biggest reason for not sticking with it. But the other thing is you need to like, gradually introduce it to your birds. Because going from being fed a dry feed to being fed soaked grains. A lot of birds don't want to eat the wet grain. So,
Danielle McCoy:no chickens hate water. That's where I've always gone with it. Like, yeah, because they don't like water. Like if our grain gets wet, like if we don't if I don't have it underneath, because we put it underneath the stock tank. And if I don't have it there and it happens to rain, and guess why they won't touch it. There. My target was always my hang up with. Yeah, yeah.
Bonnie Von Dohre:I mean, granted, my ducks love it. Yeah, it's it's kind of one of those things. It just depends on the animal. I think my pigs loved it. Ducks loved it. Chickens, I eventually coaxed into eating it. But again, I saw a huge drop in egg production. And with finding, I wonder
Danielle McCoy:if it was we weren't eating as well.
Bonnie Von Dohre:That's possible. I mean, I, we got to a point where they were eating it pretty well. But I still, I still wasn't seeing the egg production. Right to to us. And okay, so this is kind of going back to local feed mills. So my mill has a mix that they will do that is an 18% layer. And you can choose whether you want it pellets crumbles, ground, or cracked or mash or cracked. And I will actually do the cracked, since it's still like partially whole grains. And I have actually found my best laying with having whole grains in their feed. So even if we're not getting that cracked mix, we will add some scratch and with their lair mash, because there have been studies that when you have the whole grains in there, it gives them a more sustained energy throughout the day. And so you actually you have better egg production. So
Danielle McCoy:crumbles with scraps makes sense. So that they've got Yeah, a whole grain we were doing pellets but I hate pellets and because we're mixing up the rabbit pellets and chicken because they look so similar. The Go grain is like whole whole grain. So that wasn't a problem. But they that rabbit I mean, it's darker, but it still looks really really similar. So yeah, that's
Bonnie Von Dohre:tough. We went across. I will usually if I'm not getting that, that cracked mix. I will do crumbles just because if I have chicks or bantams they can eat the crumbles love it. Yeah, they can pellets, so. But yeah, and I mean, in general, like, I like the crack because I can see what's in the feed too. Write. And the only thing like I know a lot of people will argue that whole grains in the summer will increase their body temperature. And I haven't noticed that with the cracked I don't know in terms of like having a whole lot of whole grain. People have said the same thing about alfalfa and I still feed alfalfa without problems. But anyway, I think you have to feed
Danielle McCoy:what works for you. And yeah, no,
Bonnie Von Dohre:I mean, you can try you can try any of these you know and trial and error and go through them and see one what works for you what what has the production from your animals and gives them the condition that you want? Right? And you know, and of course their their food preference. I mean, animals are individuals too. And right I mean, good grief. I've got two cats. I think they're gonna starve if you don't give them canned food. So even though there's dry food in their bowls, I mean, it's Yeah, right. Figure out what works for you. Okay, this episode was brought to you by kitchen botanicals, your sustainable gardening headquarters, stop by kitchen botanicals.com and get a look at our 2022 seed varieties as well as supplies and pest control products to help you with your organic garden 2022 is a great time to take care of yourself with our pampered gardener subscription box. Every month you'll receive all natural self care products untreated heirloom seeds, high quality garden tools, organic garden amendments, cute and practical supplies and fun products that we know you'll love. This is your opportunity to take care of yourself in the garden. I started the pampered gardener subscription box, because I had gone through a time of not taking care of myself and dealing with the stress that it put on to my body. I was ill I was tapped out and I felt like I couldn't possibly pour any more out of my empty cup swig read in the paper gardeners subscription box for women like me who wanted to get back to what they enjoy, but also wanted to love themselves. So we've put together this collection of gardening and self care products that are geared towards women who love to garden, you'll get things such as gloves, lotion, bags, hats, sunscreen, mosquito repellent, things that you can actually use, but also things that you'll enjoy. And don't worry, there will still be plenty of gardening tools, seeds, we've created a subscription box like no other by gardeners for gardeners order your own box today. No. So next up. And this is, except for when I have foxes, using me as a food source. Free ranging is definitely the biggest thing I found in terms of being able to reduce the amount of grain that we feed
Danielle McCoy:your chickens.
Bonnie Von Dohre:Well, I mean, anybody and poultry,
Danielle McCoy:well, well, but you can't really free range in a cow or? Yeah, you're not like free? Well, you're just gonna let it run out.
Bonnie Von Dohre:pasture. Well, my horses are currently running amok. What's your point? Um, well, okay, so free range slash being on pasture, the more pasture you have, fair enough, the less grain you're gonna have to feed. I mean, because most of the animals that we're raising, they're really designed to be more on pasture and less on grain we have we have given them grain to be able to raise them in our smaller, confined spaces that are more convenient for us.
Danielle McCoy:Right? Well, and, you know, if we're talking like heritage and commercial breeds, like heritage breeds are definitely going to be more able to free range then, like more commercial breeds kind of like the Cornish cross thing. Like, if you're just getting typical Cornish cross from your, you know, Rural King or whatever, then they're not really set up to free range so much. So they're kind of stupid.
Bonnie Von Dohre:They're stupid or lazy, they have leg issues. But yeah, but again, yeah, comes, you know, it comes back to the selective breeding and breeding for the traits that you want. So you can have two different Cornish crosses, but if one has been, has been bred for and selected for being raised in a confined environment, versus being bred for and selected for free ranging, it's, they're gonna be the same breed, but two very different birds.
Danielle McCoy:Right, right.
Bonnie Von Dohre:Same thing, if you've got a quarter horse that can get fat on air, or a thoroughbred, that has to have a stall, and just
Danielle McCoy:right in every animal is gonna be different. But we feed a lot less to like our chickens and our ducks, than that are free ranging than we do the ones that are, you know, confined and run, of course. And I guess, you know, especially up here, I don't guess it's so much in Florida, but you know, we can only free range part of the year because there's not really anything for them to eat in the winter.
Bonnie Von Dohre:And even here, yes, we can have them out. But everything's Brown. I mean, there's still, there's still going to be some bugs, there's going to be some stuff. If you're raising, say, a meat animal, that you have kind of a timeline that you want to butcher them on. The more they are free ranging, the more calories they're burning as well. So it may end up taking a little bit longer to grow them out. So even with our court process, we noticed this, you know, it was like 1110 weeks before they were the size we wanted to watch for them.
Danielle McCoy:Right, and is that like rabbits, if we, you know, put them in tractors on grass, it takes quite a bit longer than it does if we you know, feed them pellets and hay.
Bonnie Von Dohre:Right. So yeah, I mean, there's there's going to be pros and cons to it. But if you're talking just in terms of like the money you have to put into them you know, if you're if you're feeding less grain, or even no grain, but it might take you a couple extra months, that might be worth it to you. Now if your whole system is based off of being able to turn over and you can't turn over as many animals each year because it's taking longer to grow them out. Then that may also be a factor. To me like a lot of times like I have friends who raise Cooney Kuhn pics, and I raise Yorkshire crosses. And of course everyone always tells the benefits of a Cooney cone because they can be raised on pasture and you don't have to grain feed them. But it's usually an 18 month grow out period on them. Whereas my like my Yorkshires are set have been eight months. And to me that 10 months makes a big difference because that's 10 months that one they're taking up space and to something could potentially go wrong. Or either I lose that animal or I have a vet bill that eliminates all of the money I was trying to save.
Danielle McCoy:And yeah, but that's like
Bonnie Von Dohre:meat. Yeah, I know.
Danielle McCoy:Because you know, now you're now you're comparing fast food versus slow food, and it's like a whole different thing.
Bonnie Von Dohre:I don't know. Yes. And no, I still think you can get the benefits of slope from New York Norcross, but
Danielle McCoy:like I said, that's like a whole other episode. Because, you know, all right, well, you know what the benefits of fast food versus slow food are?
Bonnie Von Dohre:Alright, we're putting a pin in that one for later.
Danielle McCoy:Don't do that. All right. Okay.
Bonnie Von Dohre:We were just watching bolt. So now
Danielle McCoy:KEARSON assessable. So I was wondering if you're gonna get that rather than rest? I did.
Bonnie Von Dohre:All right, onward. Bugs as food. I am not talking about us eating bugs. I draw the line and us eating bugs.
Danielle McCoy:I saw something the other day it was talking about dog food made out of bugs. And I'm like,
Bonnie Von Dohre:just because my dog likes to catch flies does not mean that my dog can sustain itself on bugs. No, so another episode. So this time I'm raising your own bugs for your animals as a supplement which is great, like a great source of protein for our chickens. And really like if you have if you are very limited on space, and you're really not able to free range your birds but you still want like those nice orange yolks that you see from pastured birds add more bugs their diet because that's like it's it's going to add so many benefits to the egg in terms of the nutrients but then also I don't know how to explain it. The juices from the bug help give the yolks that word flavor.
Danielle McCoy:Now nobody wants to eat eggs but
Bonnie Von Dohre:not saying there's plugs in your eggs but anyway. Yeah, so I will say we have accidentally raised bugs on numerous occasions. As it turns out, black soldier flies really like rabbit manure. And so if we don't clean up underneath the rabbit cages for a while, I will actually end up with like a whole bed of black soldier fly larva.
Danielle McCoy:We did that last year on accident. Yeah, we but the chickens, but our Yeah, our chickens ate at all and the period
Bonnie Von Dohre:worked out. Well, in fact, I've I've known people actually, I've known quite a few people who will have the rabbits up on cages that have the drop bottoms, and then have their chickens free ranging underneath the rabbit cages are not free like they'll have it pinned. So the rest of the chickens are living underneath the rabbit cages. And so it ends up like a symbiotic relationship.
Danielle McCoy:Except for when the rabbits pee to have the most disgusting pee.
Bonnie Von Dohre:Well, that's true. But yeah, like even chickens
Danielle McCoy:hang out underneath our rabbit hutches? The ones that are free ranging because yeah, just up off the ground and we don't have trays on room. It's just
Bonnie Von Dohre:right under the crack. Well, and I'm not talking. I'm not talking the chickens can't get away from underneath the rabbit cages. I'm talking you've got walkways and stuff. It's just right. I know
Danielle McCoy:I'm just thinking of rabbit pee because I cleaned a bunch of out of trays are grow out cages earlier today. And it's just
Bonnie Von Dohre:Oh yeah. Or when you're when you're feeding rabbits, and one of the boys decides to spray you from outside. Oh, yeah, that's, that's always fun, too. Yeah. But yeah, in our zoo, has free range chickens. That helped keep like the flies and stuff under control around the animal pens.
Danielle McCoy:So you can raise your own like mealworms and stuff and I haven't personally done it. But I've I'm sure it's much much cheaper than buying bags of mill worms because I think the last time I was at the store, it was like $40 for like a 20 pound bag and
Bonnie Von Dohre:well, yeah, and I mean, I'll say mealworms are like they they're so easy to raise. So that was gonna be my other example of accidentally raising bugs. Is we fed so my daughter, we have invasive cube and tree frogs. And so, I've told my daughter that if she catches them, she can keep them as That's. So now I have a terrarium full of Cuban tree frogs. And one of the things that they eat is mealworms. Well, she had gotten them some mealworms put them in a little feed cup for them. And they ended up. Some of them ended up like crawling out of the feed cup. And in the like bedding and rocks and stuff at the bottom of the terrarium. Well, I go in there to clean out this terrarium, and the floor is moving. Because apparently, the mealworms had started breeding in the bedding of this terrarium. And I had a terrarium full of mealworms. So we ended up clicking them up. i I finally like I kind of stuck them out. I mean, not. We maintained them for a long time inside the house. And I got sick of having them. So I stuck them outside and they got rained on and drowned.
Danielle McCoy:Oh,
Bonnie Von Dohre:I know I kind of felt bad about that. But we're going to, we're going to do a better setup, I'm going to actually. So the easiest way to do them is you know those plastic drawers that you can like organize organizational George in different Walmart, or some other stores as you don't like Walmart. Yeah, so they can't, they can't like climb up vertical smooth surfaces. So you can have multiple drawers of just mealworms. And you just you put the worms in there, you usually use old fashioned oatmeal as like their bedding material. And then just every couple of days add like some slices of fruit. And that's all they need. And they will mature they will, they will turn into Beatles, The Beatles will have babies and make more mealworms. And before you know it, you have more mealworms than you possibly know what to do with. And then you just you scoop them out, you toss them to your chickens. And that's your mealworm breeding factory. So that's pretty easy. The newest thing that we're doing not on accident, is I am building a worm farm because we now have this Axolotl and he eats earthworms, so I have to raise earthworms to feed my son's Axolotl. The good news is
Danielle McCoy:Can you can you use like red wigglers or something where you can like make compost?
Bonnie Von Dohre:They want to know Okay, so yes and no, they do not like red wigglers because they taste bitter to them. So if you're going to feed, this is going to get in way too much detail. If you're going to feed them red wigglers you have to boil them first or blanch them. Oh, right. No,
Danielle McCoy:not doing it.
Bonnie Von Dohre:There's actually a now and we only eat like one worm a day. So you're literally just like you're blanching one worm. Putting it up and feeding it. Okay, so there's that there is an African Nightcrawler that is much larger than the red wigglers they're actually the largest worms used for composting. They're still heat tolerant, and have voracious appetites everything like all the benefits of a red wiggler but apparently they taste better. So
Danielle McCoy:okay. I want to know how they know that the Axolotl thinks that the red wiggler is bitter.
Bonnie Von Dohre:Well in the breeder the breeder told us that it's something about like when the red wiggler is stressed when you like go to cut it up. I couldn't imagine why that would stress them out. So they release. Like it's like a defense mechanism for them. They release a toxin or whatever. Yeah, that like gives them a bitter taste. So that whatever is trying to eat them, leaves them alone. So have
Danielle McCoy:you cut it up to feed it?
Bonnie Von Dohre:Yes. Or no, because he's too small. And if you try to feed them a whole worm, he can't eat the whole thing. Like the whole thing won't fit in his mouth. And then some actual bottles will actually get like, anxiety about eating worms, because they're too big. Okay. I mean, I thought my cats were picky. Wow, no, no, I have an overpriced fish that I'm cutting up worms for. So see,
Danielle McCoy:we used to have little blocks of use, we have a black ghost knifefish. And there's this little blocks of frozen bloodworms and I just stick it in the tank and let it fall a little bit and then he comes out and that's it. Well, easy.
Bonnie Von Dohre:bloodworms are not a complete diet for them. Like they don't have enough nutrients for them. So that's why they have to have the reforms. The other option is black worms and I have not figured out even where to get black worms much less how to keep them so we're just gonna stick with earthworms and And Axolotl pellets. Sounds good anyway. Yeah. But in the meantime, I get a worm farm with compost tea and worm castings from my garden. So yeah. All right, moving away from talking about useless pets, and planting pasture,
Danielle McCoy:they're all outputs.
Bonnie Von Dohre:Some are just less useful than others are more useless than others. No. All right. Um, so we're kind of talking about free ranging. But one thing with planting your pasture is focusing on not just grass, because grass is not necessarily the most nutrient dense food for all of our livestock. And in fact, like when it comes to ruminants, they really well, I don't know, I mean, cattle do alright, on pasture. But again, most of these animals have evolved from grazing over like hundreds and 1000s of acres. And so they could migrate depending on their nutrient needs. And what was in bloom at the time, like I have read, or I actually I was listening to a podcast. And there was a rancher outwest, who uses permaculture practices, but he will use different pastures for his cattle, or different grazing lands, depending on what is in bloom. And he figured out like, there is this one flower that the cows would always gravitate towards when it was in bloom. And it was something about like, it, you know, had like a unique protein content or something, depending on the time of year when it was in blue. So like the animals will, they they can sense what they need. And they will graze depending on what they need. So it's not that they're just eating grass, like they're also eating the seed heads and whatever else is growing. And like with goats, they're really they're more browsers not necessarily grazers, they eat more like a deer does. So what I've actually considered doing is planting a pasture that's using a almost like a flute food plot mix, like you would use for a deer food plot. And then once it's established, actually grazing my my goats on it, it would be too high and sugar content for the horses. But it would be perfect for the goats. And plan, you know, it's another one that you use,
Danielle McCoy:you can grow like, even if you have like really limited space, like if you sunflowers and give your animals, sunflower seeds and things like that, like, it doesn't even really have to be a full blown pasture for you to be able to, you know, grow some of the food, you know, if you're already growing, I don't know something, then you know, you could grow an extra one so that you could feed it to the animals, even in a limited space.
Bonnie Von Dohre:Yeah, like I I've seen where people have taken a pallet and put hardware cloth over the top of it. And then planted. I mean, basically, it's almost like doing fodder, only you're not doing it in trays, you're just you're taking that fodder seed and planting it in like the chicken run. And you put a pallet over top of it. And then as it grows up through the hardware cloth, the chickens can eat it, but they're not scratching the seed and tearing it up. And then once it's more established, or you know they've grazed off the top of that one, you move it, you played a new section. But now that section is established enough that it's not going to get torn up, provided your chickens have enough outdoor run space. If they're on a small space, it's it's all gonna get torn up and turn back to dirt anyway, but and then did I send you that video that I did yesterday, the tick tock of me accidentally pulling up the Amaranth that Elise planted Yeah. So that's kind of like talking about planting the sunflower seeds. This is a seed mix that we had gotten for songbirds. And it has it has it has like zinnias and bright flowers but it also has sunflowers and amaranth that once they are fully mature, they will actually produce seed for the birds. And amaranth is a really good one that grows really well in the summertime that you can turn around and even use that seed as like a supplement. Or I mean even the grains are good to eat. If you just want to like you know, harvest some of the grains to feed to your words.
Danielle McCoy:Which brings us into using AMS ads to compost.
Bonnie Von Dohre:Yes. I've seen this a lot with chickens and rabbits, is you know when you're pulling up weeds from the garden just throwing them into the chicken run or putting them in the rabbit cage or rabbit, or rabbits will eat some weeds better than others. The nice thing with doing this is you can even feed them weeds that have already gone to seed. Because if the weeds are going to seed you don't want to add them to your compost pile, because then you're adding those seeds to your compost, but the animals will eat them. And it's going to be less likely. I mean, unless I swear my pigs have my best germination rate. If I feed them seeds, it will germinate but that happens a lot less frequently with the rabbits and chickens.
Danielle McCoy:Right um, we usually will grab you know, we'll go out the garden and weed and then we give all of it we just throw it in the chicken run or give it to our ducks or the geese the geese love them because that's all geese eat. A lot of people don't realize that geese are actually herbivores not on a horse. So even though they are really, really small children. Yes, they're really, really, mind don't, they're really sweet, but they're really cheap to feed. Because they don't really require a lot because usually they just like you can feed them. Hey, hey. So anyway, back on the topic. And you know, like includes like kitchen scraps and stuff like things that you didn't eat. I mean, granted, if it's cooked, and it's got a bunch of sugar and salt on it, you don't want to give it to you don't want to put your compost but you know, you don't want to be that kind of social animals. But if you you know, cut your carrot tops off my rabbits love carrot tops. Or, you know, like your semi or extra greens that you didn't eat or strawberry tops, my chickens love strawberry tops, or your watermelon rinds or you know, whatever it is, if you have scraps that you would normally put in the compost. Instead, you can feed it to your animals, and that helps supplement their feed bill. Yeah,
Bonnie Von Dohre:which actually we kind of
Danielle McCoy:Yeah, we did.
Bonnie Von Dohre:Yeah. And I will say like, there's a lot of it depends on your animal. I can feed just about any of my kitchen scraps, including meat to my pics. Now if it's pork, I don't feed it to the pigs that just feels wrong. But and so you know, just like rules when it comes to dogs and cooked bones, like I don't give cooked bones to the pigs. But you know if there's I mean if it's pasta or just anything that like has gotten old that we don't want to eat it's in the fridge then I can give it to the pigs
Danielle McCoy:and chickens are pretty good about you know, eating like random kitchen scraps. I don't know that I would give them pasta but like, like I said we usually I'm sure they do. But you don't want to give them like like like bread like stale bread. A lot of people feel Yeah, birds but really, you don't want to give them a lot of it because it's really not very good for them. It's kind of like a filler. It's not really nutrient dense. So
Bonnie Von Dohre:save the Save the bread for the mealworms then feed the male religiousness
Danielle McCoy:that would work you know we take in the summer we'll take like our watermelon rinds and I freeze them and then I'll throw them out to the chickens on a hot day and they love that we freeze strawberry tops and grapes and stuff like that, like grapes that we wouldn't eat that are starting to get kind of squishy.
Bonnie Von Dohre:Yeah. Also like even if I have a watermelon that is like starting to go bad like we we got a watermelon from farmers market a couple weeks ago. And I didn't realize it had like a puncture hole in it. I don't know how Oh, but the watermelon ended up fermenting. And so, you know, so I got my chickens drunk, I guess but
Danielle McCoy:I gave him some watermelon or wine.
Bonnie Von Dohre:So yeah, so we split it in half and threw it out to the chickens and they I mean, they will pick that thing absolutely clean. Same thing with squash or if we have too much squash, like when I was growing Seminole pumpkins, they just will go absolutely nuts in the summer. And it's a smaller squash, almost like a butter knife, but we ended up with just way too much. And so I was harvesting them and feeding them to the pigs and chickens. Pigs you can you can give them a whole squash and they will bite into it and break apart themselves. Chickens usually have to like split it up. And plus it keeps them from fighting over it and more pieces you can give them but yeah, any of that kind of stuff they love and it's a great way to supplement them and just give them some you know, it's a way to give them some fresh vegetables and things and they can get all the same health benefits from it that we get from eating fresh vegetables so great.
Danielle McCoy:And like I said, you can take some of that stuff and like keep it up and freeze it in a nice treat to help them cooled down a little bit in the summer.
Bonnie Von Dohre:And instead of do not like I see all these hacks for freezing the canned stuff, like canned corn and stuff, like has way too much salt in it. Just
Danielle McCoy:well and corn like really really heats your birds up as they don't so so you know, like corns typically a supplement that people give in the wintertime not in the summertime because
Bonnie Von Dohre:yeah, do like, like do like frozen peas. Frozen peas,
Danielle McCoy:yeah. Ducks love peace.
Bonnie Von Dohre:And just get like, get the frozen ones from the freezer section don't get a can open it up and freeze it into free. Like, I know people mean well. And it sounds like a great idea. But yeah, there are better alternatives.
Danielle McCoy:There are all right.
Bonnie Von Dohre:Dairy byproducts
Danielle McCoy:from like, cheese making and stuff when you have extra whey or, you know, extra curds or something, you can take those things and feed them to
Bonnie Von Dohre:now if you have expired, if you have expired dairy that's great for I know pigs in particular. But especially if you need to, like put some weight on them stuff like that. But yeah, this is like the if you're making cheese I guess you don't really end up with too much byproducts if you're making yogurt, it all kind of goes into it. Unless I think Greek yogurt you use just the cream. But yeah, any of that. Any of that way. I mean, you there's a lot of different ways you can use it. Like I've also used way for bread baking, but it has a lot of good, like beneficial enzymes and bacteria in it that can also help your animals. We're
Danielle McCoy:just talking about you know, like feeding, like whey or extra curds or expired dairy. If, if it's something that you can feed that particular animal,
Bonnie Von Dohre:right. I know a lot of people will talk about, you know, feeding dairy to their poultry to like increase egg production, I would say do that in limited amounts. Chickens are not mammals, and therefore are not designed to touch us dairy. So yeah, I would definitely do that limited amounts, there are other ways for them to get calcium. But
Danielle McCoy:right. The next one is all you.
Bonnie Von Dohre:It's all me like Daniel's going to touch this one. Okay, so I will add one caveat here is that, because of a liability, a lot of grocery stores will actually put locks on their dumpsters because they don't want people taking stuff out of the dumpsters. But we do have a few around here that we know which ones don't lock their dumpsters. And they they know that people are taking stuff out of the dumpsters to feed their animals. And sometimes if you have a good relationship with like the produce manager at a grocery store, and they know that you're going to come like reliably to come and pick the stuff up, they will actually hold it for you and you can pick it up at the back door. But and also talk to like local farmers markets and see if they would be like, because they're always they're always having to throw out stuff that doesn't look good. You know, if it's starting to spoil, they don't want to leave it on the shelf because it's going to turn off customers. And so it's usually going to end up going in the dumpster. But what we were doing is we were feeding it all to our pig. I know other people around here that have also done it for their cows. The only thing I will say is like if you're going to do it really do try to focus on just the produce. There are also a lot of baked goods that get thrown out. But that is going to add a lot of fat onto your animal. And so and not the good fat, not like good fat marbling. I'm talking just like that under the skin.
Danielle McCoy:Right? So
Bonnie Von Dohre:just yeah, do do that kind of stuff in moderation. But if you can find a good reliable source of produce that's getting thrown out, then that's definitely a good way to supplement your animal's diet. I mean, we were we had one one batch of pigs that we were feeding almost entirely off of dumpster food, because my husband was working at an office at the time. That was right by a large farmers market. And or it was like I don't know, it was more of a produce stand. It wasn't a farmers market because it was in town. And it was like they were buying bulk produce to turn around Reese Tell at, you know, to two people who lived in the city, right. But, you know, they were throwing out a lot of produce every day. And so my husband was able to just go and get stuff from them, like once a week, and he could just fill up the trunk of his car. And we were, we were doing that. Something else that I guess we didn't mention is if you have a brewery near you, a lot of times, they are also looking to get rid of the spit grades from the brewery. But again, that that cannot be the entire diet of your animal, it will make them sick, right? So you have to like I can't remember what the percentage is. But you can definitely use that to supplement. So I guess we probably should have actually put this first. If you're trying to save money, then don't feed any more animals in you absolutely have to. I mean, personally, I keep all of my older hens, even if they're not laying as well as they used to. But my problem usually ends up that I end up feeding a lot of extra roosters that I should not be feeding.
Danielle McCoy:Right? I think, you know, we have to realize that this is supposed to be a farm, not an animal rescue, thank we really hard to decide that it's a farm and not an animal rescue. But especially with rising feed costs, it makes it really really difficult for me to justify, you know, spending extra money feeding animals that serve like really no purpose. We have, you know, a few animals, a few chickens that have a pardon, and can live out their days and a couple of ducks. But for the most part, you know, like, you're either providing me with food, or I'm gonna eat you. Right? This is a farm, not an animal rescue.
Bonnie Von Dohre:Yeah, well, and I know, like a hard one for us has been with the pigs. Because we were doing really good. Like, we were getting a couple of consistent letters. And then it just, I don't know, we stopped being able to get them pregnant. And I don't know if it was because they were overweight. Or, like if I was missing them being in heat or what the deal was, you know, we got a bore thinking that was gonna help. Well, he's too short. And despite what everyone says that the girls will like lay down to let him breed. My girls are not doing that.
Danielle McCoy:They're not having it.
Bonnie Von Dohre:So now I have an extra pig that I am feeding and I still have no piglets. But in the meantime, I'm attached to my pigs. And right overgrown dogs that eat well, logically, well, logically, especially with the rising feed costs. I know, they should probably be saw. So that part of me is like hesitant because they're my pigs and I'm attached. Right. Right. And then part of me is hesitant, because I'm worried with their age that it's not going to be good sausage.
Danielle McCoy:Right? Yeah, there is that too. Like when you especially on that point, right?
Bonnie Von Dohre:So yeah, I don't know. It's, you know, it's hard to drum and then not good sausage, and then I've wasted Oh, do I just keep trying to figure out how to breed how to get them bread,
Danielle McCoy:rabbits, or ducks.
Bonnie Von Dohre:So hey, hey is beneficial. In general, we like to throw hay and even, we'll even throw some hay to the pigs. And for my horses, I really tried to have them on with hay as expensive as it is. It's really hard for us to be able to do that going to the goats and rabbits, because I can't really free range either of them. So they're getting the hay and we're feeding like we'll feed the horses their grain and then we just open up the paddock gates, and they're just going everywhere and mowing for us. Because coincidentally my lawn mower is broken. Alright, so to summarize, ways that we can reduce our feed bill, so we can shop local, buy, bulk again, probably, we're gonna have to be from a local feed mill Some, like, I know Tractor Supply will give you a discount if you buy so many bags of feed. But because their feed is already so much more than the local feed mills, the discount is kind of minimal in my opinion. But anyway, growing fodder, fermenting your feed free ranging your animals raising bugs as a food source for your animals. Planting passion, using your animals to compost yard waste as well as kitchen scraps, feeding them kitchen scraps, feeding them deriving from a local supermarket or farmers market. And also calling unproductive animals is going to be you know, the resources that you have available, your personal preferences, your animal prep that like the food preferences of your animals, and really just kind of finding a combination that works best for you. So you know, it does not look like feed prices are going to get better anytime soon. So really, we're all just kind of doing the best we can. You know, for a lot of us, its meaning a lot of downsizing. I know a lot of ranchers around here they're selling off cattle, because they just can't afford to feed them. So, yeah, we're gonna have future generate income to balance out the feed costs. So yeah, I hope that this was able to help you. Please review and subscribe to the podcast. Thank you for listening to this episode of the grounded simplicity podcast. If we were able to help you in any way, please share this episode with a friend. And also leave us a review on Apple podcasts. You can also join us over on Patreon at grounded simplicity and help to support this podcast as well as become a patron and get a behind the scenes look at the creation of our podcast and even have some input on future episodes.