Homemade Feed Recipe

Over the next year, I would like to be completely self-sufficient when it comes to chicken feed. This is because I think we're headed towards a total collapse of western civilization. But that's a topic for another day.

Being 100% self-sufficient means growing everything you need. These are the things I am growing or plan to grow:

Wheat
Corn
Soybean
Sunflower
Millet
Oats

Can I make decent feed from just these ingredients and does anyone have a recipe based on them? I've seen a bunch of videos and read many articles but none have this exact mix. I guess I could grow peas too but growing peas at scale is kind of a PITA. Any advice would be welcome.

I respect your intentions for sure. Feeding chickens 'from the farm' requires a diversified farm, where animal products such as skim milk, meat and offal off cuts are fed to the chickens and there are livestock so they can pick through their manure for bugs. Chickens can't sufficiently live on just grains and legumes, well at least they can't productively live on them.
Growing, harvesting, processing and storing grains on a small farm scale is quite a mammoth undertaking. If you have the acres, the equipment and the time I look forward to hearing about your progress, I would love to be able to do the same.

We have about 5 acres and lots of equipment. Most of the fields are rice paddies but we plant first week of June and harvest in September. I could plant winter wheat, oats and millet in October. We are only doing 3 rice fields right now and that produces more than enough rice for an extended family for a whole year. I believe I could grow the 500 lbs I need for 30 chickens.

I have read many threads here on BYC and I know I'm going to be told not to bother. And I understand that. Feed here is $11 for a 20kg bag, very cheap. and of course I will continue to buy that.

But my question to you all is this. What happens if that feed becomes unavailable? What happens if we see a major economic collapse, war, EMP, natural global catastrophe, or something like the Great Depression? Your chickens will help feed you so it's in your interest to keep them alive.

Basically I'm looking for a SHTF scenario chicken feed recipe. It's not something I intend to feed the birds, unless the S does HTF.

If you can feed them some fish, meat and dairy then I don't see why they can't live just fine on any mix of the grains you have outlined. Because we are talking about a SHTF scenario, it doesn't so much matter if they're getting every single thing they need to be the best most productive chickens that ever lived. Your biggest concern under those circumstances is providing enough calcium for your layers. Which can be provided by grinding up bones.

I've had these thoughts myself. I grow a garden for my family and the chickens, although I only grow flint corn and beans as storage grains/legumes and definitely not in quantities that would get us through an entire year.

If SHTF I would still grow flint corn and beans, but then grow most of our starches as carrots, turnips, potatoes and winter squash rather than grains. The chickens would have to live on that for the major starch component of their diet.

Zeoliter said:

...
But my question to you all is this. What happens if that feed becomes unavailable? What happens if we see a major economic collapse, war, EMP, natural global catastrophe, or something like the Great Depression? Your chickens will help feed you so it's in your interest to keep them alive.

Basically I'm looking for a SHTF scenario chicken feed recipe. It's not something I intend to feed the birds, unless the S does HTF.

Click to expand...

I don't have a recipe (I have books that have many recipes to refer to if needed) but maybe a few ideas will help. You might buy a bucket of trace mineral salt (nutra balancer would work). Get one for chickens if you can and there may be regionally specific blends. A recipe can have a lot of components that have substitutes - the salt and trace minerals not so much, especially if your soil is deficient in any (most are, I think). Related - it would be good to get some soil samples analyzed for trace elements as well as the basic panel if you plan to grow the majority of your food.

You might also pick breeds that don't push the envelope for max production. They should have more margin to tolerate less than ideal diets probably by responding to shortages in their diets by reducing production sooner instead of pulling the needed nutrients from their bodies right away.

I would probably raise rabbits or a pair of pigs even though I don't eat them. They would be to feed the chickens; some meat makes the chicken ration much easier to balance.

And pick mid season varieties for most things. No need to push the envelope for extra early ripening unless you are trying to avoid specific insects or something like that.

Zeoliter said:

Over the next year, I would like to be completely self-sufficient when it comes to chicken feed. This is because I think we're headed towards a total collapse of western civilization. But that's a topic for another day.

Being 100% self-sufficient means growing everything you need. These are the things I am growing or plan to grow:

Wheat
Corn
Soybean
Sunflower
Millet
Oats

Can I make decent feed from just these ingredients and does anyone have a recipe based on them? I've seen a bunch of videos and read many articles but none have this exact mix. I guess I could grow peas too but growing peas at scale is kind of a PITA. Any advice would be welcome.

Click to expand...

With the acres, and the equipment, and a willingness to suppliment from elsewhere - how's your access to seaweed???? You could do tolerably under a SHTF situation, until you can no longer run the equipment, at least. Animal/fish protein you could add would also be benificial. Any chance you could turn a rice pattie into an aquaculture with carp or the like? or even freshwater shrimp...

/edit and FWIW, I'm one of the people saying "don't do it" all the time.

I agree with others that you need to figure out an animal protein source to get all the essential amino acids. Animal protein is the most expensive component and you cannot afford to use protein that can be eaten (by humans to feed chickens. Chicken processing waste can fill part of that need but you'll need processing waste from other animals to make up the difference.

Before buying equipment, you will need to either secure a source of electricity or plan to do all the processing by hand. Most of the grain will need to be milled and the animal protein pulverized. The feed will also need to be cooked to remove antinutritional factors and to glutenize starches so it can be bound together. It would be a lot of hard manual labor but possible to do without electricity.

Zeoliter said:

Can I make decent feed from just these ingredients and does anyone have a recipe based on them?

Click to expand...

This is not an exact match, but most of the weight of ingredients could come from your list:
https://www.fertrell.com/livestock-rations
The site sells ingredients for livestock feeds, and they also list recipes.

Those recipes are probably equivalent to the ones used for the chicken food typically found in stores. I notice they are based on large amounts of corn and soybeans, with smaller amounts of oats, alfalfa meal, fish meal, calcium, and the "nutri-balancer" product sold by that company (which presumably provides the smaller amounts of other things needed to make the ration work right.) Each chicken feed recipe makes a ton of feed (literally, 2000 pounds), so you would probably have to scale it down if you have a normal-sized backyard flock.

If there are just a few ingredients you would have to buy, you may be able to stock up on them now, and use them gradually over time. (But check how long they can be safely stored, and in what conditions.)

Stock up on the vitamin and mineral premix, but with the understanding that vitamins have a finite shelf life.

This Armageddon thing is going to be complicated. Remember to eat the chickens before they can eat you.

I haven't set down with my calculator yet, but my gut tells me it would be a heavy soy/wheat mix with rice filling in the place of corn in more "traditional US-style" feeds. The soy is still going to need heat treatment, dried seaweed will be needed for trace nutrients, millet and/or oats might be useful for rounding out an amino acid profile, but again will need treatments specific to each - or the whole thing can be fermented. But an animal protein source at around 10% of the total feed weight (pre-fermentation, if you go that route) would make it MUCH easier.