I’m sure you probably already know that feeding livestock can get expensive. This is particularly true if you are feeding high production animals that cannot perform off hay or pasture alone. A small flock of sheep eating 1-2lb/head a day of grain will burn through a 50 lb bag of feed in no time. What you might not know is that locally sourced feed can slash your feed bill.
Feed costs are one of the biggest expenses livestock producers have. How you feed your animals is likely the biggest factor in whether they are profitable or not. Thus, it makes sense to do everything you can to minimize your feed costs. On our farm, almost exclusively feeding locally sourced feed is the most logical, economical choice.
As an added bonus, we are supporting our local farmers by putting money directly into their hands and our local community instead of into the pockets of big corporations. Your local grain farmers need and appreciate community support just as much as the boutique micro green farmers at the farmers markets.
Today we are going to give you our take on feeding locally sourced whole grains to our animals.
But first let’s address the issue of feeding whole grains. There are a lot of myths floating around on the internet about feeding animals. Many of which most people have completely bought into. It has gotten to the point that if you mention online that you feed whole grains instead of pelleted complete feeds, you’re told your feed choices are the cause of all your problems. You may be accused of ‘neglecting’ or ‘abusing’ your animals. People will tear you to shreds for even mentioning feeding whole corn to chickens. So, you might be questioning whether it’s safe to feed whole grains to your animals.
The answer is yes! Whole grains are safe to feed and are typically well utilized. Did you know that pelleted feed like so commonly seen didn’t really become a thing until after World War II? It wasn’t until the 50’s when they really started to perfect making complete feeds. Not that long ago we started making this feed animals now ‘can’t live without’. Prior to pelleted feeds, animals were mainly fed whole food diets. The point being, no matter how much big ag wants you to believe that you have to feed your animals their approved brand of pelleted feed, you don’t.
Don’t get me wrong, pelleted feed certainly has its advantages.
It’s convenient and very much simplifies things particularly in confined operations like keeping chickens that do not get to free range. But it also has its disadvantages, and is definitely not required for healthy animals.
Studies have proven time and again that animals can utilize whole grains very effectively, and that they can even be safer to feed because they don’t carry as much risk of acidosis as pelleted feeds. Livestock like sheep are capable of performing well on a variety of different whole feed diets. Thus, when feeding livestock you should utilize whatever feeds are most readily available and economical—typically feeds from local farmers.
If you have a pasture based operation where your animals are getting the majority of their diet from the food they forage, you can likely very easily utilize locally sourced whole feeds. You will likely see little to no performance change. However, to derive benefit you need to understand what feed value it has and why you’re feeding it.
As a general rule, energy and protein are the two nutrients most likely to be lacking in livestock’s diet.
Lucky for us the gold standards for energy and protein are the most commonly grown grains. They are very easily sourced and cheap. Read on to see how we utilize whole grains to reduce our feed bill.
Our flock is pasture based. The sheep get almost everything they need from pasture, and a trace mineral salt. They don’t need a complete feed, they are herbivores designed to thrive off of forage only. The grass in our pastures provides almost everything sheep need for the majority of the year. We’ve done forage tests and know this to be true.
The exception being when we ask them for high production. During late gestation and early lactation, nutritional needs are very high, particularly if they have triplets. While our flock can raise lambs on a forage only diet, they will hold condition better and make more milk with some supplementation. And we want that, because that is better for them and better for us.
Energy and protein are often lacking in their diets because they cannot consume enough grass to meet their higher needs during gestation and lactation. This can easily be remedied by feeding them a mixture of whole corn (energy) and raw soybeans (protein). We source them from a local farmer, at a significant cost saving to us over bagged feed. Our lambs can also effectively utilize the same whole grains as long as their rumens are functioning.
If you are feeding omnivores like chickens instead of herbivores, you need to utilize whole feed diets a little more carefully to make sure their nutritional needs are being met.
The requirements of omnivores are somewhat more complex, and you need to have at least a basic understanding of their nutritional requirements. If you do not feel comfortable with designing a diet for omnivores it is probably best to supplement with a complete feed. Alternatively, utilize one of the available feed supplements. They are designed to be fed along side whole grains to make complete poultry/hog diets. This ensures your animals are getting what they need while you learn.
Keep in mind that transitioning your animals doesn’t have to happen immediately or all at once. You can experiment a small amount as you are able and move forward when you feel comfortable with your increased knowledge and how your animals are performing. If you can find a local mentor with experience utilizing whatever feeds are available locally, even better.
As a side note, since we mentioned feeding soybeans above, we would also like to clarify that ruminants like sheep can effectively utilize raw soybeans. You just need to keep in mind they are high in fats so can easily be overfed. Monogastrics like chickens CANNOT eat raw soybeans. For non-ruminants, soybeans need to be cooked/heat treated. You can likely get soybean meal which is safe to feed them from local feed mills.
Lastly, we want to mention the main downside we see to buying feed locally.
Availability. Most of the grain farmers harvest and take everything directly to the grain mill which means that feed is often only available seasonally. You have to get it from the farmer at harvest. Thus, it requires some planning ahead and the ability to store extra feed somewhere dry.
Storage can be as simple as trash cans with lids, or as complicated as a grain bin. Whatever fits your needs and budget. Our preference is to feed our animals seasonally to make logistics easier. We purchase wheat in July when it is harvested and use that to feed our poultry and any sheep who need some extra groceries in the summer or fall. Then in the fall we purchase enough corn to get through the winter and spring.
We hope this has given you some ideas of how you might lower the feed costs on your farm while simultaneously supporting your fellow farmers!
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