Would like your opinion

This thread has been on my mind all day.

Prairie Chick, I struggled with whether or not to even post what is on my heart and in my head. Please, please do not take this the wrong way because it would be very easy to be insulted by what I say and believe me, that is not my intent.

My worry is that when we can't cover the cost of feeding our critters, we are at the thin edge of the wedge.

It is one easy step to cut back on feed costs and just another small step to not be feeding your animals enough. Replacing tried and true feed/nutritional requirements with a small amount of cheaper food (bread or older grocery store produce) seems harmless at first. If strictly managed it is just fine. But when more money can be saved by giving the animals even less of the costly food...at some point this very easily slips into not feeding your animals enough or correctly.

I AM NOT SAYING THIS IS WHAT YOU ARE DOING!!!! But I have seen where people, to save some money, feed everything bread, bread and more bread and then rabbits, ducks,chickens, geese, goats, horses, cows, you name it, starve and die. They weaken and succumb to illness through improper nutrition. I have walked through the frozen, emaciated carcasses of animals who were cheap to keep, when they should not have been owned in the first place.

Responsible stewardship over these animals says when we cannot feed them, it's time to not own them. We all hit bumps in the road financially, unexpected things happen in lives that mess up the finances. It sounds to me that you are feeling a little overwhelmed with the number of critters, and they can explode in population very quickly! I see that you are planning on downsizing. I urge you, if you feel stretched to the max with your mouths to feed, please consider downsizing before things get too bad. The best intentions can get out of hand and then a bad situation can sometimes become a terrible situation.

I believe (not an expert) that some bread is perfectly fine for birds. Judging when 'some' passes into too much is so very, very difficult to do. I've seen very good people make bad decisions without even really knowing they were.

I hope this is just a glitch and that by Spring, things have ironed themselves out or the extra boarders have moved on to freezer camp somewhere. I am so sorry if it seems I am targetting you, I am not! This post brought to mind an issue that we all have seen and discussed here before; what happens when people cannot afford their animals. As great as this 'farming' lifestyle is, it's not cheap! It's good to know that many other supplement with bread (I had never thought of this!) and that you have guidance and experience to help you along. I hope you're not offended at me. I will open my mouth now and put my foot in it...thank Gordon for all that yoga!

Thank-you, Uno. I too have been thinking about this post. Being blunt, my first thought was to suggest to sell some birds, but your suggestions are much more nicely put.

A little amount of bread might be okay ,but to much can't be good for any animal .If you look at the amount of actual grain in a loaf of bread compared to what a animal might eat in a day it is very little and as such you woulf have to be feeding a lot of bread to make up for it .I realize that the other ingrediants might be of some benifit as well ,but it isn't natural feed for them .We had some colonies feeding a lot of bread a few years ago to there livestock ( I mean truckloads were being picked up ) and they suddenly stopped ? makes you wonder what went wrong ?? Might be better to reduce the animal count at this time ?

Gack! Sue! I sure hope I wasn't blunt! I went out of my NOT to be blunt.

As I see it, the truth is that this might just be a temporary glitch for Prairie Dog, and short measure to fill a gap. Who knows what happens in a person's life? I am in no position to tell anyone to get rid of their animals, there is too much I don't know and I can't make that call.

However, I would urge people struggling with the feed budget to sit down and have a hard, honest, reality based talk with themselves. Loving your animals isn't enough. You can love them to pieces and still starve them to death. In which case that isn't love at all. Again, Prairie Chick I am not saying this is what you are doing!

THe literature I have read says bread is fine, up to a point. A small point. Past a certain percentage of daily feed, it simply isn't going to cut it. So one would have to sit down and figure out how much bread they were going to feed. 10%? 20%? 50%?

If this is just to get through winter, no worries. But if spring comes and there is still a need to make the food budget go further...then it's time to take stock, hard stock, of the situation. And it sounds like Prairie Chick is doing exactly that. My post, while inspired by her, certainly was not aimed at her, but a general comment on the fact that at the heart of it, if we can't afford to feed them, we shouldn't own them. Pffft, blunt, me?

Prairie Chick wrote:I can't afford to free feed as all my birds free range and I have 34 full grown geese, 10 or so turkeys, ducks, peacocks and chickens. The geese and turkeys are major pigs! I will be down sizing the geese in the spring, I would like to get down to about 12 geese, no turkeys, a few ducks and a few chickens. SOOOO until then i have to do what i can.

Right now i feed my birds like cattle, i pour a couple food lines. The geese eat the bigger stuff and the rest eat what is left. I also put food in the feeders in the barn and coops.

I want to butcher a few geese and turkeys soon, just need a nicer day to do so.

oops, didn't realize you were dealing with geese.

Heh, can you imagine free feeding geese? I don't think they're ever full.

uno wrote:Gack! Sue! I sure hope I wasn't blunt! I went out of my NOT to be blunt.

As I see it, the truth is that this might just be a temporary glitch for Prairie Dog, and short measure to fill a gap. Who knows what happens in a person's life? I am in no position to tell anyone to get rid of their animals, there is too much I don't know and I can't make that call.

However, I would urge people struggling with the feed budget to sit down and have a hard, honest, reality based talk with themselves. Loving your animals isn't enough. You can love them to pieces and still starve them to death. In which case that isn't love at all. Again, Prairie Chick I am not saying this is what you are doing!

THe literature I have read says bread is fine, up to a point. A small point. Past a certain percentage of daily feed, it simply isn't going to cut it. So one would have to sit down and figure out how much bread they were going to feed. 10%? 20%? 50%?

If this is just to get through winter, no worries. But if spring comes and there is still a need to make the food budget go further...then it's time to take stock, hard stock, of the situation. And it sounds like Prairie Chick is doing exactly that. My post, while inspired by her, certainly was not aimed at her, but a general comment on the fact that at the heart of it, if we can't afford to feed them, we shouldn't own them. Pffft, blunt, me?

A good point. Feed prices are going up. While I probably could afford to keep my birds, it will just be getting to the point where I'm not willing to pay the cost. This year I only hatched Chantecler and Wyandottes. The rest I am going to allow to live out their lives but, within a couple of years, my numbers will be about half of what they are now.

No Uno, I am the one who wanted to be blunt. You are the one who said the same thing so nicely. I am often too blunt and need to temper my words with kindness, especially when you never really know the whole story. However, sometimes i forget how others may feel when they hear my words and I.just say them.

I am not offended and Please don't be offended by me responding to you....just want to say this again

Prairie Chick wrote:I actually found a farmer that is selling me wheat and oats. He will mix it and grind it for me. However he hasn't done it yet so while i am waiting i have to buy feed from the mill.

So I will have unlimited amount of grains as soon as its done, I am just being a bit tight for a couple weeks. There is more than enough for all birds to eat BUT didn't know if I should feed once a day or twice...that is why I was wanting others opinions on how often to feed per day....I think maybe my original question has gotten lost in the shuffle

As for the bread issue, I feed the bread as a snack in the morning PLUS they get their mix of grains.

uno wrote:It sounds to me that you are feeling a little overwhelmed with the number of critters, and they can explode in population very quickly! I see that you are planning on downsizing. I urge you, if you feel stretched to the max with your mouths to feed, please consider downsizing before things get too bad. The best intentions can get out of hand and then a bad situation can sometimes become a terrible situation.

I am not overwhelmed at all, I actually don't even have that many birds (thanks to the wild life). The decision to down size is purely pressure from DH as he doesn't like birds and would like me to get rid of them all. Just to clarify on THAT situations, he doesn't do a thing, I do it all including paying for the feed!...Its all me so not sure why he hates birds so much but he always has.

uno wrote:I AM NOT SAYING THIS IS WHAT YOU ARE DOING!!!! But I have seen where people, to save some money, feed everything bread, bread and more bread and then rabbits, ducks,chickens, geese, goats, horses, cows, you name it, starve and die. They weaken and succumb to illness through improper nutrition. I have walked through the frozen, emaciated carcasses of animals who were cheap to keep, when they should not have been owned in the first place.

I am NOT doing this and think i better just say that so I am not accused of neglecting my animals. As i said before, this is just temporary as I wait for my wheat and oats to be ground up. I also have more than enough hay, we have about 150 large round bales for 3 horses. Most of our 160 acres is hay land.

Every night our three rabbits get lettuce, carrots, celery and an apple as their bed time snack. They also have free feed of rabbit pellets.
My foals get sweet feed twice a day as advised by my trainer. My pleasantly plump old mare gets sweet feed in the morning and an apple at bed time, I am sure trainer would like me to stop this LOL.

With that all said i guess i was worried because the birds don't have their bread snack and they probably feel they are going without...In all reality it is me worried they are going without, I am sure they don't even realize it.

Isn't it funny how a simply question about how often to feed per day turns into accusations of animal neglect, directly OR indirectly....No offense to anyone

I Know prairie Chick and Let me tell you Her animals are better taken care of and fed more than alot of peoples Children.
What She was asking is for advice on how to cut her feed bill down by different ways people feed.
Some of the People told her that they feed them bread to help with feed.She dont feed bread as a main meal it was others that said they did.
She does not have Bunches and Bunches of Birds
She has been Selling off her geese but there are not all the sales here in Saskatchewan
That are at other places. She would Butcher them all before she would let them go Hungry
All she was asking was Ideas of how and what other people do to cut down on the feed cost. Mayme worded different but that is what the question was

after getting the LF cornish i realized how much some birds can eat, i usually free feed my marans, ameracaunas, i added my cornish pullets in with them a few weeks ago for the winter and going from filling up the self feeder every 3-4th day i was filling it up every 2nd day in the morning! thats ridiculus for only adding 6 birds! so i had to nip it in the butt, so i give them 2 large scoops of layer/ pullet grower in their feeders then scratch for snacks then i give them bread to keep them occupied, to fill their growing tummies! as if i free fed them i would be broke, and they would prob explode! LOL i dont see a problem using bread for in between as fillers, my birds are all healthy i maybe could see a problem if thats all they ever recieved was white bread but they dont and PC isnt claiming to only do this as well...our birds get table scraps as well! in the 30's i cant see them only feeding $15 25lb bag of chicken feed.....they free ranged and got table scraps extra grain ect...my guys get all table scraps as well .. heck even the cows get bread for a treat and they looove it!!! they give you whole wheat/ grain breads everything... so thats all i am giving PC a example how i feed my birds works for me and them they are not lacking anything they get all their vitamins a day... i love how everything always gets twisted around to make someone look like a bad guy...,

Hopefully that farmer gets his butt in gear
I would consider feeding my birds SOME bread too but I do not know of anywhere in our area that sells day old stuff for that cheap

I bought a pallet of feed Saturday so i am good for a couple of weeks.

I think to get back to the main point of the topic - it only makes financial SENSE to ask about the most cost effective method to feed your animals, especially in times where cost of feed is increasing while value of animals is decreasing, or at the very least - staying the same.

We have a few different methods of feeding. We have a big custom made feeder in our laying pen that holds 5 bags of feed (lasts about 2 weeks). It has a deep tray at the bottom of the feeder to help prevent spilling and wasting as our birds wont eat off the floor. In breeding pens we have hanging feeders that we put a gallon of feed in/day, which ends up keeping it full 24/7. For growing babies we have troughs, which make it easy to waste feed. As such, we feed them twice a day otherwise they kick and dig out the majority of the feed.

We don't feed scratch until later in the day, because we want our birds to fill up on pellets that contain their vitamins, minerals and protein. In my books, scratch, veggie scraps, bread scraps are all in the category of nice to have but not need to have. I still feed it to help keep them occupied and busy, especially in rainy, damp, dark winter months.