Free or near free feed??Anyone take advantage of bread from the breadstore?

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We are going to be on a limited budget. Does anyone know how to save hugely on feed costs. Does anyone take advantage of the free bread or rolls the breadstore discounts or throws away?? Does the bread or rolls add anything to say hogs or is it a bad idea??

-- Carla (herbs@computer-concepts.com), February 04, 2002

Answers

Hi ,I get a pickup load of stale bread and rolls for $5.00 every couple of weeks-feed it to the chickens and rabbits as treats. Take it out of the bags and let it dry in the sun,it keeps for awhile dried. It does cut down on feed costs, I wouldn't use it as the only feed. Daryll

-- Daryll in NW FLA (twincrk@hotmail.com), February 04, 2002.

I get "old" bread for the outlet store, they can seel it a animal feed, as long as there isnt any mold,, like that matters to chickens or hogs. BUt its 3.00 for a rack of 20 trays,, I got over 200 loafs last time,,along with twinkies, fruit pies, and such

-- Stan (sopal@net-port.com), February 04, 2002.

When I was a teenager, we used to get sour milk products from someone we knew. A distributor perhaps? We had a restaurant, and after we stopped keeping pigs, there were folks who would pick up all our "leftovers" for their pigs. Also, our local food co-op has compost that I sometimes get for my chickens. In fact, the store was recently closed because there had been a sewage leak in the apartments upstairs, and I was lucky enough to get all the grain, noodles, flours,etc. for my birds! I think I may have been the only direct beneficiary from that castastrophe. I wouldn't have got such a blessing if I haven't been able to come right away with a truck. And I think it's unlikely I will ever get a feed windfall like that again! good luck!

-- Shannon in SW Wash (bramblescratched@yahoo.com), February 04, 2002.

If you do get the bread be absolutely sure that cows do not get any of the plastic wrapper, they WILL be dead the next morning.

-- mitch hearn (moopups@citlink.net), February 04, 2002.

Be careful with restaurant scraps, many animal has suffered gastric injury due to toothpicks left on plates that went to the scrap receptacle. Green grocer scraps could be a safer option.

-- Jay Blair in N. AL (jayblair678@yahoo.com), February 04, 2002.


Carla, I was raised on pork that was grain fed and we loved it. Now that we are in a different area we have neighbors that pick up the stale bread, rolls, twinkies etc. and it is a significant part of their pigs' diet. I can't even eat the pork from those pigs although they are nice enough to bring us some nice cuts after butchering. So, I guess it is what you are used to but I'll buy my pork rather than eat that from twinkie fed pigs. Just personal preferance. Good luck with things, LQ

-- Little Quacker (carouselxing@juno.com), February 04, 2002.

We feed goats ,pigs, 2 calves, chickens,ducks and geese with "scrap" that we pick up from two grocery stores every day. the pigs get mostly veggies fruit and some bread, the goats and calves get all the leafy veggies some apples,a bit of the other veggies and hay,the ducks geese and chickens pick at the leafy veggies and get scratch grain and corn ... We have had comments on how our meat tastes so much better than the stuff that you buy in the stores .Aside from gas to go into town (less than 5 miles) our pigs cost 10 dollars each at the time of butchering.

-- joe (dyslexic_farmers@wightman.ca), February 04, 2002.

Check with you local food back. Most of them get day old bread and throw out what is not taken at the end of the day. Also our local grocery store let's us take produce and milk out of the dumpster(we can't carry anything out of the store due to some dumb law). We only feed these things to our pigs and chickens as treats. You just need to get creative and ask around,never know what you may come up with.

-- Jo in PA (farmerjo02@yahoo.com), February 04, 2002.

We get left over pizza dough. it's baked into a large loaf at the end of the day and we pick up 7 every week. pigs like to play with them and eat at them. Soaked it goes further. As was mentioned good feed if it's in good condition, and not as a single source of feed for most animals.

-- Ross (amulet@istar.ca), February 04, 2002.

Would you try to subsist on bread alone? WYSIWYG and garbage in, garbage out.

-- a2 (nospam@nospam.com), February 04, 2002.


um, I get the free bread from the bread store, and give it to charity, the rabbits, the chickens, the horse, the goats, and feed my family to boot! I get it by the van load (5 dollars) or free, depending on how much they have to get rid of and whoo is on shift. If it aint moldy, its fine. My animals are fed other feeds as well, the bread is treats not all they eat. There is nothing I can see witth eating day old bread.

-- Kevin in NC (Vantravlrs@aol.com), February 05, 2002.

If it is 100% whole grain, it is fine, if it is that nasty processed stuff that is made from bleached flour, I would sooner just feed the critters dioxin directly and get it over with!!!

I would not feed the critters anything that I myself would not eat, especially any critter I might be eating directly from myself, like eggs or meat. Garbage in, garbage out was well stated!!!

-- Annie Miller in SE OH (annie@1st.net), February 05, 2002.


I had a friend who used to work at a gorcery store in the bakery & produce dept. She used to bring all sorts of breads, rolls, cakes, & items for my chickens. We usually picked out the good bread & froze it for us. The rest went to our chickens & rabbits & an occasional treat for the horses (one particularly liked jelly doughnuts!). They did great on this plus free feeding of lay mash.

I also got lots of produce when she worked that dept. Again we took the good stuff for ourselvesthen I divided as appropriate for each type animal. Rabbits got greens, roots, some fruits, each. Horses got carrots, apples, pears, turnips, etc. chickens got whatever was left!

-- ellie (elnorams@aol.com), February 05, 2002.


Haven't bought bread from the "day old" bread store for a while now. The cost was just about the same as buying another bag of goat or horse feed !! They had you sign a paper saying that you will not feed it to humans. My husband works in a local food store and he says the food that is thrown away is a sin. No dumpsters outside like in the old days either. All goes directly into a large trailer. No way to get to it from outside the store. Milk, butter and meats. The bigger stores won't take the chance of someone supposedly getting sick on any expired food. It really drives him crazy too. Recenlty went to a "farm" store run by Mennonite women. I was shocked to see them selling cheeses and ceral and other foods that were out dated by 4 months...yep 4 months !! I called the local dept of arg. Pa state) and they said it was up to the owner if he wanted to sell outdated foods. Baby foods and milk, butter can't be sold expired. Guess the food chains can't take a chance with this. Some of the cans of food were really in poor shape. All dented and "buckled". Felt sorry for the women shopping there. You get better buys with the larger chain store sales and better quality too. Guess you just have to be careful in what you buy for your family. Sometimes saving a buck or two isn't a bargain.

-- Helena (windyacs@npacc.net), February 06, 2002.

All critters need the feed that is formulated for them. If you fill them up with other stuff, they won't grow, thrive, and be as healthy.

-- ~Rogo (rogo2222@hotmail.com), February 07, 2002.


I used to live rent free on a hog farm years ago and the owners thought they could get by pretty easy feeding hogs on bread from bread stores. To make a grusome story short - those hogs all died (about 50 of them) because there was no nutrition in it, but I imagine you could supplement with other food. I'm not sure what ratio, but I would be careful just feeding bread.

-- Karen Braun (jbraun@one.net), February 07, 2002.

feed the stuff from the bread store to livestock you plan to slaughter for your own use. government and slaughter facilities can and do test for residues in the meat.

-- RANDAL Lauritsen (ladnar@iowatelecom.net), March 18, 2002.

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