Creative ways to grow what you feed your animals

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This year I have been experimenting with growing some feed crops. I chose sunflowers, milo, hulless oats, and pumpkins, corn. Although we have a fairly low feed bill, I am interested in reducing it to close to nothing. I picked crops that I felt I could cut and allow some of the animals to do the threshing. I plan on hanging bundles of grain and sunflowers for the chickens to harvest themselves. I am also interested in your recommendations for storing these crops until use. Does anybody here do this?

Little Bit Farm

-- Little Bit Farm (littlebit@brightok.net), July 15, 2003

Answers

Well we grow some of those items and have grown some of the rest in the past years. In our barn we have 2 grainarys that are rodent proof that we stored oats and corn in. We didn't shell our corn just put it in the granary and shelled it as we need it for the chickens and poultry. We usually just broke the ears up to feed to the pigs. At the present we are growing pumpkins to chunk up and use as needed They seem to keep real good in a cool dry area. We also grow a large crop of turnips in the fall . We have someone come in and bale our hay on shares so just store it in our barn loft. Your ideas sound really great for producing more of your own feed. I"ll have to try the sunflowers next year, Lauraleah

-- Lauraleah (lauraleah@mo-net.com), July 15, 2003.

We like to grow millet......the chickens love it and if you harvest with a scythe before completely dryed it can be stored like loose hay and then forked into the chicken coop for them to scratch for feed and also for a nice bedding.

-- diane (gardiacaprines@yahoo.com), July 15, 2003.

My dad says if you grow sunflowers, nothing else will ever grow in that spot. Does anyone have experience with planting where sunflowers have been?

-- mary,tx (mlg@mlg.mlg), July 15, 2003.

Mary..........I don't think that is true. We rotate our planting and I have never had that problem. Actually, I wish it were true.......I would plant them where ever I didn't want weeds!!!!

-- diane (gardiacaprines@yahoo.com), July 16, 2003.

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