Stocking Up on Animal Feed (+ How Much to Feed Animals)

Hey pioneers. Welcome to episode number 343. Today's episode, we are going to be talking about stocking up on animal feed, some different feed options, how much feed you need per animal, as well as bulk size ordering, looking for sales, storing your animal feed, and some of the ways that we have had to reconfigure lately based upon now being a dairy cow owner.

If you want to check out the blog post that accompanies this episode, as well as a full on video, I don't usually create a podcast episode or not always on subjects that I do YouTube videos on because oftentimes they don't necessarily lend themselves as well to audio if it's a step by step tutorial, which some of my YouTube videos are. But I felt that the YouTube video that I did on stocking up on animal feed now. So if you're subscribed to my YouTube channel, you might have seen that was the newest video that came out at the time of this recording.

But I wanted to come and talk about it on the podcast because there was some things that I didn't have in the video, and to kind of share how we are reconfiguring things now that we have our dairy animal. But if you want to read the written blog posts that has links and resources, as well as some of the mathematical equations so that you can figure out based on your animal, which I will walk you through here on the podcast. You can access all of that at melissaknorris.com/343, because this is episode number 343. So melissaknorris.com/343.

If you have livestock or animals, I highly recommend if you've got it in your budget and/or the space that you stock up on some of the extra feed, if at all possible. Unfortunately, feed costs are expected to go up quite a bit by this summer. Fuel prices always go up in summer. I don't know if you've noticed that, but more people are traveling during the summer and fuel costs, for whatever reason, once you get close to Memorial Day weekend, seem to take a jump and stay up pretty much all summer long.

And then sometimes they come back down in the fall. But like I said, at the time of this recording, we have seen fuel prices just going up and up and up at the moment. And so what I'm about to tell you is in relation to a degree with the increase in fuel prices, but there's also other factors at play. Now, I am not like an alarmist or a doom and gloom or anything like that. I am what I would consider a realist. So I have a personal friend who is a large producer of hay and I mean, large. And they told me a couple of weeks ago that this summer hay prices will be at least double, if not triple. And there will be even less hay available as well as an increase in cost.

I've got another friend who gets some feed at a local grainery in their area. That's actually in a different state than I am. And their local grainery told them to expect prices to go up by a minimum of $200 per ton. So the reason that I'm sharing that with you is because when I heard that from two different sources and then looked at crops being planted, the cost of fertilizer and the cost of fuel, all of those have went up exponentially, which means that the cost is going to be put on the consumer. They can't help but raise the cost of goods based upon all of that. And that directly, obviously, because we're talking about livestock feed is definitely going to effect that.

So I hope that it's incorrect. I hope that it does not go up that much, that it only goes up a little bit, but the advice and the steps that we're taking, that I hope you also take, even if prices only go up a little bit or if they don't go up at all, if they just stay the same, it's not like it's wasted money. You will still be using the feed and you'll have the peace of mind knowing that it's already purchased.

So in order to make sure that you are purchasing enough food, now this depends on your goal. Do you want to have a year's worth of food for that animal? Do you want to have just a month's worth? Do you want to have three months, six months? That is all going to be based upon available space that you have, of course your funds, and what your goals are. So, that might look a little bit different. So we're going to talk about how to calculate out how much feed per animal so that you have a starting point. We're going to first be talking about ruminant animals. And what that means is there are multiple chambers to their stomach and they usually require a large amount of both roughage and fiber. Ruminant animals include bison, cattle, goats, and sheep.

So the general rule of thumb is that a ruminant requires 2.5% of their body weight in dry feed forage a day. So for ruminants, ideally that is going to be hay or grass. And of course, hay is cut grass that has then been dried and turned into hay or dried a little bit and then turned into haylage, which is a fermented type of feed. So of course a smaller, younger animal is not going to require as much because 2.5% of a 200 pound animal versus 2.5% of a 1000 pound animal is very different.

So I'm going to give you the estimates and how we calculate this out for a 1000 pound cow. Our dairy cow Clover, whom we've had for almost a month now and is doing very well. Those of you who are on my email newsletter list know that when we first got her, she had mastitis, she actually came to us with mastitis. It had went undiagnosed. And so we had to treat for mastitis. It was a whole ordeal. Nothing like learning trial by fire when you have a new animal, but she is 100% recovered. She is doing great. We're settling into a really good rhythm and are extremely happy actually that we have a dairy animal. It has went very well, even though we felt like we had a little bit of a steep learning curve there.

So I am basing this because I needed to figure out how much we needed for her. And we're guessing that she's about 1000 pounds. Now, if you need to know exactly how much an animal weighs, usually what we have done, we don't have a cow or a large scale animal ... a large weight or large animal scale on our premises, but we do have a garbage dump a few miles from our house.

So we'll load up our cattle trailer empty and go and take it to the dump and get the weight. And then we'll come back, put the animal in it and then go up and see how much it weighs. And then obviously calculate the difference and figure out what they weigh. We've done that when we've purchased cattle from friends or neighbors and needed to know what the weight was, or you can do a rough guesstimate. We know by looking at the size of our animals usually what they weigh when they have been butchered hanging weight, we can get a rough estimate. So we're guesstimating that Clover the milk cow weighs about 1000 pounds. So a 1000 pound cow will consume approximately 20 pounds of dry weight forage a day. And that's where we're calculating 1000 times 2.5%. Excuse me, that would be 25 pounds a day.

So now that I have my math correct, a 1000 pound cow will consume about 25 pounds of dry weight forage a day. Grass hay can vary slightly with the percentages, but on average, your grass hay is approximately 8% moisture content. So you're going to take the 25 pounds of dry weight forage that they need times 8% to account for the moisture. And you're going to get two. So you add two to 25 pounds and you're going to need to feed 27 pounds a day. Estimate that there will be some hay wasted. The cattle will pick through hay. It needs to be of certain length and the things that they like, they are never going to consume every single strip of hay. So we round up and think about 30 pounds per day of grass hay, if that's where we're feeding, is the need, if the cow is not on any type of pasture.

Now, of course, during the spring and summer months and into the fall, we're not having to feed any hay or haylage, because she's eating all pasture grass. And then as we move into winter, there's some parts where we don't have to feed as much because there's still a little bit of pasture, et cetera. So you will need to take an account, hopefully they're on acreage and you're not having to feed hay all year round.

Now, we actually predominantly feed haylage and it has a much higher moisture content. Usually haylage, again, these are averages because it's going to depend on who's bailing and what moisture content that they're bailing it at, et cetera. So we just went with an average of 40%. So based upon that calculation, it as another 10 pounds. So we need to feed 35 pounds a day if we're feeding haylage, with a few additional pounds for waste. Now, when we're talking ruminants, of course sheep, they're smaller, and goats, but oftentimes, especially if you're talking bison, but cattle, they're a lot bigger.

So most of the time when you're buying the feed, unless you're buying it from a feed store where you're actually just going in and buying individual bales. Usually if you're ordering it from a farmer or large, you'll order it by the ton. Now, when we're getting our big round bales, we know approximately how much they weigh and we will go with the number, but we know also what the full tonnage is of that haylage. How much feed per pig per day. Now, again, this depends upon the age and weight of the animal, but a rough estimate is going to be 4% of their body weight a day for a pig. So a 100 pound pig would require four pounds of feed per day. You do want to make sure, and this is not just for pigs, any livestock, that they are getting the proper protein amounts, which can vary by age with pigs and with chickens.

They usually have, at least with the chickens, they have a higher protein percentage need when they are younger. And then after they reach a certain weeks of age, that protein demand goes down a little bit. And with chickens, you have a difference of protein needs based upon if they're a meat bird or if they are a laying hen. You also have to remember that animals eat more in cold weather to main body heat. So you want to calculate extra if you're keeping them through the winter months.

Now, with your chickens, as I said, for meat bird versus hen for eggs, it's going to be a little bit different. But according to the University of Kentucky agriculture extension office, a flock of 25 meat birds weighing five pounds at butcher time will go through five 50-pound bags of feed. And they eat a lot more as they reach maturity than obviously they do when their little baby chicks in the beginning.

Now, for laying hens, if you don't have access to free range or a chicken tractor where they are supplementing by being on pasture, a good rule of thumb is to feed them a quarter to a third pound of feed per chicken per day. Now there are ways that you can supplement feed and things that you can add to it that you can grow yourself, or other things besides buying commercial feed and/or even hay, which I may do another episode on. I don't think that I'm going to be able to get into that fully on this episode. So if that's something you guys have interest in, do let me know. And we can look into doing a whole episode dedicated to that. But this one, I kind of want to talk a little bit more if you don't have these animals, but you're planning on getting them or you have them, you're like, "Man, I'm not sure how to calculate out exactly how much I have." Those are some basic formulations and averages on what they need.

But as far as feed options, you also can look at using different feeds as long as you understand the macros, which is your fat, protein and carbohydrates. So for an example, with our dairy cow and all cattle, ideally, should be eating mainly grass. That's why we're huge proponents of doing grass fed animals, ruminants, which is what cattle are, their system was made to digest grass. Can they digest grains? Yes, they can. But it actually changes a lot of things, both in the way that their systems are working. And then also in the end product that we're consuming. So for us, we supplement with the dairy cows only a small amount of grain, but it's very small. And in my area, most of the organic dairy mixes that we could find at our local grainery, they didn't have a specific organic mix and their dairy mix contained a lot of byproducts.

And a lot of them came from canola oil. And one, I don't want canola oil. It's a highly genetically modified crop. And that's not something that I am interested in giving any of my animals or consuming through their milk and/or their meat and/or eggs. But the organic pig feed that my local grainery has is the same percentage of the protein macros that you need for a dairy animal. So I purchase the organic pig feed as part of what we are feeding our dairy cow.

As I said, it's really important to know the requirements of your animals' base macros and also their mineral needs. So salt, iodine, selenium, whatever their other mineral requirements would be. Now, right now, I'm kind of speaking directly towards dairy cows and cattle, but you do have specific nutrients and minerals that also need to be met, and that can vary slightly based upon the animal.

There are certain feed that work for numerous animals, and that's oftentimes what you'll see for sale is an oats, cob and barley mix. This is true, both in our pantry shopping for our own selves, but also for our animals is to do bulk size ordering. Now, this is going to depend on the feed store that you're purchasing from. Sometimes they have larger options to buy feed than what's on display. You'll definitely want to check with them, and oftentimes farmers too, if you're buying a lot, a larger portion of feed, sometimes they'll give you a bulk discount. So you'll have to check with where you are locally, but it never hurts to ask.

One of the things that we can do at our local grainery is we can order super sacks. Now, sometimes you can order by the ton, but ours actually has super sacks. So it's a little bit in between, like instead of getting a 50 pound bag of feed or 40 pound, depends on what size they're bagging, but that's kind of usually generally the size is, instead of ordering it by the ton where it would come in like a huge truck, you can get their supers sacks. And we do have to use our full size Dodge truck in order to go and pick these up. But they usually are between five and 600 pounds of feed. So I definitely get a discount and I've got a much larger amount of feed, which is cheaper than me buying it in the individual bags.

I have to check and order ahead of time, they usually require ordering ahead of time. And then they'll call you and let you know how far out they are from that. And then you come and get that. You do have to have the ability to store when you're buying these large, large things. We don't have a barn, but with the supers sacks, we'll get them in the summer months when we're not quite as wet. And we make sure that they are, first, up on a pallet. So whenever you're storing feed, especially if it's outdoors, but even in an unheated garage or outbuilding, et cetera, it's ideal that you get it up off the floor.

So if you can put it on a pallet or some boards, anything that gets it up off the floor, because you will can get extra moisture, even though obviously it's in a bag or maybe in a container, ideally it's up off the floor for long term. So we put pallets down and then we set that big ... We have to use our tractor or a big piece of equipment to unload it and to set it, as you can imagine with it weighing that much. And then it has good coverage. So it's not going to get rained on. It's not going to get moisture. Now, keeping rodents out of said things, that can be a little bit harder. So we've got lots of barn cats. We like to set traps out, et cetera, to try to keep the rodent population down, mainly mice, especially mice and/or rats.

So you want to think about that if you're going to amass a large amount of feed, especially things that are more grain based, are you going to be able to keep rodents out of it or go through it fast enough before they're going to really get in there and make a mess of things? And it's not really them consuming the feed. I mean, there's that, but then they're going to poop all over it. They carry disease, all sorts of things. So we usually use these big super sacks and get them in the spring and the summer. And we know, therefore, a specific crop like for our pigs. So we'll have them maybe for a few months, but we're going through it relatively quickly. And it's out in an area where all the barn cats can get around it and catch hopefully any mice and/or pests that we would be getting into it.

We also will put the different bag, like if you're buying 50 pound bags and getting multiples of those, we will store those in metal garbage cans that have the lid. That is a better deterrent than just keeping them in the bags that they come in, as far as keeping moisture out and also keeping other pests out, plus if you open it up and pour it in, you're going to be able to fit more into that. We also have gotten the food safe, like 55 gallon drums, barrels, those will also work. You just want to make sure, obviously, that everything's really dry before you're pouring it in there and sealing it up. But those can be another really nice option. We have a container, one of those big shipping containers that we use for our storage and as our garage right now. So we'll put them in there because I can completely lock that up and then it's airtight, so rodents can't get in there, and/or moisture.

So that has worked really well. And that's where we'll store quite a few bags of our feed before we're just using the one that's open that we're actually using. We'll do our back stock there. Now we've talked a lot about livestock animals, but also your pets. I have another friend who will look for stores if they have annual sales or if they offer discounts on feed and they have a local feed store that does a big anniversary sale. And so they buy an entire year's worth of their dog food when that anniversary sale comes around because they can get one bag of food and then you get the second bag 50% off. And so when they buy it for a whole year like that, they end up saving a lot of money and then they've got all their dog food for the year.

And now, I mean, if you look at what prices were last year compared to what they are now, you can see that buying at last year's prices was a huge savings. Even if you didn't have that buy one, get one 50% off. Now, like I said, we don't have a barn. And so we buy and feed the haylage for all of our cattle. It's a fermented hay. So it's cut. It has a higher moisture content. And then it's wrapped. If you've ever seen those bales that look like giant marshmallows out in the fields, that's haylage. We do that because we don't have a barn to store hay. It also has a good protein count. It's really good. And it meets nutritional needs of both beef cattle, as well as our dairy cow. Actually, dairy cows can do really, really well on haylage, but it allows us to store it outdoors without a barn.

And we have a relationship with our local farmers. And so we've been buying our year's worth of haylage from them for years now. So we're a standing established customer. They know that we're always coming. We know how much we need, et cetera. So if you can build relationships with any type of local farmer, and I like supporting people who are in our community and knowing who they are, going and seeing their field and their practices and all of that type of thing is ideal. So if you are newer to having your livestock and you don't have those established relationships, get them as soon as possible. Start asking around, looking at local farms, calling, getting in orders, seeing how they do things, how do they prefer to do things? Because if you wait until the summer or even the fall, and especially as you go into winter, oftentimes they're already sold out, all of the feed is already spoken for, and you're going to be paying a lot more than if you do it earlier in the year, and even just securing your spot.

Now, like I said, we have been buying our hay for years from the same people, and we pretty much run the same herd size because we can only raise so many cattle on the acreage that we have and the pasture. And we've really been able to dial that in with, oh goodness, about 15 years now of having beef cattle. However, if you listen to episode number 340, which was preparing for a future and the behind-the-scenes episode, where I talked about how we ended up getting our dairy cow a bit unexpectedly and still definitely during the time of year where we are feeding hay, we don't have enough grass growing yet. That's adding in a whole nother adult cow to our pasture.

So we had to sell one of our beef cattle. And if you sell it as beef, you are going to make a lot more, you can charge a lot more per pound than if you're just selling the live animal. She actually was bred back. So it was a cow that was bred and she was due in about four weeks from when we actually sold her and they came and picked her up. So they were getting a cow ... almost a calf pair. She hadn't had the calf quite yet. But we weren't able to get nearly much per pound from her as we could have if she had been butchered and someone was buying a half, hole or quarter beef from us. However, butchers right now, our butcher, local butcher is booked up going on two years.

So we actually have our butcher dates where we're guesstimating how many beef we think we'll be butchering, pigs, et cetera, with our butcher two years out. They're probably getting ready to go onto the third year. And this seems to be a nationwide issue. It's not just to our area, everybody that I'm talking about, there's not enough butchers to meet the demand, which is unfortunate because we needed to sell her now. And we do not have the means to butcher a whole cow. Cows, when you butcher them, are best if they are aged, ideally dry aged at a 40 degree fahrenheit temperature for two to three weeks. Really, 21 days is best, but they have to have enough of a fat layer. And the butcher has to have the space and the time to dry age them for a full 21 days. Oftentimes, they'll just do 14, but we don't have a controlled environment for that, nor do I have the space in my kitchen or the equipment and tools to process out a whole beef.

So we didn't have the option, unfortunately, of even waiting until this fall and selling her for beef. Because we had other cows that we were wanting to, and we didn't really want to butcher her. She's only was a four-year-old cow, really prime, great cow. We just simply didn't have enough pasture to support another cow and a dairy animal at that. So we ended up selling that, and they went to a great place, a local farmer, which was really fun because they actually breed pigs. We don't breed pigs. And so we were able to have a conversation on what their breeding program looked like and if they had options when they were having their next furrowing, et cetera. So we might actually be able to get pigs, if we decide to race pigs again next year, from them.

So again, those local relationships are really key. So she went to a great place, but if you're bringing on new animals, you'll definitely want to calculate out what your pasture looks like, if that's what they can be on, in the instance of cows, how much can that support and sustain and how much extra feed are you going to need to account for that animal, and/or are you going to have to get rid of another one, which is what we're doing.

I'm also, I'm still investigating and looking at growing and supplementing more things here on the homestead within our garden and in our pasture. We're actually rehabbing different areas of our pasture, which means we have even less pasture right now, but it'll pay off in a few months down the road because it's going to increase the amount of grass that we've got on our pasture. So it will be worth it.

It was just really not the best timing. And so we are feeding extra hay and fortunately, we were able to call who we get hay from and get a few more extra bales just to get us through. Normally our grass would be coming in pretty strong right now, but we're about 10 degrees cooler than average at the moment. And it's really affecting the grass and even the cool weather crops in the garden. We were warmer this weekend and that will really start to kickstart things because we were only able to get a few extra bales to take us through until when normally the grass would be coming on and then we're not feeding and having to supplement at all.

I hope that you enjoyed today's episode. Again, in the blog post that accompanies this episode today, I also have links if you're interested in learning more about raising specific animal types. We have got a ton summer podcast episodes. Some are just written out blog posts, et cetera, and videos, but we have got buying grains in bulk, planning our livestock to raise a year's worth of food. So if you're kind of deciding what livestock you want to bring onto the homestead, that will help kind of guide you as you make your decisions.

Best cuts of meat to get when butchering a cow. And then we go into raising chickens, both meat chickens, as well as laying hens, different episodes on raising pigs, as well as some on guide to raising goats and sheep and rabbits. Rabbits were one we didn't talk about much today. So definitely go to melissaknorris.com/343, and dive into those further. I will be back here with you next week. Until then, blessings and mason jars, my friend.