Does anybody buy bulk feed?

[sea2summit]

I should look into that for bird seed. I spend about $150/month to feed "wild" birds. I buy the mixed seed, which costs me around 50 cents/lb. I would have to set up a mixing station, but have a nice concrete mixer that would easily do 40 lbs. at a whack.

Have I mentioned that I'm kind of an eccentric old dude? "It used to be that a man and his madness were as sacred as the coming of day."

Anybody wanna go dove hunting?

I do plan on planting about a quarter an acre of sunflowers this year and give that a try for feed supplementing.

 

[ponytug]

Buying bulk feed only works if you get through it while it is still fresh. @EddieWalker, if you are scaling up, have a chat with the extension office, who may be able to either give you feed nutrition advice, or point you to a nutritionist. When I worked with feed mills, they were constantly changing the ingredients to meet the specification on the bag. What ran at 8:00am, wasn't necessarily close to what was running at 11:00 as market prices on the ingredients had shifted.
With multiple species, it can get complicated, especially with differing age ranges. We used to buy a few bulk ingredients, and then blend in the specials and micronutrients for each group, or individual. It does take time. We have scaled back and now only buy a few ingredients in bulk that keep.
I would love to be able to get day old bread or distillers grains locally, or even old greens from the supermarkets; around here, they were already spoken for, even the day a new supermarket opened. Win some, lose some.

All the best,

Peter

 

[bunyip]

We buy horse feed in 1000kg bulker bags, they fork it onto a pallet in our horse float and I take it off with the hay spikes, a bulker costs us $500 vs $1500 in 20kg bags, we use two a year as supplementary feed, well worth the 150km round trip to pick it up.
The bags also have a zipper across the top which keeps birds out, the cats keep the rodents out and when finished the cub scouts get the empty bag which they use for different activities.

 

[EddieWalker]

How do you get the feed from the bag to the horses? Do you just scoop it out and feed from the scooper?

 

[bunyip]

20 litre buckets, we can put 8 on the quad then just head out to their paddocks and tip it in their feeders, not all get fed and we get chased by those hoping for a free feed, generally 6 are in paddocks and the others just roam the open area.
Daughter measures out the feed with a scoop, they don't get a bucketful each, the quad speeds things up and saves multiple trips.

 

[kenmac]

I use 55 gallon drums with the locking tops. Scoop it out of drums into5 gallon buckets.
If it's grain corn etc, you'll have to use it or it will ferment on you.
cows walk around drunk ! LOL

 

[bunyip]

I remember cows getting into rolled oats and bloating, had to lance them to get the gas out, I was only about 12 at the time and the old man was not happy.

 

[kenmac]

I use this to move my 55 gallon drums off the truck, and place them where I want them

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[BeezFun]

We live near a company that makes animal feed, we go there and pick up bags because it's about $7 a bag cheaper than in the retail stores. It's not as cheap as buying bulk, but it's easy to handle and store 50# bags and saves enough money to help. They load a pallet of bags on our trailer.

 

[ponytug]

I get mine by the pallet as well. Pallet(s) on the truck or delivered, then tractor with forks to the feed room, and then me stacking the feed in the feed room. I don't mind the hand stacking. It isn't far, and with the forks on the tractor, I am not bending over to pick up bags. We save 5-10%. It isn't bulk rate, but it is cheaper.

All the best,

Peter