Broilers without commercial feed

[Slim0912]

Hi guys. I just recently bought about 300 broiler chicks, I'm thinking they are some variation of the cornish cross. Ready for processing at 6 weeks I did some math and there's a problem. If i feed them solely on commercial feed as recommended I'll end up making a huge loss. There are strategies of going around this after I did some research, all possible. Only problem is I can't seem to find an article or person that doesn't mention adding commercial feed to these strategies especially with broiler chicks.
What's so special about commercial feed(organic or not) and is it possible to raise healthy broilers from the start without once using commercial store bought feed?
Doesn't matter if it takes longer

 

[Birdinhand]

welcome to BYC SLIM0912! WOW, 300 broiler chicks is a huge undertaking! I grow out batches of 37 every 6 months for my family of 4, my next batch arrives March 1st and will be in the freezer by the end of April. my chicks go through about 16 lbs of broiler feed each during an 8 week grow out. your are looking at going through something like 4,800 lbs of food and producing literally several tons of droppings and about 2,000 lbs of meat. dealing with the droppings is the biggest challenge IMHO. you will find that there are varying practices on feed and rationing with the idea of keeping them from having leg and heart issues. however, it is my opinion, and not to step on any toes, that rationing is not the answer. with CX you are looking at the most efficient converter of feed to meat of any form of livestock, they are incredible but the rate at which they grow posses challenges.

they have something like 10X the metabolism of a heritage breed chicken. Oddly enough, by using a mother heating pad brooder (search MHP or mother heating pad) I stumbled upon what turns out to be one of the main determining factors in health for these birds, it's having at least 4 hours within a 24 hour period of true darkness. studies have found that chickens who get at least 4 hours of real deep sleep each night have greatly reduced leg and heart issues. darkness forces them to stay put and not move around and constantly bump into each other, thus giving them solid sleep for their bones and joints and internal organs to develop normally. I was noticing this when I stopped using a heat lamp in the brooder but then came upon actual scientific research in the book The Behavioral Biology of Chickens. largish scale production batches have been brought up with a dark photo period of at least 4 hours a night and shown dramatic improvements in health all around. I now give my CX 24/7 access to feed with a normal day and night cycle, using a heat pad and a light on a timer that turns off for about 8 hours a night. I have close to 100% liveability with virtually 0% issues. I do find that it helps to go with the COBB 500 strain, which I find is more active and healthy in general.

as for the food type, I'm not sure what alternatives you have available to you to come up with 2.5 tons of feed that is not commercially bought. since procuring that much feed requires buying in bulk, it's hard to imagine not buying closer to wholesale and in that case, it's hard to imagine beating the price of broiler feed. to come up with an alternative, you need to get really good at understanding how to estimate protein count and ways to adjust it slightly depending on dropping consistency, high protein = fast growth and good ROI, too much protein results in the squirts. I don't feel that it's humane to hold back food from these birds, they live to eat and get distressed without having free access to feed. So, I suppose if you have access to the raw materials and can grind the grain economically, that you could make your own grower formula and "save" some money. If you have a lot of acreage and can make enough chicken tractors, I suppose you could try and grow them out with supplementing the feed with grass and all the goodies that come with grass access, but this would take some experimenting and I'd recommend doing that with smaller batches first. For me, my only requirement that I put on myself is to beat the price I can get organic chicken at the store per lb, which I do and to provide a higher quality of life than it typical of a large scale operation, which I do. I process the birds myself and feel good about how humane my practices are and the quality of life that my chickens lead, albeit a short life. they live fast and die young. they are amazing creatures in their own right and working with them can be very rewarding.

you are going to need a commercial grade/scale processing system to harvest this many birds. I would not focus on making a profit the first time or two through this but instead work on nailing down the grow out process. once you get the hang of it, you can figure out ways to scale up and economize and hopefully make a profit. good luck with your venture.

 

[Slim0912]

@Birdinhand Thanks for the reply, much appreciated. 300 hundred isn't a lot if you've got somewhere to take them. Actually raising them with a friend. He's got the backyard and experience while I had the capital to expand. I should probably mention that I live in Kenya so large tracts of land are out of the question for the average joe, pasturing is out. I was thinking more along the lines of mixing my own feed plus our climate is perfect for the Black soldier fly larvae. Would my 0-3wk old chicks survive a diet of say... BSFL, maize, wheat and millet (all in the right ratios) ground up into a mash? And maybe a diet of the same but fermented and or sprouted with the BSFL fed separate after 3wks?
I do intend to let them grow out longer than the prescribed 6wk processing mark if we can get our feed cost down.
Chicks @ sh75
Feed and meds @ sh20500/100 chicks
Water @ sh500
Sawdust @1000
Miscelaneous @ sh1000
Sell 1 bird @ sh380
You can see how the math starts to go awry especially after factoring in mortality. In the past we've restricted feed and processed early, make them use a few less feed bags but this stresses the birds not to mention below par carcasses in some cases. I want happy quality chooks.

 

[Rye]

Normally you have the feed, housing, and disposal problems sorted out before ordering the chicks.

With that said, a local feed mill will usually have their own bagged feed. It is usually half of the price as the TSC store bought feed. Can be purchased by the ton on a skid.

Other than that, you can make your own feed, but you would need a grinder mixer and a tractor to run it most of the time. You would need different grains and a vitamin pack for broilers.

You're not going to get much out of the birds if they are not getting proper feed. You can't just throw out some corn and expect them to thrive.

How are you getting water to that many birds? They drink a lot of water.

EDIT: I didn't see your new post before posting.

 

[Rye]

You can mix some grains into the feed to help extend the feed. The vitamin pack in the feed is what's important. They can't get the vitamins, minerals, and amino acids that they need to live. Plain grain doesn't have all of the stuff that they need.

 

[Birdinhand]

I forgot to mention nipple waterrers too, this also helped me cut down on mortality. I would get creative on sourcing nutrients and see if you can get the cost down with that. as for the bedding, I have gone forest floor: leaves, partially pre-composted wood chips and dirt, then dried somewhat. I leave this mixture outside for the winter/summer spread out under fruit trees and then rake it up as needed, and let it sit under cover to dry for several weeks prior to use. the pro-biotics and inverts provide fascination and surely some nutrients, motivating the chicks to turn it over, keeping the ammonia level down. at about 4-5 weeks you really have to stay on top of the poop removal, it gets intense. here's a photo of the litter I make:

 

[lazy gardener]

Um... IMO it's not possible to raise them without a huge input of commercial feed. Their high metabolism, huge growth rate makes it necessary to input a lot of quality feed. If you don't do so, I predict that you are going to have birds dropping dead, and cannibalizing each other. Generally, the math needs to be done, and cost assessments done before getting the birds. Raising chickens for meat, at least in the US is a money loosing proposition when comparing it to the cost of factory farmed meat. You also need adequate housing which is predator proof to avoid huge predator losses.

 

[Kiki]

I'd like to read some of these strategies you mention.
I too highly doubt it is possible to raise meat birds without commercial feed.
Doesn't seem remotely possible in my mind.
Can you share some of the strategies you researched?

 

[lazy gardener]

Check out Fertrell Nutri Balancer. If you mixed your own feed, added appropriate levels of protein to the mix (BSFL larvae could help here) had a program to help you to balance the feed with all of the correct ratios, incorporated sprouting as well as fermenting, then you might succeed. But, it would be a long shot unless you had the feed in the correct ratios. You might have better success with Freedom Rangers or Dixie Rainbows than with Cornish X.

For the small scale flock master, mixing their own feed is a money loosing proposition. But in the numbers you are talking about, it may be possible. Check with @rjohns39

 

[lazy gardener]

Putting your location in your profile would be a huge benefit. Now, knowing that you are in Kenya, makes a huge difference. We can't begin to do an accurate assessment of your flock management strategies, b/c they will be so different from the strategies we deal with in U.S.