The cost of animal feeds can skyrocket depending on transportation costs and other factors of production. This is the case with dairy meal whose prices have hit the roof. Some individuals in agrarian communities are opting to make their own animal feeds in a bid to cut costs substantially. This is especially the case with chicken feeds made by mixing crushed egg shells with other ingredients.
We have some chickens running loose in our extended garden. We feed them with a cup of mixed commercial feed. But when we run out of feeds, what we give the chickens are leftover rice. But feed or no feed, our chickens don't go hungry because they are loose and can fend for themselves.
I don't have chickens anymore; but when I did have them, we left them to free-range and they stayed fat and healthy on bugs and worms, and whatever else they scraped up. I also put out leftover table scraps that the dogs didn't eat, such as vegetables or fruit scraps. The chickens are omnivorous and will eat just about anything that they can get into their beaks. If you have birds caged up then that would be a whole different issue, and they would probably need some kind of dry food like grains. We gave our chickens grain and commercial chicken food in the winter time because with snow on the ground, there was no way they could forage for worms or bugs like they can in the warm weather.
I usually just give my dogs and cats leftovers that they eat. I really only buy pet food if they are sick or pregnant. It really costs a lot of money and I can't afford to continuously be being specialized animal food for them.
My two dogs get given ready made biscuits and tinned wet food. Frequently they get given a freshly boiled chicken and rice cooked in the juices, as well as a dollop of plain yoghurt before breakfast. They always have a Christmas dinner and always get my scraps, as long as I have not cooked with spices and salt. Good quality food is expensive and the way around that is to give your pets some yummy home made food.
Me and a friend of mine once had a fish farm, at the early stage of the fish farming we were using fish food bought from the stores. When the fishes were more than a month old one more experienced fish farmer in our locality taught us how make fish food locally by combining several ingredients. That was how my friend and I started making food for our fishes
When it comes to goats and cows we just let them roam around the field because they all mainly feed on grass. Grass fed cows and goats are leaner and weigh heavier that those which fed with commercial feeds or corns. We also have some chickens but we feed them with vegetables from our garden. We also have worm pits where worms are being cultured and then fed to chickens. Sometimes we go to fish pens to gather some shelled critters and fed them to ducks. It's been months now since I haven't visited our farm, I wish to go back in December to see how people and animales are doing.
