Field Corn in Late Summer
Chicken feed comes in a variety of formulas, each designed for a different purpose. Layer 18 is not the same as Scratch feed and baby chicks get a special chick starter feed. Cornish Cross chickens, the favorite of commercial meat chicken growers, usually eat turkey food. All of these commercial poultry feeds are a blend of grains, minerals, vitamins and other nutrients that ensure proper nutrition for each type of chicken. Anyone wanting to grow chicken feed for a store would need to have the means to supply a complete feed. That means growing some of the grains yourself and contracting with other farmers to grow others for you. For the sake of this discussion let's say you have decided to grow corn and will purchase other grains, vitamins and minerals. Does this Spark an idea?
Instructions
Test Soil
1. Preparing Soil for Seed Corn
A soil test will tell you what soil amendments your land needs in order to grow a good crop of field corn. With the five-gallon bucket and shovel in hand, walk over your tillable acres digging at least a 1/4 shovel full of dirt from 6 to 8 different spots in the field. Be sure and travel the entire field from top to bottom and side to side. Contact your county extension agent to find out where to send your soil for testing. Be sure that the lab knows you want to grow field corn.
2. Field Corn for Animal Feed
Review the soil test results with your county extension agent. Your county extension agent will help you understand the test results and help you decide what soil amendments your land needs. At this point you can decide if you want to grow organic feed or use commercial soil amendments.
3. Plowing the Green Way
Apply amendments. This can usually be accomplished by ordering whatever soil amendments you need from your local agricultural supply company. The agricultural supply company can apply the amendments for you. Amendments include lime and nitrogen-based fertilizers.
4. Chickens Love to Forage for Food
Plant the seed corn. Farming equipment is very expensive. Find a farmer in your area who will plant and harvest the corn for you. Contract with the farmer to seed, cultivate and harvest the corn and deliver the shelled corn to your storage bin or wagon. Most farmers will want half the crop in payment, and you will pay for half the seed corn and amendments costs.
5. A Grain Grinder is Essential
While your corn crop is growing develop your chicken feed recipe. The primary ingredient in your recipe will be corn. In addition you will want to include in your feed such grains as wheat and oats; proteins such as alfalfa and fish meal; vitamins and minerals such as calcium, salt, copper and zinc; and molasses. There are many recipes to choose from. Your recipe will be developed based on the type of chicken feed you are growing.
6. Decide how large a batch of your chicken feed recipe you can sell, either wholesale to a store or retail at your own store. Grind the corn with the other grains in your recipe. Then add the vitamins, minerals and molasses to the mix. Bag and weigh the mix, seal the bags and label each with the name of the feed. An ingredients list with percentages of each grain and nutrient should be included on the label along with the weight of the bag and instructions for feeding. Don't forget to include your company name, address and phone number.
Tags: soil amendments, county extension, county extension agent, extension agent, vitamins minerals