Sources of Free or at Least Low Cost Livestock Feed (Livestock - General)

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I'm working on the following article for CS. Do others have experience with obtain either free or low cost feeds for their livestock?

SWEET CORN STALKS AS LIVESTOCK FEED: They’re more uses than the compost pile

Ken Scharabok Waverly, TN Scharabo@aol.com

In my area it is common for people to grow far more sweet corn than they will use. Several will allow me to chop down the still green stalks and feed them to my cattle. This has benefits for both of us.

I will get about 50 flatbed loads of fairly high quality fodder for my herd to supplement summer grasses. I’m going to guess an average load is 500 pounds, so this results in some 12-13 tons of cheap feed. Plus, about half of the stalks will still have an ear on them, some of which end up in my kitchen. Corn is known as a heavy drawer of minerals from the soil. Once processed through my cattle those mineral end up on my pasture. Cost to me is my time and gas.

(If I wanted to, I could run the stalks through a yard chipper to produce winter silage.)

For those who give them to me, they don’t have to chop the stalks themselves and I leave the plot ready to be tilled for a winter crop – usually turnips. Plus, even if put on their compost pile, the stalks will take a long time to break down.

While I only have cattle, I have heard reports of people feeding stalks to horses, goats, sheep, pigs and rabbits. On these:

Goats, sheep and pigs will only eat the top half of the stalk and you may have to chop up the ears. What they leave can go on the compost pile. Running the entire stalk, ear and all, through a yard chipper first may be beneficial here.

One person cautions not to give too much to a horse at a time as they may develop colic. They should be a supplement to hay, not a replacement.

One person feeds them green during the season to his rabbits and puts the rest, still green, under cover for drying. During winter he chops up lengths to feed the rabbits some each day. He said his rabbits love the stalks even dried out.

I will note one person let me haul off some field corn he used to support pole beans. Even still green, my cattle didn’t eat much more than the ears and leaves, but did enjoy all of the bean plant.

My sources for the stalks either come from word-of-mouth or through a classified ad in the local paper.

I could also haul off turnips after the first hard frost. However, only a couple of my cows like them and they have to be chopped up first. Perhaps it may be worth while for someone with pigs though.

Also, Connie on the Countryside Forum (www.countrysidemag.com) noted: “Another great source of free feed is pumpkins. It seems that the day after Halloween, most places will give them away by the truckload. I've even had folks deliver the things. I keep a cleaver in the barn to chop batches for the goats, and the cows and pigs do well with cutting them in half. I store huge piles in the barn, in hay bale bins to keep them from freezing, and usually have feed well into February.

I have also read where some people who work in a city with one or more microbreweries stop by after work and bring home their spent brewer's malt.

In the past it was not unusual to interplant corn, pole beans and pumpkins to get a triple harvest off of the same plot.

(If you have other sources of free or cheap livestock feed please them then in to Countryside.)

-- Ken S. in WC TN (scharabo@aol.com), August 13, 2001

Answers

you can always ask to glean feilds,, but most already know about that. Food processors / slaughter houses will let you (sometimes) go in and "scoop" up dried blood for your garden. Sawmills, you can usually get free/almost free sawdust. Resurants, and grocery stores will save the leftovers, culls if you supplit the cans with lids for pig feed. Ive gotten fresh water seaweed for the garden,, and I know chickens like it,,just had to go get it and shovel it from a resort when they clean the beaches. Thats about all Ive done, and IM going to try the technique from Kens trip, about making your own hay from empty feilds.

-- stan (sopal@net-port.com), August 13, 2001.

My father use to manage a small commercial dairy. He had several people that would pick up the "dumps" (outdated milk, cottage cheese, etc.)to feed to their pigs. They would add this to the day olds from the bakery. Guess they never fed commercial feed and did quite well. (The pigs were also on pasture.) A word of caution on some of the free garden produce. Our neighbor offered to give us his for our livestock but we declined because we saw how much pesticide and herbicide he had used over the summer. You could smell it on the corn stalks! We are not totally organic but avoid over use and never use chemicals in the garden or goat pastures.

-- Nancy Bakke-McGonigle MN. Sunset (dmcgonig@smig.net), August 13, 2001.

For years, my uncle has feed hogs from 'day-olds' from a Hostess bakery in Indianapolis and a Dolly Madison bakery in another near by town. A loaded pick up truck with racks should run about $20 a load and will quickly fatten hogs.

Another source of feed is what I call 'fines', which is the cracked and small kernals of corn that 'fall out' when elevating corn into a silo. Many farmers will allow you to shovel these big mounds into your truck at no charge if you will come pick them up.

'Hold over' seed corn used to be a great way to pick up old and left over soy beans and corn seed, but one REALLY HAS TO BE CAREFUL with all the chemicals that are pretreated on the seed these days.

Produce wholesalers, grocery stores and fruit stands usually have truckload deals on bad produce.

Apple orchards in this area will sometimes allow people to pick up the 'drops' and other bad apples after the season is over. I have never heard of any one using drops for feed, but why not?

I have also heard that some schools, resturaunts and other institutions will have waste food (from peoples plates or the kitchen) that can be picked up for free, and hogs love it.

Canning factories, dairies, food processors etc have alot of waste that can be picked up at no charge. It saves them the hassle and cost of throwing it into a dumpster.

Just my two cents....

-- clovis (clovis97@Yahoo.com), August 14, 2001.


We use apples. I wouldn't use drops from a commercial orchard though, too many chemicals, and animals can eat a lot more apples than would be safe for the level of pesticides. Ken, I don't mean to be a wet blanket, but I really think you should add a box or at least a statement somewhere that these free feed sources are only meant to be supplements and that part of raising farm animals is feeding them adequately. If people don't want to buy feed when their animals need it, they shouldn't have the animals. I can just envision some newcomer or low income person reading such an article and deciding that they don't have to buy feed at all. I have met such people and the conditions on their farms/homesteads were unbelievably bad. They'd get free goats or other livestock cheap from an auction, and feed them old stuff and garbage, spoiled hay, moldy wormy grain, etc. I knew one family that expected the dogs to hunt their own food. when the dogs resorted to an easier meal -chickens- they were shot. Don't mean to sound negative, but I was a little concerned. By the way, we have fed cornstalks to goats. They eat more of it and waste less if the stalks are cut into convenient lengths. The reason they will not eat the lower part is that it is too difficult if the stalk is not cut up.

-- Rebekah (daniel1@itss.net), August 14, 2001.

Hey Ken,

Here in the Pacific Northwest, we have a proliferation of micro- breweries. One near me brews twice a week, and for each batch of beer, they put out five 32-gallon trash cans filled with hot, fragrant spent grain. A pig farmer takes most of it, but they will let me come get some (usually five gallons or so) for my chickens if I call and ask. It's a good protein source, and the chickens LOVE it!

-- Laura Jensen (lauraj@seedlaw.com), August 14, 2001.



VERY good point Rebecca.

-- clove (clovis97@Yahoo.com), August 14, 2001.

Some states here have laws against feeding "swill" (defined as plate scraps) to livestock. Others only licence it for people who have high- pressure cookers, and can guaranteed that they'll cook it long enough and hot enough to sterilise everything. If anyone is thinking of doing that, it may be worth checking whether you have similar regulations. If so, the fines and other penalties for non-compliance are probably crippling - at least for people working on a small scale.

On a small scale, greengrocers (do you have that term? fruit and vegetable shops) often have lots of trimmings and overage fruit and vegetables that they'll be happy to let someone use, just to get rid of them. Can happen with that department of supermarkets as well. If so, make a habit of taking everything they offer - it's that convenience that will likely make them keep letting you take the stuff. If you can't use it all directly, you can always compost it or feed it to a worm farm.

More generally, think of any thing that deals with food for anything. There's a guy around here who's into aquaculture. He takes cat biscuits that have failed QA (mainly colour, sometimes taste or smell or composition or texture) from a local Uncle Ben's pet-food factory - gets them at a massive discount. That (cat-food or dog-food) would be a useful source of feed for poultry or pigs as well.

-- Don Armstrong (from Australia) (darmst@yahoo.com.au), August 15, 2001.


Some states here have laws against feeding "swill" (defined as plate scraps) to livestock. Others only licence it for people who have high- pressure cookers, and can guaranteed that they'll cook it long enough and hot enough to sterilise everything. If anyone is thinking of doing that, it may be worth checking whether you have similar regulations. If so, the fines and other penalties for non-compliance are probably crippling - at least for people working on a small scale.

On a small scale, greengrocers (do you have that term? fruit and vegetable shops) often have lots of trimmings and overage fruit and vegetables that they'll be happy to let someone use, just to get rid of them. Can happen with that department of supermarkets as well. If so, make a habit of taking everything they offer - it's that convenience that will likely make them keep letting you take the stuff. If you can't use it all directly, you can always compost it or feed it to a worm farm - or even give it to a neighbour.

More generally, think of any thing that deals with food for anything. There's a guy around here who's into aquaculture. He takes cat biscuits that have failed QA (mainly colour, sometimes taste or smell or composition or texture) from a local Uncle Ben's pet-food factory - gets them at a massive discount. That (cat-food or dog-food) would be a useful source of feed for poultry or pigs as well.

-- Don Armstrong (from Australia) (darmst@yahoo.com.au), August 15, 2001.


Blast and double blast it!

-- Don Armstrong (darmst@yahoo.com.au), August 15, 2001.

In the U.S. you can feed plate scrapings only to hogs intended for home consumption. If they will be sold, you must have a license from the USDA and the scrapings must be thoroughly cooked before being used as swill. It is thought the recent outbreak of foot and mouth disease in Britian was started by someone feeding undercooked plate scrapings.

-- Ken S. in WC TN (scharabo@aol.com), August 15, 2001.


This is the article which was submitted. Thanks to all of you who provided suggestions.

SWEET CORN STALKS AS LIVESTOCK FEED: They’re more uses than the compost pile

Ken Scharabok Waverly, TN Scharabo@aol.com

In my area it is common for people to grow far more sweet corn than they will use. Several will allow me to chop down the still green stalks and feed them to my cattle. This has benefits for both of us.

I will get about 50 flatbed loads of fairly high quality fodder for my herd to supplement summer pasture. I’m going to guess an average load is 500 pounds, so this results in some 12-13 tons of cheap feed. Plus, about half of the stalks will still have an ear on them, some of which end up in my kitchen. Corn is known as a heavy drawer of minerals from the soil. Once processed through my cattle, not only will the tonnage of organic matter eventually result in topsoil, but those minerals will end up on my pasture as well. Cost to me is my time and gas.

(If I wanted to, I could run the stalks through a yard chipper to produce winter silage.)

For those who give them to me, they don’t have to chop the stalks themselves and I leave the plot ready to be tilled for a winter crop – usually turnips. Plus, even if put on their compost pile, the stalks will take a long time to break down.

While I only have cattle, I have heard reports of people feeding stalks to horses, goats, sheep, pigs and rabbits. On these:

Goats, sheep and pigs will usually only eat the top half of the stalk and you may have to chop up the ears. What they leave can go on the compost pile. Running the entire stalk, ear and all, through a yard chipper, or at least chopping it into short lengths, first may be beneficial here.

One person cautions not to give too much to a horse at a time as they may develop colic. They should be a supplement to hay, not a replacement. (They also noted their horses will leave a field of lush grass to come up to get the stalks.)

One person feeds them green during the season to his rabbits and puts the rest, still green, under cover for drying. During winter they chops up lengths to feed the rabbits some each day. They said the rabbits love the stalks even dried out.

I will note one person let me haul off some field corn he used to support pole beans. Even still green, my cattle didn’t eat much more than the ears and leaves, but did enjoy all of the bean plant.

My sources for the stalks either come from word-of-mouth or through a classified ad in the local paper.

I could also haul off turnips after the first hard frost. However, only a couple of my cows like them and they have to be chopped up first. Perhaps it may be worth while for someone with pigs though.

I have seen reports of people who work in cities which have microbreweries arranging to haul away their spend brewer’s malt for their livestock.

Several participants of the Countryside Forum (www.countrysidemag.com) also provided comments for this article:

Connie noted: “Another great source of free feed is pumpkins. It seems that the day after Halloween, most places will give them away by the truckload. I've even had folks deliver the things. I keep a cleaver in the barn to chop batches for the goats, and the cows and pigs do well with cutting them in half. I store huge piles in the barn, in hay bale bins to keep them from freezing, and usually have feed well into February.”

Clovis noted:

“For years, my uncle has feed hogs from 'day-olds' from a Hostess bakery in Indianapolis and a Dolly Madison bakery in another near by town. A loaded pick up truck with racks should run about $20 a load and will quickly fatten hogs.

“Another source of feed is what I call 'fines', which is the cracked and small kernels of corn that 'fall out' when elevating corn into a silo. Many farmers will allow you to shovel these big mounds into your truck at no charge if you will come pick them up.

“ 'Hold over' seed corn used to be a great way to pick up old and left over soy beans and corn seed, but one REALLY HAS TO BE CAREFUL with all the chemicals that are pretreated on the seed these days.

“Produce wholesalers, grocery stores and fruit stands usually have truckload deals on bad produce.

“Apple orchards in this area will sometimes allow people to pick up the 'drops' and other bad apples after the season is over. I have never heard of any one using drops for feed, but why not? (Here also, try to find out what herbicides and pesticides they have been strayed with.)

“I have also heard that some schools, restaurants and other institutions will have waste food (from people’s plates or the kitchen) that can be picked up for free, and hogs love it. (NOTE: According to USDA rules, you can only feed plate scrapings of this nature to hogs not intended for the market. If they are, you must have a USDA license and it must be thoroughly cooked first. It is thought undercooked garbage of this nature caused the recent outbreak of foot and mouth disease in Britain.)

“Canning factories, dairies, food processors, etc. have a lot of waste that can be picked up at no charge. It saves them the hassle and cost of throwing it into a Dumpster.”

Stan noted people use to ask to gleam fields after harvest; however, most modern harvesting equipment doesn’t leave much behind. He also noted he picks up fresh water seaweed for his chickens from a resort which cleans it off their beach. (In some coastal areas washed up seaweed has long been used as a feed supplement.)

Nancy noted her neighbors offered to let them take their surplus garden produce but having observed them using so much pesticides and herbicides they declined. She said you could smell it on their corn stalks.

Another regular forum participant, Don from Australia, mentioned he knows someone who is into aquaculture. They buy factory-rejected cat biscuits to use as feed.

In the past it was not unusual to interplant corn, pole beans and pumpkins to get a triple harvest off of the same plot.

(Please note: Nothing in this article should be taken as an endorsement of free of very low cost livestock feed being the principle feed for any species. A pig may grow fat on day-old white bread and Twinkies, but the meat produced may not be of a very high quality. As mentioned, insecticides, herbicides and pesticides may have been applied to the feed source. Feeds, such as mentioned in the above article, should be considered supplements, not the principle source of nutrition.)



-- Ken S. in WC TN (scharabo@aol.com), August 16, 2001.


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