Wondering how you all are adapting to rising feed, well, EVERYTHING, costs.

Have had chickens for almost 50 years.
Feed has gone nuts, paying more for 50# sacks than I did for 100# ones just a few years ago.

They're getting more free good this year.

Same with goat, rabbit, hog feed.

Some years back, had 1-200 rabbits at any given time. Was down to just a few for our personal consumption, but did add a few new NZ does this spring to ramp things back up. A little.

Decade or more ago, one of my kids did some trials.
Raising litters on straight pellets, pellet/ hay mix, and straight hay.
Growth was slower on mix, but I'm leaning that way now.

Hogs, I USED to have a source of free, outdated premium dog good, but that dried up.
Also supplemented with beaver carcasses during trapping season.

Not sure if I'll grab a few feeders this fall in light of feed costs. ( I usually buy feeders in fall, WAY cheaper here. Or were, not sure in current market)

Didn't breed ANY goat does last fall, probably should have in light of formula shortage, lol.
Son was getting $8/ qt few years back from dog people/ people with orphaned kids ( goats)

Herd is mostly on pasture now, little grain since none pregnant or nursing.

Hay.
I usually buy 100 or so bales every year, expect prices to climb. Have room for 400+ so may buy a lot if I can find a deal.
Have scored $6 bales for $2 at Amish auction in the past. Starting to cut, so will hit next few sales.

Went bigger on gardens this year, and will probably plant some wheat come fall.

Getting a jump on firewood too, fixed for next winter, but always looking beyond

Doing a lot of preemptive maintenance, buying parts and spares as I find them, deals where I can.

DID stock.up.on.fert, glyphosate, etc about a year ago.

Stuff is drying up AND getting way more pricey.

Any one else have any ideas/ thoughts?

edited

I'm not sure if you realize this is a tech forum, so I'm going to give you a chance to recognize that it is, and that your post is inappropriate.  This kind of post adds nothing and does not belong here.  If you have questions you are welcome to send me an IM.

~Kitties

Thanks for the insight!

All our chickens are free ranging and they don’t get any feed from spring through fall.  That saves us a lot. We lose one or two doing this but it’s worth it. They do get locked into the coop at night. We also don’t notice a decrease in egg production.

My wife raises meat rabbits and she’s been picking a lot of their food. Dandelions, grass and extras from the garden. Only the nursing females are getting pellets right now.

We farm so the increase in feed prices help us. Our pastures look great so we got the cattle on them early this year. Hopefully we can keep them on pasture late into the fall.

Feeder pigs are difficult to find and when you find some they are expensive. We normal have a dozen right now, but unfortunately we don’t have any.

Our biggest strategy for dealing with increased costs is to raise our prices. If you can raise extra animals and sell them do so it will offset your feed costs.

I think there has to be a return to a tougher kind of livestock that can mostly take care of itself. I advocate it heavily with chickens, where I think people have mostly forgotten the that game chickens and derivative land races were generally THE ONLY widespread free-range farm chickens in Europe and North America from the fall of Rome until the late 1700s and early 1800s. Pick your favorite breed of modern layer or meat chicken. You'll see that with few exceptions, they have no history before the 1800s. The gamefowl and some landrace breeds can reproduce themselves faster than predators and man can harvest them, making them sources of free meat.

Lots of other livestock were more generalist survivors than how we've selectively bred them over the past century.

I've moved to only keeping cows that can thrive on weeds. My mini-zebu seem a lot like billy goats in terms of their ability to maintain weight on poor pasture as long as they have plenty of weedy browse. I think we're going to try our hand at some small pot-belly x wild hog mixes foraging in about 10 acres of inclosed woods.

Between my milk cow(s), chicken eggs, and miscellaneous scraps, I think my dogs are covered.

I grow out largemouth bass in two 6/10 acre ponds. They seem to reproduce and feed themselves well enough that we could eat bass multiple times a week and not put a major dent in the population. I have to invite people out to clean out bass every so often so they don't overpopulate.

We only feed meat birds in the summer.  Our laying flock free ranges.

We do 60 meat birds per year.

We did get 2 berk feeders this year.  Gonna be much more expensive than years past.

Luckily we have a family connection for hay, because we don't have a lot of pasture for our cows and goats.

I am having a hard time free ranging chickens right now. We are in extreme drought conditions. Last year was grasshoppers, this year no bugs to speak of. I bought in bulk this month at tractor supply, but it won't last that long unless we get a lot of rain.

All my kids went thru 4H so have LOTS of experience with meat birds, lol.
Each kid got 25 every spring.

Been a few years since we've done any.

Was at a buddy's place last month, his son had 150!

When we had a hundred + rabbits, we'd toss a shovel full of under cage " dirt" to the layers every am,  hundreds of worms.
Free food!


As far as hay, usually cut a good deal with a buddy by providing sweat equity when he needs help.
LOL, sometimes, I just send my sons!

Fertilized our pastures last fall, look great right now.

Thanks to all!

Good points.

Friend of my wife has some half feral bantams that have been more than making their own way for a decade or more. Always have a hen or 3 showing back up with chicks. She can't give them away fast enough.

I'm fortunate to be surrounded by water, and have worked in both commercial fishing and aquaculture, so fish, crabs, etc do figure in our diet pretty heavily.

I still trap too.
Knew an old trapper years ago who told me, " times get hard again, trappers will eat. Might eat weird, but we''ll eat".

Had a farmer friend tell me that he could buy corn cheaper than he could  grow it. He’s a big farmer, so take it for what it’s worth.  He was referring to the cost of fertilizer, seed, diesel, irrigation, time, and other cost. Cost are going to impact everything.  I just bought 500 pounds of fertilizer (10-10-10) for $200. And this is from a wholesale company. I don’t have an answer until 2024 at the earliest was his words.