Plan feed storage and grow fodder
Stored feed carries animals through dry seasons and winters. It must be kept dry and away from rodents and wild birds, which spread disease.
How
- Estimate daily feed. A mature laying hen eats about 0.25 lb (113 g) of feed a day (Oklahoma State). Sheep and goats eat about 2 to 5 percent of body weight in dry matter a day, more when lactating (UW and Kentucky Extension).
- Use the feed calculator here to size storage for your dry or winter season.
- Store feed in sealed metal bins in a dry shed. USDA advises shielding feed and water from wild birds and rodents and using bait stations or traps.
- Keep scratch grain and treats to no more than about 10 percent of a hen's daily diet so she still eats her balanced ration.
- Check the law before feeding kitchen scraps. Example, Great Britain: it is illegal to feed catering waste, kitchen scraps, meat or meat products to farmed animals, even pets. This includes vegetarian kitchens that use milk (APHA). Where scraps are banned, compost them instead (food-12).
- Grow fodder with the food module: pasture legumes, hay, fodder trees or crops. UW notes pastures with 30 to 50 percent legumes usually need no added nitrogen.
Safety: Mouldy feed can sicken animals. Discard feed that is damp, caked or smells musty. Legal: in Great Britain, and some other countries, kitchen scraps must not be fed to poultry, pigs or other farmed animals. They can spread African and Classical swine fever and foot and mouth disease (APHA). Check your national rule.
Do these first
Sources
- Backyard Flock Production. Oklahoma State University Extension, accessed 2026-11
- Managing Sheep and Goats on Pasture. University of Wisconsin Extension, accessed 2026-11
- Goat Production Basics in Kentucky (ID-162). University of Kentucky Cooperative Extension, accessed 2026-11
- Defend the Flock newsletter, Spring 2024. USDA Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS), accessed 2026-11
- APHA warns not to feed kitchen scraps to farm animals because of disease risk. Animal and Plant Health Agency, GOV.UK, accessed 2026-11