Free Animal Feed

[andycrosby]

I like most of you always like to lower my feed bill, so lets put our heads together and list with Photos were we can some of the plants bugs and any other ideas we have on getting free feed for our poultry pigs and cattle

The above Photo is of Water Lettuce and a bit of duck weed behind it that is two good places to start

Edited September 27, 2011 by andycrosby

[ozzydom]

Water lettuce and Duckweed are potentially good source of protein (approx 40%).

But most animals , fish and birds find it pretty unpalatable in its green (raw)form, so it needs complete air drying to be of much use.

As they contain a huge percentage of water ,a tonne becomes a very small amount dried.

If anybody has an infestation by all means try it but you are courting disaster if you purposely grow it for feed purposes.

It grows and multiplies like a bushfire and if it gets loose into other peoples property or public waterways it can turn into a disaster area.

[andycrosby]

I am so glad you posted here Ozzydom May I ask how to go about drying it and how to feed it ?

Does the protein level drop as it is dried ?

Is there any other plants you recomend.

[tingtong]

you know, just reading this post made me want to make a trial...

so, went down to the nearby water reservoir lake, where there is plenty water lettuce.

took 2 plastic bags full, weighted it, 2.5kg...

now it is drying on the concrete, front of the garage.

i will be curious to see how much the dried weight might be...my tip about 1/10th of the wet, maybe?

i would also like to know if it lose from the protein level after drying, and how much?

is it good for pla nin/tilapia/ in wet form to eat? or should also be dried?

[ozzydom]

I am so glad you posted here Ozzydom May I ask how to go about drying it and how to feed it ?

Does the protein level drop as it is dried ?

Is there any other plants you recomend.

During the trials I did ,I only used the very tiny duckweed, I spread it out on sheets of corrugated iron and sun dried it , turning it several times a day.

When completely dry ,I rubbed it between my hands to break it up more and mixed it with ram , this was surface fed to Pla Nin who consumed it quite well.

A 20 litre paint bucket full green dries out to about a dessert bowl when dry.

I dont think much protein would be lost by sun drying as this method of preserving fish,veggies has been practiced for centuries.

I tried feeding live duckweed to fingerlings in hapas successfully and also to bigger fish in the ponds by putting the duckweed in feeding rings made from 4 inch PVC pipe.

But it is a constant worry that some will get loose in the ponds especially so that I use green water.

Unfortunately my source of duckweed dried up and the concrete pond I built to sample grow my own did not work,This was my own mistake as I did not age the town water long enough to dissipate the chlorine.

I can now pump from a pond to the pond I built but for some reason the duckweed did not regenerate this season at my usual source, maybe T/W put a hex on my experiment because she likes to use my 4c/m pond as a rubbish bin for her recyclable plastic glass and aluminium containers

Alfalfa (for yanks) or lucerne for we Aussies should be suitable with a protein content of 20-25 %.A small garden shredder to chop it up prior to drying should work. Then again maybe Pla Nin would go for it green if shredded. I notice that they eat the finer bits of grass that enter the ponds when I cut the grass around the ponds.

An old Chinese man I met locally told me that they used to cook ram and vegetable peelings and leaves and grass to feed their Pla Nin

Finely chopped cassava dried well to remove toxins is extremely high in protein and was sometimes used .

Of course in modern times ,if it doesnt come in a bag or packet its to much hard work for most

[andycrosby]

I went looking today for Water Lettuce found one that looks very close so tryed to feed it for the ducks, stright out the plastic bag they loved it. I do not know what it is called but ill put a photo up if anyone wants to see it.

We feed some other land based plants and I will show you them in Photo form, that you can be fed to cattle pigs and goats

While I was down at the lake today I found a 8ft snake quickly choped his head off and that was all the protein I needed for todays feed saved me going looking for water snails, Insects and earth worms in the Afternoon.

I leave a Insect light on all night and sometimes stay to see what there eating there is more than they need most nights

I am only feeding about 100 birds like this so its very easy and takes me about an hour to collect what I need every day

This way I feed a little rice bran and my daily cost is about 50 baht for the whole 100 birds.

All the birds are growing even and no problems . I use this for ducks ,Turkeys and chucks.

I love to do it the organic way and it gives me something to do other than drink beer ,catch fish and drink more beer.

[IsaanAussie]

Andy,

I wrote a bit about water lettuce earlier this year. I grew a pond full and feed some to my pigs for lunch. They eat any given amount. As Ozzy said it is prolific stuff and choked out everything else. No problem for the catfish, and definitely great to clean the water up. To get rid of it, dump some snails into the water and leave them to it. Then I used a couple of bottles of snail killer that didnt harm the fish. So with the rain I am now back at the start with a pond full of emerald green, turbid water about to throw in another bag full of plants. Going to try some duckweed as well this time I think.

I broke the roots off the larger plants before feeding the pigs. It is a great way to fill the breeding pigs up after feding them to diet and has the bonus of the extra protein.

Water lettuce dries to a small fraction of its weight wet, and wet it decomposes in the compost very quickly. Heaps and trace elements as well.

Agreed Andy, whatever we can do to feed organic materials to the pigs is a plus in my book and adds to the bottom line.

IA

Edited September 30, 2011 by IsaanAussie

[andycrosby]

I am trying to grow it now, I have a large pond that has a few fish in it . I use this pond to relax and fish it has got about 20 plus kinds of fish in there. I know I could make money from the pond but It is not there for that. So growing the water lettuce will also stop the locals from netting it. I caught some kids fishing there the other day and rather than chase them off showed them how to catch them and gave them my bottle of coke thats what it means to me. They all went home with a fish or two each a smile and I was falang jai dee

[tjeffrutherford]

Have any of you guys tried fermenting this stuff for feed? We had good luck adding water hyacinth (and leaves from cassava and mulberry) to the banana silage for the pigs. We layered the stuff with molasses and salt in thick plastic bags in a plastic garbage can for three day and it was ready to go. We then fed it to the animals for a week or so until it was gone and another batch was ready. They say it can keep for weeks, and the protein increases ten times. It worked for the pigs, turkeys and rabbits (with some rice bran and scraps mixed in, plus a handful of maize and rice, sorghum etc when available). This year we'll see if we can get the chickens and fish to eat it to, and try to work out a system to pelletize it.

[andycrosby]

Well done mate your my kind of chap, I was just going to try the same thing for my chickens as we now get 6 sacks of coli and cabbage leaves every night for free, that takes care of a lot and its always gone the next day. If I want I could get a few more sacks and would like to know the % of leaves I could use in your mix . I have been told a blue plastic drum works well for this job so any more info would be great,