# Grinding my own feed.



## WaterShedRanch

I have a small but growing feedlot that I finish some cattle for freezer beef. (10-15 currently). It's in an old 3 sided hog barn that I've converted to work for cattle. I'm currently buying a complete feed ration from the local feed mill. Going into my third year of this endevour I'm considering saving myself some money and grinding my own feed. I have acces to shelled corn, or rather I would purchase it from a local farmer and run it through a feed grinder. Does anyone do this themselves? I know nothing about grinding and making my own feed but am strongly considering buying a pull type grinder mixer. Any help would be greatly appreciated!


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## glasswrongsize

Grind my own feed, but for hogs...not sure what you want to know about it; some knowledge might cross the lines between swine and bovine.

Mark


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## slowzuki

Lots of the little pull type feed grinder / mixers for sale cheap in our area.


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## Tim/South

We ground our own feed when I was growing up. We ground whole corn, added minerals, cottonseed mill and dry molasses.

We still have the crusher mixer in good shape, barn stored. It is a pull type, runs of the PTO. A few years ago we bought shelled corn from a farmer and made feed. Even with the largest screen it still made corn mill. Ground some hay to add texture. It was a fun project. We saved money on feed. I do not believe we made the quality of feed we were replacing.

Now days I am hesitant to feed much corn to grow calves because of ulcers. I can see finishing them on corn.

Now that deer hunters can feed corn here the price off the farms has boomed. I do not think I could afford corn and save any money now.

You live in corn country and can probably find a good price. I would still look into how much corn I could feed with out causing stomach issues.


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## WaterShedRanch

I don't put my calves on feed until about 600 lbs. I fall Calf, wean in the spring then background them on grass the following summer.


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## Farmerbrown2

It sounds like your a cow calf operation. When we had cows growing up we used creep feeders and started calves on feed that way then when pulling calves off momma they switched to feed real easy no bloated calves.

There are literally tons of way to make cheap feed or if your doing 4H projects lots of ingredients to make cattle grow quickly.

Guys around here get roasted soybeans, linseed meal, distillers grains and molasses (liquid or dry) to mix in feed to pack on the pounds.


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## IHCman

Dad has always had a grinder/mixer. When he milked cows he ground a lot of corn and feed barley and also mixed canola meal in with that ground feed.

Now days we mainly grind corn when back grounding calves. Dad likes to leave it a little coarse, the dairy near here likes to grind there corn till its as fine as corn meal.

Our local co op elevator makes a custom creep feed that we buy small amounts of. Its cracked corn, whole oats, distillers grain, wheat mid pellets, mineral, and some liquid that's either molasses or something similar. We probably could mix it in our grinder mixer if we'd have all the components in separate bins but find it more convient to just buy the few tons we need.

Dad ground alfalfa hay into some ground feed for his heifers a few times, it was a slow process but made a nice feed.

With his older grinder/mixer I'd sometimes get bored grinding corn so I'd pick dead weeds along corrals and stuff em in to grind em up just for the heck of it. I've thrown frozen apples and few what I thought were frozen pumpkins in to. Turns out the pumpkins were froze all the way through and I darn near plugged up the screen. Makes quite a noise when a frozen apple or pumpkin goes through but grinds it up so fine you can't even see it in the feed. Dad had some oil sunflowers one year that weren't worth much so he figured he'd feed some. Tried to grind them without the screen, just made a mess inside the grinder with all the oil so after that we just shoveled them in whole in the back where you had mineral and stuff.


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## endrow

Pick up a hammer Mill the new idea corn picker and two gravity bin wagons,. And then make yourself a big Corn Crib.Hhere some still do it then you can control it all grow it, harvest it, store it, process it ,and feed it .


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## Tim/South

endrow said:


> Pick up a hammer Mill the new idea corn picker and two gravity bin wagons,. And then make yourself a big Corn Crib.Hhere some still do it then you can control it all grow it, harvest it, store it, process it ,and feed it .


An old one row JD corn snapper pulled by JD 60 will also suffice. 

We picked 40 acres each fall. It was all I could do as a teen to keep caught up with Grandad picking. I pulled the trailers back and forth, had to shovel the corn into the crib. Crushed a load per week during the winter to feed the beef cows.

Back then I thought we ran 2 cyl. Deeres because they were the best. Now I know they were the best we could afford.

I saw a nice 2 row New Idea picker at an auction last year. I was thinking about how that would have been a big deal back in the day.


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## 8350HiTech

I’m feeding a similar amount of fat cattle and grinding with a NH 352 grinder I bought probably ten years ago for $250. In some ways it would be nice to not have to hook it up every few weeks to make feed but I still think I’m coming out ahead on doing it myself.


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## Vol

I sold this old girl a couple of years ago. She sat in a corn crib idle for so long that I finally just sold her to a fella that drove down here from Indiana. He was a McCormick collector and was quite pleased with her condition.

Regards, Mike


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## r82230

Vol said:


> I sold this old girl a couple of years ago. She sat in a corn crib idle for so long that I finally just sold her to a fella that drove down here from Indiana. He was a McCormick collector and was quite pleased with her condition.
> 
> Regards, Mike


Got one of those still setting in my barn, probably going to sell to the Amish soon. Nothing like backing the tractor into a belt.

Back to the original post - grinding now with a grinder/mixer for the grandkids 4H steers (along with an extra one for supper ). I start the calves on a creep feeder using a commercial pellet, after weaning I slowly switch them over to our mix.

Grandkids have to keep track of feed costs for their 4H project. They spend only 2/3s the amount the grandson spent on one, feeding two now. We are pushing the protein however (don't shoot the massager here), the mix is 750# oats, 750# corn, 200# of pellet (51% protein containing minerals, etc), 150# of soybean meal and #150 dry molasses (2000# total). Lately, son has been adding 2 1/2 gallons of cherry oil (man does that make a nice smelling feed).

We don't run the tractor at 540 PTO, speed but slower as not to grind the corn so fine and leaving a fair amount of oats whole (tried a larger screen, but then too much corn coming through whole). This mix comes out to pretty close to 18% protein (from lab test). We are contemplating reducing the oats and increasing the corn (50/50 on bushels verse present 50/50 on weight) however, now they are closer to 1000#. This change will reduce the overall cost of the feed some.

We buy oats from one local farmer and corn from another. Guy who has oats caterers to horse folks so his price is slightly higher on everything (his corn is presently over $5 a bushel, with local market well under $4).

With calves I like either oats or barley as part of the ration. But barley is pretty scarce in my neck of the woods.

YMMV

Larry


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## IHCman

Is the cherry oil to help get them to eat it? I bet that would smell good. Sounds like a good ration.

Dad always likes to have barley and corn in the ration of an animal he is feeding for butcher. I have to agree with him as it seems to give the meat a good flavor and nice white fat.


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## r82230

IHCman said:


> Is the cherry oil to help get them to eat it? I bet that would smell good. Sounds like a good ration.


Supposedly it does (something my son came across and it's his dime that's buying ). Biggest thing I noticed is it reduces the dust (2.5 gallons added per ton of feed). My thoughts are that even cheap vegetable or corn oil would do the same, but............................... I'm not the one buying.

Wasn't it WC Fields that had a saying that goes something like "a fool and his money soon part company"? Seems a lot of the 4H crowd thinks it is the cat's meow and who am I to argue? :huh:

As far as the smell, like I said it smells good, but then again, I think fresh cut corn silage smells good too. And I know how cattle like that!!! But a lot of folks don't like the smell either.

Larry


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## IHCman

I like the smell of fresh cut corn silage also. Still smells good when your feeding it months later. The only part of silage that stinks is the black spoiled stuff that the dog likes to roll in and smells like pig crap.


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