by Zoe Zorka
If you hate being stuck in the office every day and you’d be more at home in the great outdoors, starting your own farming business is ideal. You’ll get to spend your days working in the fields and looking after the animals, rather than sitting in front of a computer for eight hours a day. But starting your own farming business is expensive and the overheads are quite high, so a lot of farmers really struggle to manage their finances effectively. While there are things that you can do to increase your profitability in farming, the most important thing to remember is that you need to keep your costs down as much as possible.
The cost of raising livestock is often the biggest outlay, especially all of the feed, so anything that you can do to save money there will make it a lot easier to manage your finances. These are some of the easiest ways to cut feeding costs for livestock.
Source Cheap Hay
Hay is the best go-to food source for your livestock during the winter months, but a lot of farmers pay over the odds for it because they simply don’t spend enough time sourcing cheap hay. If you are producing your own, you don’t need to worry but if you’re buying it in you need to make sure that you take the time to source it for the lowest price possible. There are some great sites online where you can find hay bales that other farmers have for sale. As long as you check the prices regularly and buy in bulk when prices are low, you should be able to save yourself a lot of money.
Store Feed Properly
Animal feed has a shelf life just like anything else and if you’re letting it go off and throwing it away, you’re wasting a lot of money. That’s why you need to make sure that you’re storing it properly so it lasts as long as possible. Make sure that you have a cool, dry place to store it with good ventilation as heat and moisture will speed up the growth of bacteria and the food will go bad very quickly.
Stock Up On Grains
Grains are ideal for feeding livestock because they’ll keep for longer, which means that you can stock up on them and not have to worry about it going bad for a while. If you keep an eye on the prices and take advantage of reductions when they’re available, you can save yourself a lot of money. You’ll need to invest a bit more money upfront if you’re buying in large volumes but it will save you a lot of money overall.
Be Careful With Overbuying
Even though it’s a good idea to stock up when prices are low, you do need to be careful about overbuying feed. If you go overboard and buy more than you can use before it goes bad, that’s when you’re going to end up throwing a lot of the feed away and wasting money. Try to save money by bulk buying but also be realistic about what you can actually use.
If you follow these simple tips, you should be able to save a lot of money on your livestock feed.