Farming: Where to Get Free Animal Food

Food is a big issue on a farm. You need to feed the animals, so you have to grow food, which often feeds the family as well. Then there’s all the processing of food that has to be done to store it. When it comes to feeding the farm animals, though, many farmers could be overlooking a few resources in their own home town.

Ever wonder what happens to outdated food from grocery stores? Food stores throw out tons and tons of food every year because the expiration date has passed without anyone buying the products. Since most people aren’t interested in purchasing food that’s gone out of date, stores simply throw the bakery goods, meats, cheeses, and other groceries into the dumpster.

In reality, some of these foods are still good – at least for pets and farm animals. Many products have a date stamped which says “Best when used by…”, meaning the product is its freshest and best-tasting before that date. Many of these products are still perfectly fine for feeding farm animals.

Talk to some of the local grocers to see if you can pick these throwaways up rather than letting them get hauled to the dump. Many of the managers will give you these items for free if you’ll come and load them on a specific date, usually once a week or every two weeks.

Another place that throws away massive quantities of food is a restaurant. The foods left over on plates are scraped into a trash can before being placed in the dishwasher. Cooks often cut away bones, fat and such, too, while they’re preparing orders. These foods are thrown into the dumpster at night, but many managers will allow farmers to take the foods home if they pick the garbage bags up at the end of each shift, or each night, depending upon how often they throw it out. Call some of the restaurants in your home town to see if you can scavenge some of their throwaways for your farm animals. It can amount to quite a bit of food over a period of time.

Bakeries throw out hundreds of loaves of bread, buns, cakes, pies and other items. These food items are perfect for pigs, especially, since they’ll eat just about anything. Bakeries usually check stock once a week and remove outdated items from the store. Phone area bakeries to see if they will allow you to pick the foods up for your animals.

Schools also throw away quite a lot of food. On the first day of school, check with the cafeteria manager to see if you can haul away uneaten food. They generally just scrape trays into a trash can and take it to the dumpster, so they shouldn’t have any problem with giving it to you if you ask.

It takes a huge amount of food to take care of a farm full of animals. Of course, you’ll still have to buy feed but the scrap foods can help you stretch the budget. Other sources to consider are farm and garden markets that sell fruits and veggies, or sidewalk cafes that usually have plenty of leftover, half-eaten baked goods. Food scraps should be used immediately and you should never give molded or rotted foods to animals.