Is Growing Your Own Feed Worth It?
Growing your own hay, grain, or forage can reduce feed costs and give you more control over quality, but it also requires land, equipment, and time that not every small farm has available. Weighing these tradeoffs honestly helps you decide whether homegrown feed makes sense for your operation.
Growing Hay
Producing your own hay requires suitable land, haymaking equipment (or a custom hay operation to hire), and favorable weather windows for cutting and drying without rain damage. For farms with adequate acreage, home-grown hay can significantly reduce one of the largest annual livestock expenses.
Growing Grain Crops
Corn, oats, and other grain crops can be grown and stored for livestock feed, though this requires more specialized equipment for planting, harvesting, and storage compared to hay production. Small grain plots can still be worthwhile for farms wanting to reduce dependence on purchased grain, even without large-scale equipment.
Growing Annual Forages
Annual forage crops like sorghum-sudangrass or forage brassicas can provide high-yielding grazing or greenchop feed within a single growing season, offering flexibility that perennial pastures don’t. These crops are particularly useful for filling seasonal gaps in pasture availability.
Storage and Quality Considerations
Homegrown feed still needs proper storage and quality testing just like purchased feed, since poor storage can quickly erode any cost savings through spoilage and waste. Testing homegrown hay or grain for nutrient content helps you supplement appropriately rather than guessing at nutritional value.
Making the Decision
Calculate your actual land, equipment, labor, and opportunity costs against current purchased feed prices to make an honest comparison, since growing your own feed isn’t automatically cheaper once all inputs are considered. For many small farms, growing a portion of feed needs while purchasing the rest offers a practical middle ground.
Shop our full range of livestock feed and nutrition products to supplement whatever you grow yourself. For crop selection and yield guidance, the Cooperative Extension System offers detailed regional resources.
