Since I want to raise chickens and a couple of pigs for our family, if we ever sell this house and get some acreage, your question interests me. I never intend to buy feed, myself. I figure if Chinese country peasants can raise chickens without buying expensive feed somewhere, why can't I? For that matter, what have people done for hundreds of years before commercially prepared livestock feeds were invented? It must be possible. I've been warned by others (most of whom haven't done it) that raising livestock is too expensive to make it economical. But the relative who has a small family homestead, said it was easy and economical. Then again, I doubt they buy feed at all, because they have acreage to grow their own.
Someone somewhere told me that one things is, hens need a lot of calcium, but in addition to eating insects and greens such as lovage (or other greens, I forget) that grow as cover crops for your vegetables, you can save egg shells, and if you bake them in the oven at a certain temperature for a certain amount of time, the scent changes, so you can crush them and add to what you feed your hens, and they get their calcium without learning to peck their own eggs, which is the hazard of feeding them eggshells otherwise. So,, there are ways to feed animals cheaply, if you can grow your own corn, or have grass pasture enough for grazing animals. I wouldn't be raising anything past chickens and a couple of pigs on two acres. Pigs and chickens don't require pasture, and feeding corn or grain to animalslike ruminants that are meant to graze on grass wreaks havoc on their digestive and immune systems, which then causes a host of illnesses and need for antibiotics and veterinary care. Therefore, I wouldn't raise ruminants except on pasture, and with adequate pasture, commercial feed is a nonissue, unless you plan to overwinter the animals. Also for housing them, here in Maine I know people who don't heat chicken houses; they just build them for the climate, and choose breeds of poultry that are very cold-hardy.
Even though chances are you don't live in Maine, MOFGA (Maine Organic Farmers and Growers Association) has great info on these topics, and how people raise their own food without having it be expensive. Organic gardening can also be expensive, if you buy all your compost from the garden store, in little bags. But not if you make your own compost. I think the same idea applies to livestock.
If I get the couple of acres, I want a small cornfield interplanted with pumkins and beans (the "Three Sisters" of Native American tradition) and would feed my chickens and pigs some from that, as well as food scraps for the pigs, and greens and insects for the chickens. All speculation right now of course, but maybe helpful ideas? Any seeds from things you grow, that you don't eat, or at least don't eat all of, you can feed poultry and pigs also. Pumpkin and winter squash seeds are really nutritious, and the pigs can even eat the rinds.
