Buy it by the ton

I have to admit I'm always looking for the ways to do things cheaper. Especially in chicken keeping! Feeding all the critters we have here is probably the second highest expense we have (coop building would be #1, but thankfully I think we have enough space for the next year or so!) Lets face it, 80 feathered friends can eat a LOT of feed! 

I try my best to give them lots of extra produce, leftovers and other 'free' types of food, but their main diet is layer pellets. The way we used to do it was to buy a few bags whenever we ran out. It would come out to like, 3 bags every few weeks. 

One of the main problems with this method is that we live 1/2 hour from the feed stores. Hubby would pick it up on his way home from work sometimes, but mostly we would just run down to TSC to get feed. It often ended up with dinner out and grocery shopping, since we were down there, ya know? 

Add all these expenses and I realized that we needed a better method. I tried to anticipate their needs and buy when I was there but it never worked quite right. There had to be a better way.

Buying feed in bulk to save money

Then hubby saw a sign in TSC that said "Buy by the ton and save". He asks some questions and told me that they offer a 5% discount on orders over 20 bags. Well, I wasn't sure if 5% was going to be worth the storage space issue. I thought about it for a few days. 

I still wasn't convinced when I went to our mailbox one day and found a TSC flyer with a '10% off your complete purchase' coupon. NOW I started liking this idea. We headed out to TSC that night, coupon in hand. We asked and were told that yes we could use both discounts together....and that is how we ended up buying our first ton of food.

Now it's a twice yearly event for us. We wait for the coupon to arrive and buy a pallet of food. That's 40 bags. All I did was click 'create account' on their website. It asked me to enter my name, address and email address. I never did place an online order. Ever since then I get these flyers in the mail. 

We haul it home and store it till we need it. In the summer, feed lasts a bit longer then in the winter. I'm sure it's because of the free ranging and extra garden scraps. We try to save where ever we can, and an extra %15 off feed really goes a long way. 

The coupons come about 4 times a year, so you can choose which ones to use. You can get the volume discount on as few as 20 bags...so you don't need to get the full pallet like we do! It's just one small way to save money on these cute little feather balls we love so much!

Happy hauling!

~L

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