‘Feed guy’ produces custom feed from whole grains for increased production

Oct 22, 2024

John Woodbury unloads grain into his big roller mill.

John Woodbury takes people out for rides with his Percheron horses.

John Woodbury unloads grain into his big roller mill.

John Woodbury hauling hay with his Percheron horses.

ROSS, N.D. – In northwestern North Dakota, John Woodbury is known as the “feed guy.” He sells locally grown and produced custom feed, mainly for chickens and hogs, using his own grain roller mill and grinder mixer at Woodbury Farm.

Woodbury Farm is a small local farm near Ross, operated by John and Julie Woodbury, offering custom feed rolling services, farmers’ market products, custom hog raising, Percheron wagon rides and leatherwork, according to John.

In addition, John is the Ross location grain manager at United Quality Cooperative (UQC), so he is involved in agriculture both at work and at home. He has been working with grain at the Ross elevator since 2006 but has been involved in the grain elevator business since 1985.

“At UQC, we receive farmers’ grain in and then we load out rail cars. Most of the grain goes out on shuttles, but we do ship grain in single train cars and also by truck,” he said.

The UQC grain department handles spring wheat, winter wheat, durum, canola, flax, barley, corn and soybeans. Farmers bring in their grain during the year to fill contracts or for cash sales.

As the “feed guy,” John has helped many rural customers feed their animals commercial feeds and/or whole grains that are rolled and ground to the exact specifications of the customers. Both small pig and chicken farmers/operators purchase his feed.

“I’m the only manufacturer federally licensed and approved with the FDA and the state of North Dakota in the entire northwestern corner of the state,” he said.

His feed business actually came about through their hog business. They sell feeder pigs to 4-H kids who want to raise a pig for the fair, to those who want to raise their own pigs, or to those who plan to raise one or two to butcher for themselves or for their friends and family members.

The Woodburys also raise some pigs to butcher and sell them to area customers.

As John became well-known as the feed guy, he kept connections to others in the hog or feed business and knew who to call to get hogs for customers.

“With being involved with feed in the northwestern region, I have connections to different groups of people, and I had a lot of folks calling me and wondering if I have certain types of feeder pigs or other hogs,” he said. “What I would do is go out and get a certain number of head lined up, and this guy would want three or four.”

For example, the Woodburys brought 98 head back from Devils Lake one year. Of those, they sold 60 pigs to people that wanted just a few. They held the rest back for themselves and for the customers that typically buy from them.

Many of their customers wanted to know where they could get feed and John would offer custom feed for them. Some had tried commercial feed, but it had been more costly than John’s custom feed because customers also pay freight costs.

“I would say, ‘Hey, I can make that for you, and it is going to cost this much less.’ That was what really got the small tote or the 1-ton totes of pig feed going for these eight or nine people that were now raising pigs, and it just continued to grow,” John said.

The Woodburys and their customers want the best, high-quality locally grown and processed custom feed.

“They want good quality, and they want a fair reasonable price for the feed,” he said. “My customers have told me that my feed costs less (than typical commercial feeds), but it is so high quality that their pigs or chickens actually eat less, and their production goes up. I especially hear that from the chicken producers because I have so many of them that buy my feed.”

In the summer of 2018, John bought his first grain roller mill that worked on electricity at an auction sale. It has a top and a bottom set of rolls, which allows the grain to be crushed and leaves a coarse roll, or if run through both rolls, ends up with a somewhat finer grain feed.

In 2020, the Woodburys decided to purchase a grinder mixer which has a 1/8-inch screen. When they bought the grinder mixer, they were transitioning from supplying finishing pigs or feeder pigs to supplying feed for pigs from farrow to finishing.

Julie feels her most efficient method of feeding her chicken feed is with using the 1/8-inch screen that John makes his pig feed with.

“She says it produces the least amount of waste and the chickens will eat more of it and spill less out,” John said.

In addition, John has a new group of customers that want a smaller size of feed to prevent waste.

“What is unique about me is I can take feed ingredients, and I can process it to your specifications,” he said.

With his custom chicken feed, John uses what he calls a “number three round hole.” He runs it through the grinder, but it’s ran through a locked screen, so it is more uniform. He adds in his minerals and other ingredients.

It doesn’t matter if customers want feed to be fine or coarse, or somewhere in between, he can make the exact feed that is needed.

“I recently processed 8 tons of chicken feed. I go in through the top of my grinder mixer from the rollermill, and you’re looking at 2, 3, 4 fractions of corn and 2, 3, 4 fractions of peas. That’s what that group of customers want – really coarse feed,” he said.

In the fall of 2022, they decided to sell their sows.

One of their customers bought their sows that fall, and they have been buying back some pigs from that customer and others to keep their consumer market “satisfied.”

Customers keep coming back for butcher hogs for themselves.

“I have a very strong reputation of the quality of the pork,” John said.

Of course, he mills and grinds corn and other grain for his own hogs. The Woodburys also have several breeds of chickens and sell eggs from them, so they need custom feed for their own chickens, as well.

John continues to get new customers and it has all been by word-of-mouth.

“In the fall, it gets to be a challenge because we’ll work till 8 or 9 p.m., seven days a week, at the grain elevator,” he said.

Also in the fall of 2022, his older roller mill (which is now running), was not operating as well as it had been, and it took hours longer to process a semi-load of feed.

“I wish that mill could get more years on it. It’s portable and I don’t own a semi. However, I can find a semi and I can haul. I can take it to customer’s places and process corn on their farm and make the feed for them right there,” he said. “It also has the flexibility that if someone has corn that they are cutting, it can come right off of the combine, and go through the roller mill into their semi.”

The Woodburys decided to replace it with a roller mill purchased online from a big feedlot down in southwestern Minnesota. One of the reasons he upgraded was to “get more volume” from the feed.

“The new roller mill has been really good to me. Now I can process a semi-load in a little over an hour if I have a semi to unload it from and to roll into,” John said.

The roller mill has a 140-horsepower motor on it and John can back it under a semi-truck.

“I can take my grain auger to use with it or to fill it. I can also use somebody else’s auger if they have one. A 12-inchauger is best to use with it, because a 10-inch doesn’t quite keep up with it, but you can use either,” John said.

Over the last few years, John has sold more custom chicken feed than ever before. He pointed out that customers want the kind of feed they used as kids growing up on the farm or ranch, where they could look at a handful of feed and see what it was.

“When you dip your hand into a tote of my feed, you can see what ingredients are in there because they’re still in their natural color and processed form. You can see the fractions of corn, the fractions of peas, or the fractions of barley or oats. You can’t see that when you buy a commercial pellet because they grind it up so fine. The heat process and the pelleting process also condenses grains so tight that you have no idea really what is in that handful of feed,” he said.

John said he was recently talking to a 4-H customer who he hadn’t talked to since last year’s 4-H pig buying season.

“She had pigs eating a blend that I’ve been using for years, and they won a rate of gain contest. They were commercial pigs, not purebred show pigs, but the pigs were shown at the county fair, and they won the carcass quality contest.They had one pig that was first place, one that was third, and another that came in fifth,” he said.

Last year, John heard from a farmer who feeds chickens that he hadn’t had an egg in two months.

“I sold him the coarse rolled feed with the mineral added and he came back in 10 days and said, ‘I don’t know where all these eggs are coming from.’ He got more eggs, and they consumed less feed than before. We hear this all the time,” John said.

John can use either the roller mill or the grinder mixer to produce his fresh feed.

“While the roller mill is much more efficient, some want the size to be finer, which is better from the grinder mixer and the mixing aspects of the grinder,” he said.

Another customer had bought some custom pig feed for her pigs and also started feeding it to her chickens, but she had a milk cow that had three calves and wondered if John could help her with a good ration for the cow.

“She said, ‘I’ve got a milk cow. We’ve got three calves on her, and then we snitch a little for the house. Can you make me a ration?’ And I said, ‘Absolutely.’ I did it and she came over and picked it up,” he said.

The customer slowly blended John’s feed into her regular cow feed to get the cow used to it.

“She told me as they were adding more of my feed, she started watching the cream level on the top of her whole milk rise and rise. Every day, the cream line was expanding,” John said, with a laugh.

John has continued a tradition that has gone on for over 100 years in Ross.

“When I started this in 2018, it was my market to provide a service that had been going on in Ross for more than 100 years. I enjoy it – meeting the customers and hearing their success stories,” John said.

John continues to adapt to the needs of his customers and plans to continue rolling and grinding custom feed into the foreseeable future.

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The beef industry has proven to be resilient and adaptive in producing beef, according to Tim Petry, NDSU Extension livestock marketing economist.