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jonathanherrera

Hatching
Jun 11, 2016
4
0
7
Alpine, Texas
Hey All,

I just created my account. This is my first post. We just picked up our first group of chicks about 6-8 weeks ago. We live in a rural rea. Our feed store in town only carries Purina. We're not the biggest fans of Purina. I have been looking around online trying to find a feed I can have shipped to my house. Can any of you recommend a good feed that can ship to our house?

Appreciate your help!
 
Welcome!
IMHO, shipping costs will negate any benefit from avoiding Purina.
What is your issue with that company?
When I was young ( a million years ago) it was the only feed we used and they made products for virtually any animals that we had.
Then I moved away from them in later years.
Their headquarters are located here, as is their research farm. Their nutritionists give classes at area community gardens. I've become more impressed with them over the last couple years.
 
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Hi, welcome to BYC!
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I ordered Kalmbach and it seems pretty good. It was from Amazon from another seller, not the company. Now the 1 I ordered isn't available and I don't want their other products. So inconsistency will be a problem for me. I read ingredient lists and liked it better than what was available locally.

Have you asked your LFS if they can get you a different brand? Most of the time they can order things they don't stock.

Good luck!
 
I basically second what Chicken Canoe said.

Amazon Prime will take a bite out of the shipping costs, but will again limit your options. It's probably only worth doing that if you were planning to overpay for Organic anyway. I did see one conventional feed for $23 for a 40lb bag, which is about twice what I pay off my local feed truck here in the Northeast... and no one is to say its any better quality than Purina.

Chicken feeds are really just ground up commodity grains with some minerals added, so while I may not feed my dogs Purina, I wouldn't go too far out of the way to avoid their poultry feed. The good news is that if its the only thing available locally, it's probably getting rotated frequently... and god knows how long something from the internet sits in a warehouse.

If there is a place to buy bags of straight grains locally, you may be able to roll your own and actually save money vs. the local stuff. There are feed recipes out there if you google around.
 
Appreciate your input! I will talk to the LFS about the idea of ordering in something different. We are about 250 miles from any "city" so traveling for options isn't really realistic. If needed we can stay with Purina. I was hoping for high quality grains but if its not the biggest of deals for chickens (like hiltonizer said, i wouldn't even feed it to my dogs) then I won't stress it.

Thank y'all!
 
Appreciate your input! I will talk to the LFS about the idea of ordering in something different. We are about 250 miles from any "city" so traveling for options isn't really realistic. If needed we can stay with Purina. I was hoping for high quality grains but if its not the biggest of deals for chickens (like hiltonizer said, i wouldn't even feed it to my dogs) then I won't stress it.

Thank y'all!

not next to a city? no problem

check for a local buyer club
http://www.agrilicious.org/home

or a local farm.. some of them do sell feeds

as for order online.. i looked into this place but since i have local stores here.. the shipping cost made no sense to me so i didn't go through with it

but it might be ideal for you.. since they do offer shipping discount once in a while.. and also by visiting their site (if provide new email each time) they will you a free shipping code on certain items (NOT FOR FEEDS though:/)

http://www.groworganic.com/country-living/chickens/organic-chicken-feed.html


wow.. 250 miles from the city? do USPS/UPS/Fedex/ DHL deliver packages that far out?..
 
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Appreciate your input! I will talk to the LFS about the idea of ordering in something different. We are about 250 miles from any "city" so traveling for options isn't really realistic. If needed we can stay with Purina. I was hoping for high quality grains but if its not the biggest of deals for chickens (like hiltonizer said, i wouldn't even feed it to my dogs) then I won't stress it.

Thank y'all!

I doubt there's any difference in grain quality unless it is organic. Almost all mills buy from the same pool. Each type of grain goes by rail to warehouses/silos and are all mixed together. Grain from one farm won't be segregated from grain from another farm.
Grains in each region go to these storage facilities. Wheat goes in one set of silos, corn to another, oats to another, barley another, et. al..
From those storage facilities, they go by rail to each mill. They get ground, mixed with ground and heat treated legumes and then an assortment of vitamins, minerals, fats and synthetic proteins are all added in powder form. They get mixed well, steamed, run through a pelletizer and if end product is a crumble, the pellets are run through a crumbler. There really isn't a great deal of difference. All manufacturers are using the same science to produce a feed that provides all the nutrients chickens are known to need. The primary difference will be determined by reading the ingredient list. Some, like Purina and the better grades of Nutrena will list corn and soybeans as the main ingredients. Cheaper feeds will list the primary ingredients as grain products or grain by-products.
 
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I doubt there's any difference in grain quality unless it is organic. Almost all mills buy from the same pool. Each type of grain goes by rail to warehouses/silos and are all mixed together. Grain from one farm won't be segregated from grain from another farm.
Grains in each region go to these storage facilities. Wheat goes in one set of silos, corn to another, oats to another, barley another, et. al..
From those storage facilities, they go by rail to each mill. They get ground, mixed with ground and heat treated legumes and then an assortment of vitamins, minerals, fats and synthetic proteins are all added in powder form. They get mixed well, steamed, run through a pelletizer and if end product is a crumble, the pellets are run through a crumbler. There really isn't a great deal of difference. All manufacturers are using the same science to produce a feed that provides all the nutrients chickens are known to need. The primary difference will be determined by reading the ingredient list. Some, like Purina and the better grades of Nutrena will list corn and soybeans as the main ingredients. Cheaper feeds will list the primary ingredients as grain products or grain by-products.
So do you actually figure the ones with corn and soybeans as their main ingredient are better than "grain product or by-products"? Seems to me like they would be. That's why I started looking for something else than what the LFS recommends and say they use. But am I kidding myself?
 
I can't say for sure because if the label says grain product or grain by-products - that's not very definitive.
I know the bags that list specific grains are usually a dollar or two higher per bag.

It could very well be that if rye, wheat, barley or oats are cheaper at the time, they'll substitute those. That doesn't necessarily mean they are inferior. Every manufacturer should be doing an analysis on each run of feed so they should have all the nutrients needed plus a bump.
 
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