Rate this food for me

This is a new food a friend recommended.
I'm not sure if it's good or not.
$15 for 100lbs.
Cheaper than crumbles i use now but it's it ok?
I feed scraps and fodder also. This won't be their only source of nutrition.
Thanks

Honestly the numbers themselves look OK but no way would I trust something that doesn't list its specific ingredients instead of just "products." That is way too sketchy, I want to know what my birds are eating - I don't wanna eat eggs produced by a bird who is eating "Grain products", I want to eat eggs from a hen who has been eating corn or soybeans or wheat. The price also throws me way off; there's "good deal" cheap and then there's "this is probably at least semi inedible" cheap, and $7.50/50# of feed is pretty much always going to be the latter.

I feed scraps and fodder also. This won't be their only source of nutrition

Click to expand...

A complete commercial diet doesn't have to be their only source of nutrition, but it should be their main one, ideally comprising 85-90% of the diet. That's why it's important that it be at least a decent quality of feed.

Yeah, there are a lot of ways of gaming those numbers to make them technically correct, but that's not what the bird can extract from the feed. I would pass.

Yeah I wouldn't !

https://www.backyardchickens.com/content/type/61/id/7329040/width/350/height/700[/IM
Forgot to include a picture of my sample scoop

jacob04 said:

This is a new food a friend recommended.
I'm not sure if it's good or not.
$15 for 100lbs.
Cheaper than crumbles i use now but it's it ok?
I feed scraps and fodder also. This won't be their only source of nutrition.
Thanks

Click to expand...

Your chickens certainly won't automatically die on it since it conforms to chicken feed composition standards. But usually layer feed is formulated for the chickens in the large poultry houses that need X number of eggs to even stay afloat financially. They feed the absolute cheapest feed to get what they consider a healthy egg out of what they consider a healthy chicken. The bottom line is important and there are different views on what the bottom line is.

As others said, you don't get to know what the "grain products" are nor the indentity of the "protein products."

That kind of labeling allows a chicken feed formulator to include whatever grain product is cheapest and/or available on the particular day that the feed is being ground/processed/packaged. So whatever their mixture of grains might be (corn or oats or barley), they can just throw that in and they don't have to change the label. But usually the grain is going to be corn. The protein is going to be soy. The forage product can often be alfalfa.

But the fact that they put a comma between these two words: Ethylenediamine dihydriodide, for example, makes me wonder. Ethylenediamine dihydriodide is for iodine for the chickens.

And where's the methionine (amino acid)? Chickens need that and most feeds include the synthetic version called: DL methionine. Even some organic feeds include it because, last time I checked, there was a waiver for organic feeds to include it even though it's not organic. Maybe Kentucky feed manufacturers aren't required to include methionine. I'm sure different states have different regs. If you feed meat/milk/cheese scraps from your kitchen, they will get some methionine. Methionine is required. Some feed formulators use kelp to get enough.

For me, the cheapest way to get eggs is to provide the hens with a higher quality ration. Quality is in the eye of the beholder, of course. But the better the layer is fed the healthier she will be, less morbidity and mortality, (less egg binding or prolapse, well, actually I've not ever seen those maladies). We feed for longevity of laying, for feather health so they can stay warm without heat in the winter so we don't have to heat the coop (saving on electric bill), for general good health that makes for a more pleasant life (less stress which means less eggs) for the layer. The bottom line isn't about how cheaply we personally can feed the chickens because it's cheaper for us personally to have chickens live longer lives then I don't have to raise up another batch as often and can keep a few old ladies who may not lay through the winter.

How do the eggs taste? How creamy are the yolks in that fried egg? That's also an issue when choosing a feed for them.