homemade Purina flock block - Page 16

This thread is great! I'm wondering at the cost vs. buying one already made by Purina. I imagine if you get a deal on one of the major ingredients you could make one fairly cheap but all those bags of ingredients would add up.

My flock loves blocks but does finish them off rather quickly. I have 25 and it lasts for about a week. I'd love to make something for them but only if it were cheaper/better/healthier.

I Just found this thread! I just made a batch used a little of this and that... 3 cups corn meal, 1 1/2 cups wild bird seed, 1 cup quinoa, some bread crusts my kids wouldn't eat from lunch, some fruit scraps, an egg, and some water... THEY ARE GOING TO LOVE IT!

my mother in law made a batch of peanut brittle that didn't set right so i warmed it up adding scratch grains, their feed, oatmeal, boss, and frozen blueberries. it put it all into the oven again for about twenty min at 350 deg. then put it into a loafpan to cool. i put it out in the coop last night so i don't know if they liked it but i will find out when i get home.

I use items already on hand, so not really any added cost.  I first started making them when I accidently ordered the wrong thing at the feed store.  'Round here if you ask for "scratch" what you are going to get is finely ground corn, looks like corn meal.  Since then I've learned to order "chops" if I want cracked corn and "scratch grains" if I want the mixture of corn and other grains.  Still I had a 50# bag of ground corn I had to use up somehow.

Nowadays I am feeding something called Black Rooster, that includes many grains besides corn, including BOSS.  I haven't made any flock blocks with it yet, but I imagine it will make a fine block.  Really it will be the same stuff they get each day as scratch, but in a different form.  My chickens love anything thrown out as a treat.  I can throw their layer pellets on the ground and they love it sooo much more than the same exact thing in their feeder. 

I made my own "flock block" and they went over well.  They were about the size of a normal suet cake. I would toss one in their coop and they devoured it.

I also bought a "real" flock block from Purina.  That big square block is lasting much longer than my homemade ones, it hasn't decreased my egg production (which I was afraid of) and there is always a chicken picking at it.  I think I get more bank from my buck with the real one.

Ok, so reading through this post- I read the part asking about a fruitcake and decided to give it a try- my chickens wouldn't eve touch the nasty fruitcake!!

lol....just goes to show....NO ONE will eat those fruitcakes!

what is BOSS?

Black oil sunflower seeds

Black oiled sunflower seeds.  I use them all the time as a treat. 
Happy New Year everyone!!!