best brand of chicken feed?

[seminolewind]

I have been a label reader for years. I remember buying Eukanuba or science diet thinking it was the best only to find out that they had the same crap ingredients in them than the supermarket dog food does! They all lie. And then, I happened upon Blue dog food one day. It said "Salmon and sweet potato" and glory be, that's exactly the first 2 ingredients in the bag! Finally, some company who's not saying they are the best, and you read the label and the first 3 ingredients are cereal, corn, and more cereal.

It was the same with my horse 25 years ago. All those wonderful feeds had corn as the first ingredient , and a bunch of by-products (I call them floor sweepings). Then I discovered Blue Seal horse feed and they said they were good, and by golly the first 3 ingredients were oats , rolled oats, and whole oats! Not corn!!! They got my loyalty as well.

Look at tags, The front of the bag will say "greens and vegetables" and you will find it's ingredient #26, something that might translate to a pinch of parsley in a 50 pound bag. Now Purina claims that it now has probiotics in it. But how much? Minimum daily requirement? Or a speck? How much probiotics should a chicken get per day? And how much is Purina giving them?

 

[evemfoster]

I have been a label reader for years. I remember buying Eukanuba or science diet thinking it was the best only to find out that they had the same crap ingredients in them than the supermarket dog food does! They all lie. And then, I happened upon Blue dog food one day. It said "Salmon and sweet potato" and glory be, that's exactly the first 2 ingredients in the bag! Finally, some company who's not saying they are the best, and you read the label and the first 3 ingredients are cereal, corn, and more cereal.

It was the same with my horse 25 years ago. All those wonderful feeds had corn as the first ingredient , and a bunch of by-products (I call them floor sweepings). Then I discovered Blue Seal horse feed and they said they were good, and by golly the first 3 ingredients were oats , rolled oats, and whole oats! Not corn!!! They got my loyalty as well.

Look at tags, The front of the bag will say "greens and vegetables" and you will find it's ingredient #26, something that might translate to a pinch of parsley in a 50 pound bag. Now Purina claims that it now has probiotics in it. But how much? Minimum daily requirement? Or a speck? How much probiotics should a chicken get per day? And how much is Purina giving them?

My Aha moment was a number of years back when i was buying compost. The bag i picked up was wet and heavy and it split and dumped the contents of the whole bag onto my feet. It wouldn't have so bad if there had been compost in that bag. The bag was full of dirt, sand and gravel mixed into fairly fresh looking straw, hay and horse apples. Floor sweepings from a horse stall. When i read the label on the bag the very last ingredient was compost. I didn't see any compost.

Now days i buy bags labeled manure and still poke a hole in every bag.

 

[Michael Apple]

I have been a label reader for years. I remember buying Eukanuba or science diet thinking it was the best only to find out that they had the same crap ingredients in them than the supermarket dog food does! They all lie. And then, I happened upon Blue dog food one day. It said "Salmon and sweet potato" and glory be, that's exactly the first 2 ingredients in the bag! Finally, some company who's not saying they are the best, and you read the label and the first 3 ingredients are cereal, corn, and more cereal.

I've been using Great Life now for the last 5 years and have been very happy with the results.

Now Purina claims that it now has probiotics in it. But how much? Minimum daily requirement? Or a speck? How much probiotics should a chicken get per day? And how much is Purina giving them?

There's far superior feeds out there. Bar Ale and Modesto are a few in my backyard:
Bar Ale: http://www.baraleinc.com/index.php/products/poultry/item/124-organic-17-hi-energy-layer

Modesto: http://www.modestomilling.com/poultry.html

 

[seminolewind]

Quote:

Yes!!! By gosh if you buy cow manure you should be getting cow manure!!! Yes, I have bought cow manure in the past at Lowe's I think.

 

[Our Roost]

Lets talk chicken feed! My chickens love the scratch mix I acquire from our local grainery. I like the blend of ingredients within the mix. It even has black sunflower seeds witch they devour. Main concern is lack of protein and essential vitamins. I generally add a a commercial brand of crumbles to the mix. That plan hasn't worked as the crumbles dont get eaten! Wishing scratch grains had more supplements in it.

 

[seminolewind]

I may have misunderstood you. But you should be feeding them crumbles for layers as their main food and scratch as a treat of a handful or so. Chickens will not survive healthy if they are fed scratch like a main meal. My chickens have layer crumbles left out all day. In the afternoon I take about a quart of scratch/sweetfeed and give it to 29 chickens and 6 geese.

 

[Our Roost]

I think you did misunderstand me. I said I mix crumbles and scratch together as their main feed.I have been for 4 yrs. And they manage just fine and are surviving quite well. Crumbles has much needed protein and scratch is lacking that supplement but it also has other nutritional needs worthy of giving them. If they were free ranging they would still need protein in their diet. My statement was that manufacturers of scratch do not add enough supplements to their product to satisfy both us and the chickens. Birds like scratch and not so much the crumbles. Too much waste of crumbles not being consumed.

 

[seminolewind]

I think you did misunderstand me. I said I mix crumbles and scratch together as their main feed.I have been for 4 yrs. And they manage just fine and are surviving quite well. Crumbles has much needed protein and scratch is lacking that supplement but it also has other nutritional needs worthy of giving them. If they were free ranging they would still need protein in their diet. My statement was that manufacturers of scratch do not add enough supplements to their product to satisfy both us and the chickens. Birds like scratch and not so much the crumbles. Too much waste of crumbles not being consumed.

I did. Protein needs to be 16%-18%, which is crumbles. If (hypothetically). Say if you mix 50% scatch to the food, you will have 1/2 that amount of protein. Most scratch is basically corn, and most feeds are basically corn, That's why I use something other then corn. But this is only an opinion and what I do. Nutritionally, corn does ad a lot of calories and carbs.

 

[Michael Apple]

Birds like scratch and not so much the crumbles. Too much waste of crumbles not being consumed.

Chickens don't like powdery feed which is what crumbles are reduced to. Lots of waste. The only crumbled feed I use is for chicks. Adults get pellets. If you mix in scratch grains with formulated feed, they'll choose the scratch instead of the formulated feed.

 

[Our Roost]

Agreed Michael, so why dont manufacturers add more protein to the scratch product?