Homemade feed questions?

[OldMcContri]

Its getting close to bringing the girls out to their new home and I am wanting to give them the best food that I can provide them. Since I am a very hands on person and enjoy making food from scratch, I want to make my own organic homemade chicken feed. I have read many recipes and they are all very similar, yet one thing that varies is a dry feed or fermented feed.

Is there a nutritional value between DF and FF? If I go with FF would I still be able to use custom made feeder or will it begin to mold and turn bad from being wet?

 

[SavageDestiny]

I'v seen a lot of chicken feed mixes on this sight and most are nothing more that expensive scratch mix.
What I would like to know is out of all these chicken feed mixes everybody is making how many of them sent there feed mix off to be tested for proper nutrient levels for the type of poultry they have.

It would be impossible for me to send off my diet. Because aside from the grain/seed/legume mix I feed my chickens, they also get a huge variety of fresh vegetables, greens, and fruits as well as various fresh meats and organs. They get fish oil a few times a week. Plus supplements like kelp, yeast, cayenne, turmeric, etc.

This is exactly why I asked this question. Even though there are tons of homemade recipes around the internet for chicken feed, there are still others that say it is not worth it and actually not nutritious enough for the chickens.

For now I am going to be buying organic feed, but will make my own sometime in the future. Funny though, if you look at alot of the organic feeds out there you will see additives of minerals and vitamins and other things. Funny I thought organic meant everything was natural and not an additive such as those added vitamins.

Processed feed has to have vitamin and mineral supplements added. Cooking everything down and mashing it into a pellet removes nutrients. Those lost nutrients have to be replaced somehow, thus the additives. Even with totally fresh foods, some supplements are necessary for trace minerals, like kelp.

 

[NuffSaid]

My chickens free range in a tractor that regularly gets moved so they have fresh "pasture". I can't possibly send off what they eat to a lab to be tested. The feed I mix is more of a supplement to the rest of what they eat than the other way around.

 

[SavageDestiny]

I sure as heck don't mix up a batch of 'feed' containing 10, 15 or 20 items for the week/month and sustain myself on that same feed week after week after week... I personally eat 100s of different items each month and no two days are the same, let alone sticking to a list of even 100 'ingredients' to sustain myself on...

I'm not suggesting you can't make your own food and make some decent stuff (I have, I made dog food for 2 years from scratch for two cattle dogs) but I know full well feed companies have turned it into a science very much like baby formula or feeding tube food companies have and the stuff you make at home is likely to not be anywhere near as balanced overall at the end of the day... And at the end of the day no matter how much science we put into it, we still fall short to some degree vs the natural varied diets...

I'm not knocking those that make their own feed it can have some very positive results over commercial feeds, but you have to be devoted...

For me my flock 'sustains' on commercial feed and they get a vast variety of whatever produce the local grocery store tossed out that week and gave to me instead of the dumpster out back...

But you probably have a lot of staples that you eat, and then eat a variety to complement that. You seem to have missed the part where I say that if hens can't free range, it is crucial that they be given a variety of fresh foods in addition to the feed mix.

For the record, what you're protesting about in your first paragraph, sustaining yourself on a set, small ingredient list, is exactly what animals are expected to do on commercial feed.

You're right that feed companies have feed down to a science- the science of profit. They use whatever they can get cheaply to mash together and charge as much as they can get away with. They are not in it for the health of our animals, they are in it for the money.

 

[SavageDestiny]

You might want to look at this.

https://www.backyardchickens.com/t/4477/everyone-post-your-best-homemade-chicken-feed-recipes

I put my FF in a plastic piece of gutter but only put out as much as they'll eat in a day. That's the drawback to FF. You can't bulk feed.
Fermenting prevents the food from going bad but if it sits out for days it will still go bad.

https://www.backyardchickens.com/t/645057/fermented-feeds-anyone-using-them

I understand wanting to produce a better feed but the economy of scale works against you. It will be MUCH more expensive to produce your own and still get the right balance of micro-nutrients, fats, amino acids, vitamins and minerals than buying a bag of organic feed.

Not everyone is about cost first. I make my own feed for my chickens, and I make my dogs' food as well. It's a little more expensive to feed the chickens home made feed (WAY more expensive to make dog food!) but it is worth it to me. I don't like feeding any of my animals processed, cooked to death food. Not to mention that after working in the pet food industry, I don't trust feed companies one bit!

 

[SavageDestiny]

Wow, that's quite a list! Thank you for sharing - it definitely helps me understand homemade feed better. I think I was picturing corn and oats and not much else. I haven't looked at fermenting yet so I don't know anything about that process. I have a lot of questions I'd like to ask about your feed, if you don't mind (if not, that's okay too!). I'm not being snarky at all (and hope I'm not coming across that way) - I'm just WAY to afraid of trying something like this myself. After my sick chick last week I'm terrified of making more newbie mistakes. But I'm curious and would I'd like to learn more about homemade feeds.

Here goes: Do your chickens eat all of it, or do they just pick out the good stuff? Where do you get all of those ingredients? I'm thinking the bins at whole foods would be WAY too expensive - can you buy the ingredients in bags? Why the turmeric? I'm familiar with the benefits of the others, but what does turmeric do? Why no corn or oats? For some reason I have it in my head that those are "chicken feed" - but I'm new at this and don't know why I believe that, lol! Have you compared the cost of your feed to store-bought feed? I'm just wondering if the homemade is more expensive.

Your recipe gives me a place to start reading and researching. Thank you, I really appreciate it!

I don't mind questions. And DANG, I knew I was going to forget something writing it all out! There is 1 cup whole oats in the mix as well, haha. I avoid corn because I would like to avoid GMOs, if at all possible. Corn is also a warming food, so not great during the summer time! They will probably get some corn as treats when it is really cold out. I bought most of the stuff from local feed stores- 50lb bags of wheat, barley, oats, and alfalfa pellets were $10-12 per bag. The black oil sunflower (BOSS) was $22 for a 40lb bag. Lentils and peas I got at Cash and Carry for $16 per 25lbs, the millet mix was I think $7 for 10lbs from a feed store, the flax is $1.19 per lb at Natural Grocers. The chia is by far the most expensive at $5 per lb, but I use it myself so it is on hand, so I share with the chickens haha. I have not done the math to price it all out per pound. It is probably more expensive than regular chicken feed. The turmeric I do because it is an excellent anti-inflammatory and can also help get a nice orange egg color.

My chickens eat all of it. They don't leave a scrap behind! They're pretty gluttonous, though, they love food! They seem to be doing great on their feed. Happy, laying eggs well, nice shiny feathers and red waxy combs. Good weight on them too. I also have a 10 week old pullet who has been eating it and she is growing like a weed! I guess I'm more comfortable doing this because I believe so much in natural foods. I've made diets for dogs, cats, ferrets, and even my fish. So I'm pretty comfortable making feeds.

 

[SavageDestiny]

If your birds have to free range to meet the rest of there dietary/nutritional needs then your not making a chicken feed (or at least a complete one) but more of a grain mix much like a glorified scratch grain.
Lets face it anybody can go and mix a bunch of grains together and call it a "feed" but if it don't meet there needs then it not really a feed at all.

My chickens could survive on their feed mix if I added a premade vitamin/mineral supplement. Just as chickens survive on commercial feed mixes which add in the same. Commercial feed mixes are no different than a home made mix except that their foods are cooked and mashed together. Both require vitamins and minerals to be added to the base grain mix. Commercial feeds accomplish this by adding the premade mixes. I could do this as well, but I prefer my chickens get their vitamins and minerals from fresh, natural sources instead of chemically produced, cooked to death vit/min supplements.

 

[Organic Acres]

I just produce my own organic feed. I grow oats, wheat, barley and corn on my field. I buy non-GMO organic soybean meal in blocks of 400 pounds at a time to get it for cheap (this much lasts for a couple of years).

I grind and then mix the oats and wheat and barley together, and I grind the corn so it's in quite big pieces (not ground finely) and then prepare the home mix food in the following way:

broilers:

1 part soybean meal
1 part rough ground corn
3 parts oat/wheat/barley mix (note: I grind this too, but not finely)

this gives me a feed with a high spectrum of minerals and vitamins, and about 25% protein - good for broilers.

laying hens:

the same as above when it's winter, but in summer I don't use soybean meal or corn.

for these girls I have a second feeder of whole grains - again oats and wheat and barley, so that they can eat whole grains or ground grains depending on what they feel like doing.

year round I give all my chickens crushed oyster shells on demand.

my eggs and chicken meat are fabulous, and my chickens are always top notch healthy.

when I buy a laying chicken from a market or sale, they arrive at my farm with faded, off-color wattles and dull looking feathers and demeanor. Within a week or two of eating the food on my farm and ranging on the grass there outside, their wattles invariably become much darker red, their feathers get brighter and stronger, and they really perk up.

this is how I know for sure that my feed program is effective. I would never buy chicken food from a manufacturer, and I really don't understand why everybody does. it's cheaper and better to make your own.

 

[SavageDestiny]

That's my point. A person with a few chickens is buying 50 pound bags of grain at best. The feed company is buying by the trainload and micro nutrients by the ton.

Furthermore, an appropriate balance of amino acids is essential. That requires animal protein or a good understanding of the proper mix of grains and legumes to get all the amino acids that are essential to chickens.

Grains and Legumes won't have micro-nutrients like selenium and copper or vitamins like K, D3, etc.. There may be the possibility of getting a general supplement with those things. Some vitamins are water soluble and some are fat soluble which is another mixing and preservation issue.

Fat and salt levels are important considerations as well.

If one is just mixing grains and seeds, it won't be long before there are nutritional deficiencies unless their chickens have year round access to pristine pasture with lots of bugs and other animal protein sources.

But with a little research, it's not that difficult to balance things. Adding animal protein isn't that hard. Adding things like kelp for micro nutrients isn't that hard. At worst someone could go the route of a vitamin/mineral supplement.

People say the same sort of things about making dog food. Yet somehow, 8 years later my dogs are healthy and their blood work pristine. Funny, huh?

 

[Chris09]

This is exactly why I asked this question. Even though there are tons of homemade recipes around the internet for chicken feed, there are still others that say it is not worth it and actually not nutritious enough for the chickens.

For now I am going to be buying organic feed, but will make my own sometime in the future. Funny though, if you look at alot of the organic feeds out there you will see additives of minerals and vitamins and other things. Funny I thought organic meant everything was natural and not an additive such as those added vitamins.

There are a number of reason for added Vitamins, Minerals and other Nutrients (example some amino acids). Grains and other ingredients can vary from batch to batch, from field to field and year to year. Some of them are added because some nutrients are harder for poultry to extract.
Some forms of Vitamin E is added to feed as a feed preservative and can help hold in nutrition.
By adding that nutrient they are insuring that your bird is getting all that they need.