Purina Organic Starter/Grower Ingredients :-/

[DoveChick09]

Purina has made it a point to not list or provide images of the ingredients in the Organic Starter Grower Crumbles. It's not on their site, Amazon, Tractor Supply, or Google, anywhere! Just complaints from people that it's not listed. I find that a bit shady. Why would a company intentionally not provide the ingredients like every single other company does? Organic didn't necessarily mean great, as we all know. I found another company but I didn't like the added chemicals. I know people like the feed, but a lot of us still would like to know what we would be feeding our babies, and essentially ourselves.
Does anyone have an image or a link to the actual ingredients?
#purina

 

[aart]

We are trying to get prepared to raise our own food and such now that I can't work.

Do you realize that keeping chickens for eggs(and meat?) is not less expensive than buying them at the store? Especially if you're going to use 'organic' feed.

 

[ChickenCanoe]

Depending on the species being fed, there are regulations on what ingredients and nutrients have to be included on the analysis tag.
Every Land o' Lakes mill (Purina and Dumor) will have the same information on their guaranteed analysis tag. Same goes for Nurtena, ADM, Nature's Grown and every other manufacturer. Same goes for horse, dog, cat, swine and goat feed.
https://www.purinamills.com/chicken-feed/products/detail/purina-organic-starter-grower?utm_campaign=3386433&utm_medium=cpc&utm_source=google&utm_term=+purina +chick starter&utm_content=3386433_Purina_Flock_C_NH1_Google_Flock_All_Brand_DMT_National_LeadGen_3386433^Purina Start & Grow&gclid=CjwKCAiA9tyQBhAIEiwA6tdCrLNs2HXTl1_SoHrls0-sCJKEvRxsKpZNMrXxTJ5hHgEMlrvc6CdkDhoC1q8QAvD_BwE
The info is on the bag.

 

[U_Stormcrow]

Thank you, but that doesn't say the actual ingredients. It's literally the only company I looked at that didn't list the real ingredients. Unfortunately, I can't just go to the store just to read the info. I got covid really bad and am now disabled because of it. Every time I go out I risk more issues now. We are trying to get prepared to raise our own food and such now that I can't work. I don't understand why they worked be the only ones not to list them.

This comes up from time to time, Purina is NOT the only one to do so, Purina is just the most common one to do so - due to their size. Purina makes use of its own facilities, and those it rents from others to produce its feeds, mixing (to the extent practical) locally sourced grains. As consequence, the contents of a bag of Purina [Feed] can vary across the nation enough that a single national label can't exist, due to mandated disclosures and the possibility that they might be inaccurate regionally - which would trigger a recall. This is because Purina mixes to a particular nutritional profile, not to a particular recipe of ingredients and quantitites. As do most major commercial suppliers.

If you have a relationship with your feed store, call and ask someone to snap a cell phone picture of the nutrition label with that bag's ingredients disclosure for you.

 

[U_Stormcrow]

Echoing ^^^.

As someone liscened by the State to legally sell the eggs and meat my chickens produce, I can attest to this first hand. Even buying from the local mill, non-organic, I can't get feed cheap enough to do better than break even during the good months in the year I started. Feed costs are WAY up. Egg prices at the grocery have not grown near so much.

Rough estimates? A Layer will eat 20 pounds in its first 20 weeks, then about 2#/wk thereafter. Most will produce nothing for their first 20 weeks, till start of lay - many birdsd won't start till later.

So your first full year of owning a layer bird, you can expect it to eat about 80# of feed. Assuming it drops a useful egg 5 days of 7, beginning week 20, you are looking at 160 eggs in that same period - about 13 dozen.

At $3/doz, that's almost $40. 80# of gmo name brand feed from the farm store is likely somewhere between $32 and $45 right now. So you have the *potential* of a slight profit. Until you consider the cost of buying the bird in the first place, the expense of their facilities, your labor time, the risk of loss to predator, disease, injury, power, water, licensing, advertising, packaging, cleaning materials, and costs of refrigeration...

What do those cost? Even with feed costs down at $0.28/lb ($14/50#) and hatching my own birds, I only break even a few months out of the year. I eat my excess males, and invoice myself $1.50/lb (bone in) for them.

My flock is my entertainment budget for the year.

 

[ChickenCanoe]

The ingredients are required to be on the guaranteed analysis tag on the bag.
While not a required technique, they list the ingredients in order of quantity of each in the feed.
Have you read the guaranteed analysis tag?

 

[ChickNanny13]

Go to the store, ask to see a bag and read the label. I learned recently that Purina's tags will say "Manufactured By" and/or "Manufactured For" when I purchased a bag of feed and the color/smell was way off. Ingredients change due to where manufactured (supply) but the nutritional value should be the same. It was a month of frustration but Purina/TSC explained. Now I ask or go into the warehouse to read labels prior to purchasing.

 

[ChickenCanoe]

Thank you, but that doesn't say the actual ingredients. It's literally the only company I looked at that didn't list the real ingredients. Unfortunately, I can't just go to the store just to read the info. I got covid really bad and am now disabled because of it. Every time I go out I risk more issues now. We are trying to get prepared to raise our own food and such now that I can't work. I don't understand why they worked be the only ones not to list them.

The easiest way to explain it is that the ingredients are not always the same. What is consistent is the nutrient profile. Specific nutrient levels: amino acids, vitamins, minerals, and fats can be achieved from a combination of various ingredients. The nutrient profile is much more important for providing nutritious feed than the actual ingredients.
It doesn't help to have a desirous ingredient yet have a feed deficient in one of the nutrients livestock are known to need.
I programmed feed mills for various poultry and swine producers that have their own mills.
Unlike those individuals who have the desire to create their own feed, mills bring in grains and legumes by the trainload, vitamins and minerals by the ton. We might buy grains and legumes by the 50 # bag and micronutrients by the pound. There is no way we can compete with the economy of scale.
Now, back to the ingredients. Feed companies have a nutrient profile they need to achieve - not an ingredient list. If they had to maintain an ingredient list, there would likely be times of the year or parts of the country where they couldn't obtain the ingredients and therefor, not be able to produce any feed. This is even more true with organic feeds since organic grains and legumes are much harder to come by.
They assay all the ingredients when the trains arrive and adjust the ingredients to achieve the nutrient profile for the intended species and age to be fed. Then the final product is assayed to verify the results. From time to time, ingredients need to be adjusted. That's why the ingredients are listed on the bag's guaranteed analysis tag.
I hope this helps.

 

[allenw]

The easiest way to explain it is that the ingredients are not always the same. What is consistent is the nutrient profile. Specific nutrient levels: amino acids, vitamins, minerals, and fats can be achieved from a combination of various ingredients. The nutrient profile is much more important for providing nutritious feed than the actual ingredients.
It doesn't help to have a desirous ingredient yet have a feed deficient in one of the nutrients livestock are known to need.
I programmed feed mills for various poultry and swine producers that have their own mills.
Unlike those individuals who have the desire to create their own feed, mills bring in grains and legumes by the trainload, vitamins and minerals by the ton. We might buy grains and legumes by the 50 # bag and micronutrients by the pound. There is no way we can compete with the economy of scale.
Now, back to the ingredients. Feed companies have a nutrient profile they need to achieve - not an ingredient list. If they had to maintain an ingredient list, there would likely be times of the year or parts of the country where they couldn't obtain the ingredients and therefor, not be able to produce any feed. This is even more true with organic feeds since organic grains and legumes are much harder to come by.
They assay all the ingredients when the trains arrive and adjust the ingredients to achieve the nutrient profile for the intended species and age to be fed. Then the final product is assayed to verify the results. From time to time, ingredients need to be adjusted. That's why the ingredients are listed on the bag's guaranteed analysis tag.
I hope this helps.

It's called least cost ration, they have computer programs to figure the lowest cost of the ration with the various commodities available to meet the feed values listed on the tag. Most feed mills are mixing various types of feed with a limited number of ingredients that can change as different commodities are available. That is the reason for the wording on most feed tags being grain products. grain byproducts etc. and no individual ingredients being named.

 

[Brooks_]

It would likely depend on the mill and available ingredients. Not a shady plan. Find it in store and read the tag.