Questions About Making My own Feed

[countrygirl86]

Currently I am feeding my chicks Dumor chick starter/grower from TSC. My chicks are growing well, I do not have any complaints about the feed but I am interested in taking a more natural route with their diet. I have been researching nutritional requirements and looked at a few other members feed recipes for ideas. I compared the feed I have with the chicken nutritional requirement chart that I found here http://extension.missouri.edu/p/G8352 (Table 2) and it seems that there is a lot missing from the commercial feed in the way of nutrition. I know they may not put complete nutritional details on their packaging or ingredient list but I would much rather know what my chicks are eating and that they are getting what they need.

I feel confident that I could put together a well balanced natural feed for my chicks but I also have to be conscious of cost. I am in SE Pennsylvania near Lancaster so I may be able to find a local mill to get grains. Based on pricing that I have found on Azure Standard, the same weight of feed would end up being more than the commercial feed that I am currently buying and shipping would be rather costly. But I am curious if the chicks were eating an unprocessed/natural diet if they would eat less since they would be getting more nutrition from the food and their bodies would need more time to digest it.

So to those of you who do make your own feed, have you noticed that your chickens eat less often? Have you found any other places to buy grains for reasonable prices? Any advice or further reading?

 

[ChickenCanoe]

I assure you all those things are in the feed you're using and would be very expensive to reproduce for a small flock.

Methionine and Lysine are always listed on the label under guaranteed analysis because they are vital and not in sufficient quantity in grains and legumes. The other amino acids aren't listed but are present in sufficient quantity in grains and complementary legumes so as not to be a concern.
If you read the ingredient list, you'll find the vitamins and minerals that aren't in adequate supply in the grain/seed base so they have to be supplemented. The vitamins and minerals on the chart that aren't in the ingredient list are already in the grains and legumes in adequate supply.

I've looked into this many times and realized there is no way I can make my own feed for anywhere near the price of bagged feed. I usually have 60-100 birds and I can't buy grains in enough quantity to make it pay, let alone the micro nutrient supplements.

The economy of scale works against you. The feed manufacturers are buying grains by the trainload and supplements by the ton. I'm buying in 50 lb. bags.
I can get wheat for about $13/50# and barley for 18, peas for about 28. That would make the feed around 20 or so for 50 pounds before I added the selenium, copper, zinc, manganese, iron, salt, vitamin D3, A, E, etc.. Then I have no good way to accurately identify if I've gotten the ratios correct.

 

[Mac in Wisco]

No. Generally, the amount of feed consumed by a hen is governed by the energy (calories) it needs. Most layer rations are mixed to provide around 1300 kilocalories per pound of feed. At that energy level and depending upon temperature, activity level, and rate of production, a hen will consume around .25 to .35 lbs of feed per day. The required percentages of nutrients, vitamins, and minerals are based upon this level of consumption, e.g., 16% crude protein, or 4% calcium.

You can mix a high energy ration to get them to eat less, but then the nutrients densities need to go up. Conversely, with low energy diets, they will eat more and nutrient levels can go down.

It's unlikely that the commercial layer ration that you are feeding is nutritionally deficient, although you may not prefer the sources of some of those nutrients.

Allowing their bodies "more time to digest it", such as feeding uncracked grains, usually results in higher feed consumption due to poor digestibility. There are reasons for processing. Milling grains enhances digestibility and pelletizing them ensures that ingredients don't settle and separate during shipment, as well as providing a balanced ration with every bite versus the hens picking out the larger particles and leaving the the finer particles behind.

 

[Mac in Wisco]

Don't use those data too literally.

I looked at that nutritional requirement chart that you linked to. It is data for leghorn type hens and assumes a 2900 kcal/kg diet with an average consumption of 110 grams per day. Those are small, very efficient egg layers.

That type of data doesn't exist for commercial brown egg layers (or heritage breeds), which are heavier hens. When formulating diets for commercial brown egg layers based upon these data it is just assumed that brown layer hens eat 10% more. If they are cage free birds, they are then assumed to eat an additional 10% more and the nutrient densities are varied accordingly.