What feed do you reccommend I get and why?

[PheasantsFirst]

I'ld go look at some of your near by feed stores, especially the local ones and see if they have their own brand, If they do they are usually cheaper and of better quality.

 

[bhaugh]

I make my own

 

[Joan71]

First of all, I am very new to BYC ( just joined today! ) and I love it already!

But anyway, I don't have chickens yet but we are planning on getting some this month. We would go to the Tractor Supply Co. here. We went yesterday and I saw brands like Purina Layena, Dumor, and some others that I don't remember. What brand do you reccommend, even not in those listed?
Thanks!

The folks at Tractor Supply are very helpful and knowledgeable here. If you are getting chicks then you will need the "starter feed" for them in the crumble. My chicks did real well on the Dumor brand. You will be able to find the help you need here as you need it. When your chicks approach 18 to 22 weeks you can start changing them over to the layer feed. When I started with my chicks, I took it a step at a time. Read everything I could on BYC and we did fine.

 

[Betsy57]

About an hour away, there is a mill that grinds their own blend with some very nice ingredients. It is a mash, which I didn't care for, but the birds did great. However, the distance makes it not practical for a small flock, so I currently use Nutrena Nature Wise layer pellets.

Not a lot of options here, mainly Layena and Nutrena. My birds did fine on Layena, but it made their waste smell worse. Much better on Nutrena. I thought maybe it was a fluke until the feed store was out of Nutrena one day and I bought Layena again. The coop quickly smelled again, so I went back to Nutrena. 

What mill are you talking about ? Where is it? I like Nutrena because it has pro and prebiotics. Definitely does make a difference in their poop. More expensive but it is worth it.

 

[Cree]

Anyone have any brands that have organic feed? I live in the Minneapolis area and I'd have to drive quite a long ways to get to a feed store. I'd be willing to order online I just can't find any brand names. We have 8 birds and lately they are just tearing through their food. We'd like to feed them organic and let them free range in our yard as much as possible.

 

[zayshell]

I use a locally (Bellingham, WA) produced organic feed called "Scratch and Peck".
My girls go nuts when I spoil them and make a warm cerial from the stuff.
This is not something I do too often!

 

[cortner1195]

I may have my son bring me some of the "scratch and peck". He lives in Bellingham, and I live in Spokane.

I have my birds on Nutrena's "Feather Fixer" pellets. It has a non absorbed product that inhibits mite infestation. Since one of my girls has a bare bum, I am trying to promote fast molting, and quick feather production. Also preventing the mites sounds awesome to me. I have really seen a difference in the girls' feathers.

 

[urbanchange90]

A healthy non GMO feed mix. What you feed your chickens is what you eat so it's better to spend a little more for the organic natural stuff. From what I've seen they really seem to love it

 

[rilo2]

I use Kalambach layer pellets. It's more natural, though not organic. I used to use Dumor, but when I switched to Kalambach, I had a little Dumor left over. After putting out the Kalambach, they wouldn't TOUCH the Dumor anymore! It sat for weeks! I even waited a day to put more Kalambach out, and they STILL didn't touch the Dumor!

 

[Betsy57]

Anyone have any brands that have organic feed? I live in the Minneapolis area and I'd have to drive quite a long ways to get to a feed store. I'd be willing to order online I just can't find any brand names. We have 8 birds and lately they are just tearing through their food.  We'd like to feed them organic and let them free range in our yard as much as possible. 

I use Countryside Organics feed. Ends up costing me $50 a 50 lb bag with shipping so I use it as a supplement, can't afford to feed 50 chickens at that price. $30 for feed, $20 for shipping to where I live. The chickens love it. Have to supplement the calcium with this.