Why is Purina feed "bad"?

[Fred's Hens]

Kalmbach is known throughout the upper midwest. We also have a Kalmbach franchised Feed and Grain up the road a piece. Prices are fair and quality is good. I've only ever purchased the locally ground, 16% layer mash, not their pre-bagged products. I now use Hubbard, however.

One good feature of the 22% feed is that you could dilute it with lots of scratch, etc and the birds will do well. 22% will surely allow you to do that, if you wish. With scratch at 10% protein, averaged with your 22% feed, you could mix 50/50 and still achieve 16% protein on balance, BTW, that is what I would do, FWIW.

 

[urban escapee]

Kalmbach is known throughout the upper midwest. We also have a Kalmbach franchised Feed and Grain up the road a piece. Prices are fair and quality is good. I've only ever purchased the locally ground, 16% layer mash, not their pre-bagged products. I now use Hubbard, however.

One good feature of the 22% feed is that you could dilute it with lots of scratch, etc and the birds will do well. 22% will surely allow you to do that, if you wish. With scratch at 10% protein, averaged with your 22% feed, you could mix 50/50 and still achieve 16% protein on balance, BTW, that is what I would do, FWIW.

whew...I thought I was overfeeding my ladies. They get feed free choice and I toss out some scratch in the morning and evening to distract them while I collect eggs.

 

[Theda's Mom]

This is a fascinating and timely thread for me. I moved my flock from NH to west TN last summer. In NH we were feeding Blue Seal (which I loved!) but unable to get it here, I switched the girls over to TSC's Dumor feed. I'm not sure I like it. Though they free range daily and have free access to grit and oyster shell, the girls' egg shells are no where near as hard and robust as they were on the Blue Seal feed. Their poops are way runnier - so much so that I've had to wash behinds - something I never had to do before, and quite frankly, the two who lay regularly are not keeping the weight that I would prefer. I'm switching to Purina's Layena to see if it makes a difference (it's maybe a dollar more per bag here than the Dumore). I'm also going to see if any of brands an earlier poster listed are available locally.


Oh how I miss Blue Seal!

Susan

 

[wsmoak]

I thought it was interesting that a couple of people have complained about the *lack* of animal protein in the Purina feeds.

That's exactly why I use it. When the tag says "chicken byproduct meal" or whatever... where do you suppose that comes from? My guess is that it's the result of processing factory farmed chickens, either confinement house broilers or spent layers.

I have no problems with chickens eating meat. They eat bugs and kitchen leftovers. I'm quite sure that if one of their number keeled over and I didn't get there soon enough they would happily chow down. But when I'm raising mine on grass and sunshine, I do *not* want to feed them ground up bits of commercially raised birds!

-Wendy

 

[Theda's Mom]

I laughed when I saw the "vegetarian" claim on the Purina label and told the store clerk that Purina certainly didn't know much about chickens! My hens will eat anything that doesn't eat them first - bugs, lizards, frogs ... probably small poodles if they ganged up on them. But I like your comment about the "chicken byproducts." The last thing I'm interested in doing is supporting the chicken industry, even indirectly. For that reason: yeah, Purina!

 

[speckledhen]

I thought it was interesting that a couple of people have complained about the *lack* of animal protein in the Purina feeds.

That's exactly why I use it. When the tag says "chicken byproduct meal" or whatever... where do you suppose that comes from? My guess is that it's the result of processing factory farmed chickens, either confinement house broilers or spent layers.

I have no problems with chickens eating meat. They eat bugs and kitchen leftovers. I'm quite sure that if one of their number keeled over and I didn't get there soon enough they would happily chow down. But when I'm raising mine on grass and sunshine, I do *not* want to feed them ground up bits of commercially raised birds!

-Wendy

The feed I use, Tucker Milling, says "Porcine" meaning pork, so the animal protein is identified. It isn't chicken. Besides, there is no such thing as Mad Chicken Disease and they will eat each other if given half a chance, with no ill effects, I might add.

When they removed animal protein from feeds and everyone jumped on the vegetarian bandwagon, people were seeing feathering issues and feather picking in their flocks, especially when they were penned 24/7.

Mine free range much of the week, so if I had to use a vegetarian feed, I'd be okay; I just don't want it to be Purina, which stinks to high heaven to me. Tucker Milling always smells fresh, not like toxic waste.

 

[Clay Mudd]

I laughed when I saw the "vegetarian" claim on the Purina label and told the store clerk that Purina certainly didn't know much about chickens! My hens will eat anything that doesn't eat them first - bugs, lizards, frogs ... probably small poodles if they ganged up on them. But I like your comment about the "chicken byproducts." The last thing I'm interested in doing is supporting the chicken industry, even indirectly. For that reason: yeah, Purina!

When they removed animal protein from feeds and everyone jumped on the vegetarian bandwagon, people were seeing feathering issues and feather picking in their flocks, especially when they were penned 24/7.

You have to love the way they word it on the bag:


Quote:
You ought to see how happy my chickens get when I throw them meat or fish scrap!

And the next line on the bag:


Quote:
Okay -- you take out the animal protein, then you have to compensate with synthetic amino acids, then call the result "natural".

But hey, what other brand has "sun grown grains"?

 

[ChicKat]

Clay Mudd---

love the irony that you pointed out.

If Purina is big, and in many places the "only choice" as in TSC having purina or dumor which is also purina.... Does Purina have only one source of these feeds? What I am asking is:--- Is there one packaging plant that supplies the whole USA, or is there a distribution where some of our feeds come from different locations albeit all Purina - to save transport costs on heavy bags.

If this were the case, then it would explain the love/hate relationship with Purina. In some locations the stuff is junk, and in others it is great. Conversely, IF everything comes from just one source, then is some of the feed, old and stale by the time it hits stores in the farthest reaches of the USA...and thus inferior 'old' feed?

I have had good feed from Purina and I believe I have had bad feed...but sometimes it is the only game in town or what else is available is actually worse. I'm reluctant to get feed shipped from far away for delivery. I know I have asked Chris09 before about feed...and gotten excellent answers of ideal components. It's just finding something around here that is even close to those is really a challenge. I got a bag of purina for the convenience of not driving for a few hours---and it smelled like chemicals. Other times I have had some that smelled OK. Right now I am in search of yet another source of good feed some place around here. I've gotten some from a local feed mill----but I'm just not sure about it....

 

[Clay Mudd]

Clay Mudd---

love the irony that you pointed out.

If Purina is big, and in many places the "only choice" as in TSC having purina or dumor which is also purina.... Does Purina have only one source of these feeds? What I am asking is:--- Is there one packaging plant that supplies the whole USA, or is there a distribution where some of our feeds come from different locations albeit all Purina - to save transport costs on heavy bags.

If this were the case, then it would explain the love/hate relationship with Purina. In some locations the stuff is junk, and in others it is great. Conversely, IF everything comes from just one source, then is some of the feed, old and stale by the time it hits stores in the farthest reaches of the USA...and thus inferior 'old' feed?

I have had good feed from Purina and I believe I have had bad feed...but sometimes it is the only game in town or what else is available is actually worse. I'm reluctant to get feed shipped from far away for delivery. I know I have asked Chris09 before about feed...and gotten excellent answers of ideal components. It's just finding something around here that is even close to those is really a challenge. I got a bag of purina for the convenience of not driving for a few hours---and it smelled like chemicals. Other times I have had some that smelled OK. Right now I am in search of yet another source of good feed some place around here. I've gotten some from a local feed mill----but I'm just not sure about it....

As I understand it, all the big makers have multiple mills. It's not hard to see how the ingredients and freshness might vary from one batch to another. I've had that chemical smell with Purina, but never stale. I've gotten stale-smelling Dumor and Nutrena.

What didn't you like about the stuff from the local feed mill?

 

[Chris09]

A lot of the chemical smell could be from the chemical that they use to preserve the feed, "fresher" batches of feed have a more chemical smell than older batches.

Maybe Purina will copy Buckeye Nutrition again and use more "natural" preservatives.


Chris