Please help!! - Customized feed

Hi everyone! I am new to peafowl and I was hoping all you very experienced folk out here could give me advice on how to prepare a custom feed. There is neither branded nor any other form of generic game bird feed available where I live and there is no possibility of import and I so do not want to give my peafowl poultry feed.

I was hoping I could get a formula with ingredients and ratios, how to mix and in what form to feed? Will there be any variations in chick and adult feed, or breeding and non breeding time feed etc etc.?

I want to provide my birds with the best possible care. Before I get myself a pair I want to know exactly what I need to do.

For the love of peafowl, please help me out!

P.S. Resolution: Your nutrition 101 thread was very informative. I would be grateful if you would respond to my query. Thanks!

Where are you located? Knowing your location would help in knowing what suggestions would be feasible to you or not based on what would/wouldn't be available to you

Karachi, Pakistan

This is my favorite thread for peafowl nutrition. It has lots of great ideas. And welcome to the site
https://www.backyardchickens.com/t/635038/peafowl-nutrition-101

Edit** oops I just read the last line of your post

Wow- Your location makes it tough. Your best bet is to talk with local pea owners and then check out their rations. Do you have access to reasonable oats, corn, fish meal, vitamin/mineral mixes, soybean meal, sunflower seeds, peas,kelp, nuts (what kind), mealworms, fruits?
There are a few people on here from your general area, hopefully they will chime in. The problem is that our rations are based on what is commonly available here and your area will have different available feedstuffs, at least some of which may be much better for peas, but that aren't fed here because of availability.
If you can give us an idea of what feedstuffs are available to you I'm sure someone can help with your ration.

Thanks for the warm welcome and prompt reply! Let me find out about the availability of grain etc. and i will get back to u in a couple of days

You first need to see what feedstuffs you have available and then locate the protein content of the finished product. Start by looking at seeds or grains. Yellow Dent corn only has about a 7% protein content. It is rather abundant here and is the lowest cost ingredient in commercial or custom feed. Your highest cost will be the higher proteins needed. The more feed value,the higher the cost. Here soybeans is the lowest priced protein supplement used to increase protein levels. We custom mix our own feed here at a local grain distributor who will order me certain ingredients that are not closeby or grown locally such as Milo or Red Millet which is grown in the plains states west of me several hundreds of miles. I've developed our feed ration here over two years time now and think I have solved a lot of issues that commercially bagged feed does not have in regards to raising peafowl. Plus I have worked with 2 feed nutritionalists working for two seperate feed companies that both handle poultry feed. This years breeding season will finally prove if this work and extra expense have paid off as every breeding bird we have will be on this custom mix this breeding season. I'm hoping for no les than a 80% hatchrate on every egg laid that is fertile.

Ok I found out what is available here:

Oats, sunflower seeds, millet, sorghum, fishmeal, corn. Kelp also should not be a problem since this is a port city.

Now I need to knw the proportions and how to prepare the mix.

Please let me know if there os anything else that is required.

Thank you all for your help and cooperation!

Is turkey starter or feed available in your area? If so, you can use this as a base and just add specific nutrients. To start with, from what research I have done peafowl's needs are:
hatch - 6 weeks 30% protein
6 weeks to adult 19% protein
breeder ( starting 1 month before breeding season) 20%
maintenance 12%

Except for the starter, I tend to go a little higher, because the veggies I give as "treats" and the roughage they pick up themselves lowers their total protein consumed. I don't know anything about your climate, soil, or housing, but one way or another they need grit and clean water available at all times.

Southshore, looks like you have very close to what we have available here as far as feed ingredients except soybean meal. The ingredients you list has these protein values on average.
1. Yellow Dent Corn 7.5%
2. Fishmeal 60%
3. Sunflower seeds 15%
4. Millet 11%
5. Kelp 6%
6.Oats 13-14%
7. Sorghum 9-14%
You say your wanting to get a pair? I guess they are breeding age? If so a 20-22% protein ration will work fine for them.

I will show how to know how much of the needed ingredients it takes to arrive at a certain protein level. For mixing a GRAIN and a PROTEIN CONCENTRATE to get a desired protein percentage Draw a square and put the desired protein percentage in the center.
Put the grain in the upper left corner as a protein percentage . Example: "Corn 7.5%". Put the grain in the upper right corner as parts to mix . Example: "wheat_________ parts". Put the protein concentrate in the lower left corner, as a protein percentage. Example: "soybeans 37%". Put the protein concentrate in the lower right corner as parts to mix. Example, "soybeans ________ parts".



Corn 7.5% Parts to mix__40_________
* *
* *
* *
*
Desired protein 20%
* *
* *
* *
* *
* *
Protein concentrate-fish meal 60% Protein concentrate parts_12.5___________



Now subtract diagonally through the center, from corner to corner. Ignore changes of negative number. Going from top left to bottom right, 7.5 minus 20 equals 12.5. This number goes in the lower right corner. Going from bottom left to top right, 60 minus 20 equals 40. This goes in the upper right corner. The result is 40 parts of wheat to 12.5 parts of fish meal. This works well if your only using one ingredient,with one source of known protein level.
Making a 105 pound batch would require 80 pounds of corn and 25 pounds of fish meal.