“Real” food vs. Crumbles vs. Pellets

[Orpingtons Mom]

There have been some discussions on pellets versus crumbles, but I did not see anything with “real” food versus crumbles versus pellets.

The reason why am asking is trying to make sense of manufactured food, processed?, or actual grains that you can see.I have worked with a feed manufacturer, for horses, and have discovered that with pellets, which are cooked and extruded, you really don’t know what you’re getting. Especially with horsefeed.

With the real food, I can see the whole grains, and also some “dust“, and some chopped or broken apart grains. The dust I assume is some sort of pre-mix, vitamins minerals etc. The broken grains, would be for the ease of eating for the chickens. What I notice in feeding however is much of the “unwanted stuff” gets moved out of the way, and ends up in the shavings.

I had to buy some crumbles yesterday, as shipments are being delayed due to the weather. What I noticed is the boogies are eating the crumbles without throwing anything out of the bowl, obviously due to uniformity...the can’t pick out their favorite, as everything looks the same.

Fermenting feed solves the problem, but it does not appear to be palatable to my free range people.

I feed Scratch and Peck, which does not make a crumble. I’m not sure what to do. :-(.

Advice?

(I’m so discouraged. Why is this so difficult!!?)

 

[DobieLover]

There have been some discussions on pellets versus crumbles, but I did not see anything with “real” food versus crumbles versus pellets.

The reason why am asking is trying to make sense of manufactured food, processed?, or actual grains that you can see.I have worked with a feed manufacturer, for horses, and have discovered that with pellets, which are cooked and extruded, you really don’t know what you’re getting. Especially with horsefeed.

With the real food, I can see the whole grains, and also some “dust“, and some chopped or broken apart grains. The dust I assume is some sort of pre-mix, vitamins minerals etc. The broken grains, would be for the ease of eating for the chickens. What I notice in feeding however is much of the “unwanted stuff” gets moved out of the way, and ends up in the shavings.

I had to buy some crumbles yesterday, as shipments are being delayed due to the weather. What I noticed is the hens are eating the crumbles without throwing anything out of the bowl, obviously due to uniformity.

Fermenting feed solves the problem, but it does not appear to be palatable to my free range people.

I feed Scratch and Peck, which does not make a crumble. I’m not sure what to do. :-(.

Advice?

You fermented the Scratch and Peck and they turned up their beaks at it?
ATM, I feed a mixture of fermented Flock Raiser and dry. The highest ranking hens go to the fermented feed bowl and the rest go to the dry. Once the higher ups have had their fill, the others come to the bowl with the fermented and get theirs. At the end of the day, the fermented feed bowl is always empty and the dry feeders always have feed left in them. I only feed enough for a day.
I used to make my own feed from organic grains and seeds with Fertrell Poultry Nutri-balancer and organic fish meal to complete it and will resume this summer with a slight twist to make keeping the fines well distributed easier. I always fed this fermented to soften the grains a bit and keep the fines stuck to them. My flock LOVED it.
Maybe you could try fermenting the crumble alone and offering that then slowly start increasing the S&P in the mix.

 

[Orpingtons Mom]

Hey Dobielover, thanks for replying.

These are the hens that refuse to eat dried mealworms. I had to give away 10 lbs of mealworms as they wouldn’t eat them. *sigh*

I prefer fermented... but at the same time I have tried fermented stuff (kombucha) and find it absolutely disgusting. I do eat fermented butter and cottage cheese, but I kind of don’t blame them for not eating my fermented feed.

Almost forgot, they won’t eat scratch either. What a bunch of prima donnas!

 

[Orpingtons Mom]

I’m going to start some fodder today with the useless scratch I have hanging around. See if they’ll eat that.

 

[MysteryChicken]

Commercial feed produced by mills such as Purina, & Manna Pro use a mix of grains, with fermentation products that contain essential probiotics. Also mixed with vitamins, & minerals your birds need. Often I see in my bag of pellets is some bits of corn in the pellets.

It's still real food.

Fake food would be artificial, & not contain anything natural for consumption.

 

[Orpingtons Mom]

Fake food would be artificial, & not contain anything natural for consumption.

No it’s not fake. It’s processed... I also like Scratch and Peck as I can order feed without corn or soy. Both corn and soy have very high rates of micotoxins, regardless if they are organic or not.

 

[Ridgerunner]

To make mash, pellets, or crumbles they gather all the ingredients that goes in the feed and grind it to a powder. This is called mash. To make pellets they wet the mash to make a paste, extrude that paste, and flash dry it. To make crumbles the partially crush pellets. So mash, pellets, and crumbles doesn't tell you anything about ingredients or nutrition, just the form it is fed in.

As you noticed with your whole grains they can pick through feed. The same thing happens with mash, not so much that they are picking through it but that mash will sort itself by specific gravity of the ingredients. They can not get a balance diet that way. Commercial operations typically wet mash to a paste if they feed mash to keep it from separating out. Serving it in pellets and crumbles form also keep it from separating.

If you look at the label you'll see what "real" ingredients are in the feed. They are ground up so you don't see the big bits.

If you want to ferment mash. pellets, or crumbles you can. The pellets and crumbles should fall apart into a paste when they get wet and you stir them.

 

[MysteryChicken]

No it’s not fake. It’s processed... I also like Scratch and Peck as I can order feed without corn or soy. Both corn and soy have very high rates of micotoxins, regardless if they are organic or not.

My feed contains no soy.

 

[rosemarythyme]

Scratch & Peck now makes a layer pellet, I haven't seen it in stores myself but it's up on their website. Perhaps it's something worth trying for your flock?

 

[Misfits Farm 92]

I feed mine a mixture of different feeds. I'll rotate between buying layer crumbles and gamebird/chick crumbles. I always mic that with bird seed. It's roughly 1 part bird seed to 2-3 parts crumble. They eat it and they do t really pic out their favorite seeds like most people's chickens do. I also feed mine in the evening though, after they've had a day of free ranging but I still imagine that they're probably a bit hungrier than if I fed them in the morning.