About Making My Own Chicken Feed

[chickenbreederinchina]

Just started making my own chicken feed pellets – looking for some advice
I’m pretty new to raising chickens—just keeping around 20 laying hens in the backyard for now. Nothing too big, just something for our own use. Lately I’ve been trying to make my own feed pellets, mainly to cut down on costs and have more control over what goes into their feed.

I’m using a small pellet machine at home. For ingredients, I’ve been mixing cornmeal, wheat bran, and a bit of soybean meal, then adding some water to press them into pellets. So far, the chickens seem to really like it. They eat it quickly, and there’s definitely less waste compared to the mash I used before.

That said, I’ve run into a few issues. Getting the moisture right is tricky—too dry and the pellets fall apart, too wet and it jams the machine. Sometimes the pellets aren’t firm enough and crumble easily. I recently tried adding a little corn flour as a binder, and that seems to help.

Just wondering if anyone else here is making their own feed pellets at home? What kind of ingredients do you use? Any tips on natural binders? I’m also curious whether this kind of homemade feed needs extra supplements to keep the hens healthy in the long run.

Thanks in advance! Looking forward to learning from you all.

 

[cavemanrich]

Like to Welcome you here to BYC.
As to the home-made Pellets,, I have no info to suggest,, except look at the ingredient label on store purchased pellets. There are minerals, and vitamins and other things there. And a big one is Calcium. That can be provided by having Cracked oyster shells, free-choice.

WISHING YOU BEST,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,and

 

[Bsmac]

Welcome to BYC!

 

[muddy75]

Welcome to BYC!

 

[DobieLover]

Hello and welcome to BYC! Glad you joined.
Your homemade recipe is severely lacking in nutrients. The first thing that sticks out is it doesn't have quality protein. And it is going to be lacking in many micronutrients. You might want to look into what the actual nutritional requirements are for layers before you attempt to make their feed. I hope you're at least offering oyster shell on the side for additional calcium they require for shell formation. But until you get a better formula I would switch them to a commercial all flock type of feed that offers 18 to 20% protein with oyster shell on the side.

 

[Bsmac]

Hello and welcome to BYC! Glad you joined.
Your homemade recipe is severely lacking in nutrients. The first thing that sticks out is it doesn't have quality protein. And it is going to be lacking in many micronutrients. You might want to look into what the actual nutritional requirements are for layers before you attempt to make their feed. I hope you're at least offering oyster shell on the side for additional calcium they require for shell formation. But until you get a better formula I would switch them to a commercial all flock type of feed that offers 18 to 20% protein with oyster shell on the side.

Quality feed, much better way to go!

 

[Lazy Farmer]

Hello and welcome to the forum.
https://www.backyardchickens.com/forums/feeding-watering-your-flock.12/

 

[janiedoe]

Welcome to BYC. I would recommend that you have a conversation with @Perris concerning your feed.

 

[NatJ]

I’m using a small pellet machine at home. For ingredients, I’ve been mixing cornmeal, wheat bran, and a bit of soybean meal, then adding some water to press them into pellets. So far, the chickens seem to really like it. They eat it quickly, and there’s definitely less waste compared to the mash I used before.

Is there a reason to grind it up and turn it into pellets? Chickens can eat whole corn just fine, which saves you a lot of bother in feeding them the corn.

When you are comparing with mash, were you feeding it dry? There is often less wastage with wet mash. Some people find it easier to serve wet mash each day than to try to make pellets.

I’m also curious whether this kind of homemade feed needs extra supplements to keep the hens healthy in the long run.

Your ingredients do not make a complete feed. I'm don't know enough to tell what is missing, just that some things are missing (I've read enough feed-making discussions to know that corn and soy can be a good start, if you have the right proportions, but that it needs other things too, and wheat bran will not supply them all.)


About a century ago, it was common to have two-part chicken feeds. One part was whole grains ("scratch") and the other part had an extra-high rate of protein and certain vitamins and minerals ("mash"). If the chickens ate the right balance of the two parts, they got about the same nutrients you would find in a modern complete feed. I imagine the "mash" part could also be made into pellets if you wanted. The advantage of two parts was that the hens could scratch for the whole grains and get exercise, and there was a lot less grinding (and maybe pelleting) to do because those grains were not mixed with everything else. But it only works when the two parts are properly designed to go with each other.

Many of those older recipes require the chickens to be fed large amounts of green plants too (free range, or brought to the chickens in their pen). The plants apparently provided some of the vitamins and minerals that were not readily available as supplements at that time.

Here is a thread with some discussion of historic recipes, from a time before commercial feed was so readily available:
https://www.backyardchickens.com/threads/chicken-feed-recipes-articles-and-systems.1510115/

Here is an article from someone with a somewhat different method of feeding chickens, that has apparently been working for them for several years:
https://www.backyardchickens.com/ar...eat-tears-a-calculator-or-deep-pockets.78655/

And @U_Stormcrow has a feed calculator: he can run a feed recipe through it and figure out what is missing and/or what it has too much of. He does need to know how much what is in the recipe (measured in pounds or kilograms or some other measure of weight). Also, he's done enough of them that he can usually tell the problems with a simple recipe just by reading it, because he knows what is missing in some of the most common ingredients.

 

[Rick589]

Just started making my own chicken feed pellets – looking for some advice
I’m pretty new to raising chickens—just keeping around 20 laying hens in the backyard for now. Nothing too big, just something for our own use. Lately I’ve been trying to make my own feed pellets, mainly to cut down on costs and have more control over what goes into their feed.

I’m using a small pellet machine at home. For ingredients, I’ve been mixing cornmeal, wheat bran, and a bit of soybean meal, then adding some water to press them into pellets. So far, the chickens seem to really like it. They eat it quickly, and there’s definitely less waste compared to the mash I used before.

That said, I’ve run into a few issues. Getting the moisture right is tricky—too dry and the pellets fall apart, too wet and it jams the machine. Sometimes the pellets aren’t firm enough and crumble easily. I recently tried adding a little corn flour as a binder, and that seems to help.

Just wondering if anyone else here is making their own feed pellets at home? What kind of ingredients do you use? Any tips on natural binders? I’m also curious whether this kind of homemade feed needs extra supplements to keep the hens healthy in the long run.

Thanks in advance! Looking forward to learning from you all.

Welcome