Arkansas folks speak up.........

[hunt4meat]

no problems here with the Purina medicated feed. I use Dumor laying pellets, and seem to do just fine, but I also give most of the table scraps to the birds (not the dog) along with the bigs they get from the yard.

 

[kkidsmom]

I had the same issues with Dumor, at the time I wasn't sure it was the feed or the hatchery, but decided it was the feed. Had to destroy a flock of twenty-five 3 to 4 weeks old birds because someone said it was Mereks, but detemined later it wasn't so decided it has to be the feed. Seems like there aren't enough vitamins in it.I have not had any issues since I have stopped using it.

I,m glad y'all are discussing this as I would have freaked out to come hom and find my chicks in that condition. I think mine have been on that feed for a little over a week. No problems thus far. I did notice that they had two different bags of chick starter one of which didn't include chickens in its list of chicks. I had to search for a bag of the kind which did included chickens as the other was with the aisle display of everything you needed to get started incuding the chicks. The other bags were back in the dady to day section of feed for chickens.

 

[Ridgerunner]

Look at the tag on it. The one for chickens is probably a 20% protein combined Starter/Grower. The one that does not include chickens is probably the 24% protein for game birds.

You can feed either one but the 24% will be more expensive and the 20% is all they really need. Personally I would not feed the 24% past about 4 weeks so their body growth doesn’t outpace their skeleton and internal organ development. There is a reason one lists chicks and one doesn’t.

 

[birdsss]

Dumoe chick starter is 20%. Dumor chick starter/grower is 24%. They are both for chickens. Im
confident that protein % had nothing to do with the problem I experienced. I feel that brand lacks in vitamins or somethinig not making it a complete feed

 

[Outrun Acres]

I was trying to find a list of ingredients on the Dumor bag and couldn't find one. On the Orscheln bag of feed there was a list of ingredients and two of the top five listed were Vitamin B12 and E. I was reading that a deficiency in Vitamin B12 and Vitamin E can cause the leg problems we have been seeing. I also think the Dumor brand only contains plant protein so if they don't supplement with enough Vitamin B12 the chicks are probably going to have problems. I'm pretty sure you can't create a commercial feed that feeds chickens to chickens so they would have to use a more expensive form of protein to balance the diet and that would drive up the cost per bag and probably make it harder for them to compete with other brands. I can understand the need for large company's to keep their costs down. At the same time, chickens need an animal source of protein because they are omnivores with an avian form of a monogastric digestive system. Instead of animal protein a lot of company's substitute soy. I personally don't think soy should make up 20% of a chickens diet.

I don't want to waste an entire bag of feed so for now I have ground up some cat food and mixed it 50-50 with the chick starter. My husband is going to get some of those poultry vit/min. packets when he gets done with work. So hopefully we will begin to see some improvement over the next week. When we were feeding the other brand, we didn't have any problems.

 

[Ridgerunner]

Dumor Chick Starter/Grower Label (Kind of hard to read some of it).

Crude protein = 20%

List of Ingredients:
Grain products
Processed Grain By-products
Plant Protein products
Animal Protein products

 

[Outrun Acres]

Dumor Chick Starter/Grower Label (Kind of hard to read some of it).

Crude protein = 20%

List of Ingredients:
Grain products
Processed Grain By-products
Plant Protein products
Animal Protein products

Thanks for posting that. Mine must have been ripped of the bag. I like how it says "plant and animal protein products." I wonder what those products are? The main difference I can see in the two food labels is that on the other bag we had Vitamin B12 and Vitamin E as part of the top 5 ingredients. So they must be in the feed in greater quantities. I wonder if it in any different in the medicated chick starter? I read on another thread that Purina makes Dumor specifically for TSC and that the chick starter labeled Purina is a better quality feed. I don't know in what ways though. I would have to compare the ingredients lists.

 

[birdsss]

huh thats weird, i was lookin at both side by side at tsc when i wrote that on my phone. by any means, i dont care for it.

in other news... i just ran off a pack of dogs trryin to get some of the turrkeys. dont think i've cussed that much in one yellin in quite some time!

 

[arcountrychick]

I can tell a difference in my birds when I feed Dumor. Their feathers start to look dull. I feed Dumor layer pellets sometimes because the adults get to free range a few times a week, but I prefer Purina. Starter is always Purina.

 

[heritagehabitatfarms]

maybe someone should call them up and ask them about it... they might have just gotten a bad batch of feed out and not no it yet... they might replace your bag of feed or refund your money...