I never had any issues with Purina either. We have been feeding Purina for YEARS and had good results. However a few moldy bags being returned because it is the fault of the feed mill dealer, not Purina.
I feed both combo of Layena and Flock Raiser and my girls has been doing very well on them. Excellent feather color, liviablity and never had any leg or growth issues.
My biggest drawback of Purina is the price. You get what you pay for. What I love about it, the girls like to eat it, they eat well and poop less. Less stink and high digestiblity.I would throw in a handful of Calf Manna pellets in there too (be careful, its like candy to them and they will get FAT on it).
I have the feed tag on hand here and there isn't anything I can see that says SOY in it and it is meat ruminant and bone meal FREE so ground up chicks in it, naaaaaaaah! My cousin in Montana who is a district manager for Purina had to laugh and said there is NO animal byproducts in the feed and that is what the customers WANTED so they had to change the formula to non animal protein. They switched over because of the fear of "mad cow" that was so rampant and people quit buying animal byproducts in their feeds. He told me if you all wanted to change back to the old formula, you'all have to write or stomping pavement all the way to Purina headquarters in St Louis, MO and tell them you demand to have animal protein in the chicken feeds. If enough people want it, they will probably have a trial run of animal proteined supplemented feeds for chickens. Dumour is the same thing but lesser quality of grain, that didn't make the A1 grade but like Grade B grains, perfectably acceptable for animal grains.
Reasons of crippled chicks or some feed problems, it may be directed to storage and how it is being exposed and how it is being stored by both grain mills and dealers as well as customers themselves. Too hot of a can where you store your feed can decrease "viability" of the vitamins in the feed. It has to be kept in a cool DRY area or container, otherwise they will go bad quickly or vitamins and minerals going bad.
If it happens to one or two chicks getting bad Purina feed, it may not be the case, it could have been genetics, brood floor or enivironmental reasons. If your entire chick or flock are affected, investigations are needed to find out what is going on with the flock, enivornment and feeds as well.
I've fed generic feeds and I found out I was paying MORE and they pooped MORE. Local farmer mill, same thing, eat more, pay more and poop more and more stinky than ever. Rural King brand, it is not too bad but still the eat and poop ratio could have been better and poop still stink more. So I went back to Purina and quite pleased with the results. I know it didn't have animal proteins in it, so I add my own animal protein morning and night of eggs, leftover supper meals, etc. A stray bug or two would be nabbed up in a hot second by one of my girls.
