Hey, I'm wondering what's the best kind/brand of feed for my chickens. I've always heard to stay away from Purina because it's crap, but that's mostly the only stuff they sell around me. I've found a brand of organic I've been using, but I've also heard organic doesn't really matter--I just got the stuff because it's not Purina. So-- when buying layer feed, what ingredients do you want to be in there? Which ingredients do you want to avoid? Are there any brands out there that have a great reputation for only putting the good stuff in there? We feed lots of scraps/whole food to our chickens, but we do also provide feed to make sure they're getting a nice balance for solid laying. Thanks in advance!
I take a no nonsense approach. I buy what ever I have a coupon for, or what ever is on sale. However, I have walked out of one of the local feed stores (there are only 2 within a 20 mi. radius of me.) when I couldn't find any feed that was of a decent mill date. By decent, I prefer it to be within 2 weeks! Given that the small flock owner takes a while to go through a bag of feed, if it's not fairly fresh when you walk out of the store with it, it will be totally stale by the time you get to the bottom of the bag. One of the poultry nutrition gurus says that by 42 days past mill date, the feed is well on it's way to becoming useless. Then, what ever feed I do buy, it gets fermented. You might want to do some reading on the fermented feeds thread. Fermentation fills the feed with probiotics, breaks down the anti-nutrients. The chickens actually eat less, and IMO have improved vigor, feather quality and health. There is also no feed spilled on the ground, or dry feed left around to attract rodents. https://tikktok.wordpress.com/2014/04/13/fermented-feed-faq/ When I have chicks, the whole flock eats multi-flock. Adults get supplemented with oyster shell. As the chicks get closer to POL (any time after 12 weeks) I switch the flock over to layer. But, really, the only reason I ever buy layer is b/c it is cheaper. I also provide oyster shell when the flock is on layer, and also toss my egg shells into the run. Multi-flock is a superior product, and many BY poultry keepers keep their flocks on it year round.
You want above 16 protein, for me I feed the cheapest feed they are selling which is usually Nutrena. Have you tried your local grain elevator for feed? Other then that I mix whole corn and oats together and also feed my birds that, which helps because it cuts down on feed costs.
