Blue Seal vs. Southern States

[bj taylor]

if you're buying from a mill, how do you know what to have custom mixed in order to provide the right nutrition? i would like to do that, but it sounds complicated.

 

[DFCottage]

Its not too complicated... what I did was find out first what the farmer had access to that would allow me to keep the protein around 17%, and have a balanced diet for the birds. What I settled on was a mix of alfalfa hay, corn, wheat, and soybean meal, all finely ground. I feed this, and water is supplemented with vitamins and minerals, free choice oyster shell, scratch that is oats/BOSS/other goodies soaked in water/AVC and fresh greens from either ranging or what I bring to them. My birds have never looked or layed better.

My freedom ranger meat birds get this mixed with a very high protein starter, so works out to be about 24% protein. I don't give it to the baby chicks until they are about 6 weeks old (they'll start on a regular medicated starter crumble), and even when they do hit 6 weeks it'll still get mixed with the starter crumble until they are about 4 months old. All my birds are a fantastic size and chicks grow like little weeks

 

[WalkerH]

I would love to buy from a mill, well once I get back. But it is just easier for the family while I'm gone to go to where they know they can get the feed. I will probably have to ask around and see where everyone around here gets their feed. And I actually opened up two bags of Blue Seal yesterday, way less dusty then the Southern States. Perhaps I had a bad bag or something, but the dust amount astonished me.

 

[DFCottage]

Can anyone who has had dusty SS feed please PM me and let me know where and approximately when you bought the feed, and if you still have the bags, the lot #? I mentioned the dusty feed that you guys said you were experiencing to my local SS and they're trying to pinpoint the problem.. so if anyone could give me any info I'd really appreciate it!