Can y'all critique my duck food recipe

[Tizri]

If you live where you can get duck pellets, I would do that. Or if you want to do homemade, I'd find a verified recipe for ducks. :] That recipe will not have rice or sugarless electrolytes, which can be toxic.

But it says online that ducks can have electrolyte drinks? I was told by this guy on Facebook that he gives his ducks and chickens electrolyte drinks all the time. I am confused.

(Also I currently use duck feed that I get online, but I also heavily prefer to make my own feeds for my animals since i grow my own veggies and herbs. I'm just trying to figure out a working recipe before I give it to animals.)

 

[DuckyDonna]

Can I get some critiques on this duck food recipe? I'm trying to make a completely homemade duck food, and I need advice on whether or not this is going to have all of the nutrients they need or not. This recipe is meant to be refrigerated after it's all put together.

Oats
Corn
Peas
Sunflower seeds(unsalted)
Cooked rice
Dried insects(aquatic turtle treats)
Flaxseed Oil
Fish oil(collected from nature bounties fish oil supplements)
Oregano
Lavender flowers
Crushed assorted snail treats(calcium carbonate, organic beef gelatin)
Kelp Powder (food grade with added Iodine)
Kitten food(meow mix)
Propel fitness water strawberry kiwi(zero sugar)

I suggest that you go to https://gardenbetty.com/garden-bettys-chicken-feed-calculator-for-determining-your-protein-content/ and download her chicken food calculator.

Some of what is on your list is ok but some things are questionable. For instance, in the warm/hot months, you don't want to feed corn, it just makes them hotter and has very little nutritional value. Why not get flax seeds and grind them up instead of the oil? You have no idea how much protein they are getting either. Ducks need at least 16% protein.

The food I make is over 18% protein. I've played around with the GB calculator for almost 2 years and pretty much have it down to a good mix with fairly high protein. I adjusted and changed Garden Betty's items but used all her formulas. I go to a country feed store for most of my grains. If you want a copy of my spreadsheet PM me and I'll send it to you. It will already have the formulas in the spreadsheet so it should be easy to work with if you are familiar with excel or numbers (apple's excel).

 

[U_Stormcrow]

DO NOT use Garden Betty's calculator please. I don't know where she sourced her data, but her numbers are "unreliable" at best. Part of why I built my own calculator, and sourced all data from Feedipedia.org. Subsequently, I've had to add some ingredients whose data I couldn't source there, and have used either feedtables.com or a USDA site for certain human food ingredients - as all have robust databases and aren't a website pushing the wonders of ingredient X, Y, or Z.

GB appears to have "cherry picked" her data, and made some further errors as well.

 

[DuckyDonna]

DO NOT use Garden Betty's calculator please. I don't know where she sourced her data, but her numbers are "unreliable" at best. Part of why I built my own calculator, and sourced all data from Feedipedia.org. Subsequently, I've had to add some ingredients whose data I couldn't source there, and have used either feedtables.com or a USDA site for certain human food ingredients - as all have robust databases and aren't a website pushing the wonders of ingredient X, Y, or Z.

GB appears to have "cherry picked" her data, and made some further errors as well.

I only used her calculator for the formulas not necessarily for the items on her list. I weighed all my own grains and used the % of them on my list so basically, I just used her template, NOT what she did. Everything you get is going to be a different % depending on the brand and where you get your grains.