Cheaper Organic Feed? - Lettuce, Tomatoes, Mealworms, Etc.

[roseyred]

So how can I suppliment Methionine?

 

[ChickenCanoe]

Eggs, fish, turkey, chicken.

The easy answer is, feed chicken feed. Though it's not a great answer, Vegetarian chicken feed is supplemented with synthetic methionine.

When a run of chicken feed is made, they often do a nutrient analysis to insure all the necessary nutrients are present at the required levels.

Another thing they do is insure the scales of all the silos, bins and totes reflect the amount that should have been reduced during that run.

Everything is automated.

 

[roseyred]

Chickens are omnivors so I don't understand why anyone would put them on a vegetarian diet. I'll be honest and I know people are gonna tell me not to but I crack an egg open for the chickens every day strait from there nest. Hasn't lead to egg eating or any bad habits. And seriously they LOVE it so muh lol. I just smash it into there food dish shell and all and in a few seconds there nothing left of it. Sometimes I smash it into the walls and they eat it while it's dripping haha. I usualy only do it with poopy eggs. If I had time to scramble them up some eggs witch I occasionaly do I would daily but for now I just break an egg for them. I'd love to start raising tadpoles or some other kind of small water creatures for them to eat. We had tadpoles in our swimming pool BEFORE any chemicals were added!!!! It was brand new and took us days to fill up and the frogs went crazy. I was scooping up bowls of tadpoles lol and the chickens went absolutely nuts for them. Eapecialy cause they wriggled around haha it was like a game to them I guess.

 

[Chris09]

It's actualy not 50:50 cut if you re read my post, 1 scoop of there later feed to 1/2 scoop of peas. I have learned that chickens will only eat what they need at the time being. Sometimes they don't eat all the peas, sometimes they pick out all the corn from there feed, sometimes they eat just the grainier stuff. It's up to them. For the winter it keeps them warm.
There feed also containes fish meal.

I'll have to look into peas a little deeper. Thank you for your advice.

To be honest with you, what your doing is real close to a 50:50 cut.
When figuring feed you go by weight not, "scoops".
Lets say for example one "scoop" of sunflower seeds weigh 1 pound and a half "scoop" of corn weighs 1 pound that is a 50:50 mix.

 

[matt44644]

Chickens are omnivors so I don't understand why anyone would put them on a vegetarian diet.

I think that started 20 years or so ago with a certain egg company that says their eggs have 25% less saturated fat because their hens are fed a vegetarian diet.
Also some people do not like the idea of feeding By-products to their animals.

 

[roseyred]

Welllllllp I feel chickens are gonna eat what they need and not eat what they don't. Mind can free range whenever they want and have access to all kinds of plants and grubs. I think they'll be just fine. Whatever feed they don't finish gets gobbled up the next day or tossed around the run

 

[ChickenCanoe]

The big push for vegetarian feed was BSE scares, specifically ruminants/bovines.

 

[OkanaganPeppers]

So how can I suppliment Methionine?

I thought I'd share a link to "Foods with highest ratio of Methionine+Cystine" though I can't recomend any praticlular one.
http://nutritiondata.self.com/foods-000990600300000000000.html

I keep it simple with my small flock. I"ll sprout a tray of BOSS so they can have greens in the winter I also sprout wheat berries to the point that it has lil tips sprouting out (4 days) I also take some of that wheat and I ferment it in a quart jar for 6 days before feeding it to them. A interesting link you might find interesting on bennifits and how to Lacto-ferment http://naturalchickenkeeping.blogspot.ca/p/fermented-feed.html

 

[nayeli]

Wow! Your spending a LOT of money! You can grow your own mealworms CHEAP. It might cost you $30 to get started than pretty much kitchen scraps! You should also look into growing fodder, just get some organic seed like barley etc and sprout it. It doesn't take to long to sprout, you can have many going at once, start a new one every day that way you feed one and have a new one. There are many things you can use for fodder, not just barley...
last but not least I would recommend duck weed. It is supposed to be really easy to grow, people just say to throw some in a kiddie pool or fish tank and it takes off!

 

[Deborahspoultry]

Good idea!