Chicken feed advice.

[LostHomestead]

We produce about a 5 gallon bucket of Hornwort, Water Wisteria, snails, and baby cull fish from our fish breeding business every day. Currently I'm tossing about 1/2 a gallon of the plants mixed with snails into the chicken run every day. The rest goes to our pigs, but they will go to camp freezer soon.

We have 29 laying Leghorn hens and want to lower the amount of commercial feed they get. I have read a bunch of times that you can feed fish scrapes to chickens and it will not change the flavor of the eggs, but have not read when they were eating fish a few times a week or daily. Dose any one have an thoughts on this?

Anything that is not feed to the chickens will get put into a composter daily.

 

[MysteryChicken]

@U_Stormcrow

 

[U_Stormcrow]

@U_Stormcrow

What I have read has been inconsistent. J Rhodes uses 10% Fish Meal in his recipe, seems pleased with it, and others who copy his methods (in whole or in part) have not raised concerns I am aware of. In the literature, I've read up to 20% inclusion (again, fish meal) before an "off " flavor is noted in the eggs. I've also read 15% in the literature. I can't claim to have read all the literature, and have no opinion as to whether the differences relate to the means of "measurement", the types of fish (white flesh like tilapia, or fatty ocean dwellers like salmon), the sensitivity of the pallattes involved, or some combination of all the above.

OTOH, @Lazy J Farms Feed & Hay does this whole feed mixing thing professionally, I have reason to trust his opinions. and if I'm not mistaken, he previously recommended not more that 5% as the current standard in the industry. I would have to look for the comment before linking it, its not one I've saved.

Obviously, not being dried, your water content will be higher, and thus, your rate of inclusion could be adjusted somewhat - but to some extent (being unable to survey the nutritional value of your "buckets") you will be playing a game of educated guessing in determining how adequately the birds are being fed in terms of meeting their complete nutrtional needs. or drawing conclusions about what (if anything) may be being offered to excess - calcium from the bones would be an obvious possibility, but there are certainly others.

 

[LostHomestead]

@U_Stormcrow Thank you. I feel that you gave me all the needed info in 1 shot.