Corn and Soy free......?

[DeannaOR]

Harvey Ussery's book, "The Small-Scale Poultry Flock" is simply one of the best informational books on maintaining poultry that I have ever read. I ordered his book from Amazon and I have read it cover to cover twice. His methods and his grounded approach to raising poultry is essentially symbiotic with the land. I have people often ask me about keeping poultry and I have started telling people, "This is a must have publication if you want to keep poultry and do it right." I wish that I had kept a list of all those people that I have spoken with, so that I could drop them a line and say here's a publication that goes beyond what I have ever read in any other text.

I think I flipped through this book yesterday at the feed store...I'll have to go back and take another look. Thanks!

 

[DeannaOR]

The links are great everyone! Thank you

 

[fargosmom]

Deanna - are you by any chance using Cascade layer feed? It is the only corn- and soy-free feed I know of, and you're up in the neighborhood where it is made. Lucky you. I have to special order it and it's a pain, but it is very much worth the trouble. I can only say that I don't want to eat soy any more, and not much corn unless I know for sure it's not GMO, so why would I want to feed either to any of my animals?

 

[MyTDogs]

Wow, thanks for posting this! Off to Amazon to order

Here are a couple other links you might be like taking a look at:
(I just found this web site after reading a review of the author's book which I decided to buy but haven't gotten yet. There are overview articles on the web site and I think I'm going to like the book!)

http://www.themodernhomestead.us/article/Making-Poultry-Feeds-2.html

http://www.themodernhomestead.us/article/Feeding-Rebuttal.html

Here is link that had some short video clips from the author. They are very short teaser clips regarding what's in the book. When I watched the clips, I just enjoyed the guy's demeanor and common-sense approach.

This one was on feed:

http://www.chelseagreen.com/tv/episode/5717669/

This on has several video clips on the right hand colum with various topics:
http://www.chelseagreen.com/bookstore/item/the_smallscale_poultry_flock

 

[DeannaOR]

Deanna - are you by any chance using Cascade layer feed? It is the only corn- and soy-free feed I know of, and you're up in the neighborhood where it is made. Lucky you. I have to special order it and it's a pain, but it is very much worth the trouble. I can only say that I don't want to eat soy any more, and not much corn unless I know for sure it's not GMO, so why would I want to feed either to any of my animals?

No, it's called Scratch and Peck and I buy it at a small organic feed store located somewhat near my own shop. It's looks very different from the first bag of stuff I bought and they went nuts for it. The feed store offered to help me make a mix that would be more of a middle point between the turkeys needs and those of the chickens, but I wanted to do some more reading first.
http://www.scratchandpeck.com/


I'm not sure where Pasadena is...but it looks like they are starting to show up in the Sacramento area.

 

[Nambroth]

Thank you Nambroth,

I'll be sticking with the food I have, it's corn and soy free, local and small. I just wondered what the majority of the reason was for. I see ads on CL in my area a lot asking for eggs from corn and soy free fed chickens. I'll continue to research and learn. I found a locally made scratch for them that is corn free and they go crazy for it. More than for the sunflower seeds. Even my turkey likes it..and he doesn't even touch the sunflower seeds.

Oh, I see! So you have seen customers for chicken products asking for corn and soy-free chicken/eggs? In that case it can be any of the above (nutritional, political, etc), but also it's important to mention that as time goes on, more and more people are developing allergies and intolerances to some grains and soy. Corn and wheat being the two most common grain intolerances. Some people are sensitive enough that even eating an egg from a hen fed on these items can cause stomach woes.

 

[NYREDS]

Quote:



Kind of a ridculous point. When did you see chickens sitting around a campfire roasting anything? Also, where does one find "wild chickens".

 

[DeannaOR]

Kind of a ridculous point. When did you see chickens sitting around a campfire roasting anything? Also, where does one find "wild chickens".

Pretty sure I saw mine last night roasting marshmallows....

 

[Leahs Mom]

Quote:



Kind of a ridculous point. When did you see chickens sitting around a campfire roasting anything? Also, where does one find "wild chickens".


The point is - if it is toxic to them in it's raw state, it isn't something that they should be eating. What would they eat if they had free choice? That's the point.

 

[kizanne]

Well I myself feed organic corn (non-GMO) and soy free feed for a large variety of reasons. Because I can, not everyone can afford it but I can and that is what I want.

I want it for many of the previously mentioned reasons but I'll state mine.

1. I don't like GMO, I garden and I think that GMO is killing off heirloom sustainable plants especially if they are wind pollinated like corn it can be hard not to get contaiminated even if you are growing your own heirloom corn. Monsanto is relentlessly pursuing farmers and through different corporations under their umbrella own a huge portion of the seed market which will make it harder to get natural products.

2. I don't like GMO because they are used specifically to spray acres upon acres with roundup which I don't want on my food right before harvest anyway, don't care how safe the company says it is (and the FDA agrees without independent studies) same company that said DDT was safe and agent Orange by the way. We can totally trust that Round up which will kill all plant life it touches (except this corn) won't hurt us. Or bees, which in recent years have seen a dramatic decline and are necessary to life. Or butterflies which are just one of my favorite insects.

3. GMO soy and the demand for Soy in general is literally killing the rainforests. Brazil is one of the main exporters of soy and guess where they are getting all that crop land from. You guessed it the rainforests.

4. Soy has natural hormones in it. I try to avoid large amounts of soy period as too much of our food is hormone regulated now. I also believe soy is better when fermented like tofu or soy sauce. Not all the soy solids and crap stuck in every processed food you can find.

5. Soy would not be a natural chicken food.

6. I'm getting to the age (whatever that is, it's different for different people), that I care what I put in my body. I am not totally doing anything healty, yes I still eat out, no I'm not a vegan (of course I believe meat is good for your body). I can easily make my eggs healthier for myself by feeding good feed and letting them free range and providing veggie when available. I have no doubt that my eggs are nutritionally superior to the grocery store and I know the taste is better.

7. By feeding them Organic, Soy-Free feed I get extra money that offsets the extra cost so it doesn't even cost me extra except when I raise broilers for myself. ($3/dz)

8. All the ingredients in my bag I understand or can look up and understand. I don't like any bag labeled "Grain products, plant protein products, processed grain byproducts"

I like to know what is in my food/feed.

9. Purina is a very large company and I don't want to wonder where was this bag made. Too much stuff is now made overseas particularly China, including food, pet food and ingredients for food and pet food. China is just not regulated right now and too many mistakes are coming out of there. Also many of these countries do not hold to our pesticide/herbicide standards so you don't know what's in some of the large feed company bags. Remember the dog food that was killing dogs? Or the baby food that gave them gallstones? Or the toys with lead paint. Or melamine being added to anything that was going to be protein tested?

10. GMO corn has been so popular that now they want to upgrade it so the corn grows BT in the corn. I like BT as an organic control of catepillars, but I want it on the outside of my food so that it can be washed off not on the inside. I also would like it added only when needed not 100% of the time. I love innovation for most things. I dislike GMO and don't think it has been tested enough to be called 'safe'.