Haven't commented on the thread in a long time but thought I'd say that I get my grains from a local feed mill to make my basic feed. When I originally started with chickens I had the mill make it to order (no soy, organic, and as much animal protein as possible with Fertrel as the mineral mix). I had to purchase a minimum of 300 lbs and I shared with another person I found in an on-line organic chicken group. (300 lbs is a lot for 6 chickens...but much less than some mills require if you're having them mix it special.)
After about a year I decided to just purchase the components and make it myself. The feed is very basic as I also feed other items especially during the winter when they can't free-range. They get raw liver and ground meat as an additional animal protein source as available.
A couple of sources I found to get liver are a local butcher shop that sells local farm meats that are raised without antibiotics and hormones. They also sell grass-fed when available. They sell liver at .50/lb. for animal feed but I prefer not to use it unless there is no source of grass-fed as I perfer to have liver from healthy animals (and, of course, a grain-fed animal is not going to be at optimum health). I have a friend that hunts venison and he has started routinely bringing the livers to me for the chickens so I most often have free liver from a source which still gets to choose what it eats without it being forced into a feed program.
I partially freeze the livers so they are easy to cut, then cut them into tiny pieces and lay them out on a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper to freeze. Then they go into a zip-lock ready to break some off, thaw and feed.
I guess the purpose of my post is this: It is not hard to make a basic feed with a very few ingredients and use that as the basis for your feed if they get to range and have other variety of foods available to them as well.
I encourage folks to check with feed mills in your areas as the price for a 50 lb bag of organic feed grains or field peas and a bag of fertrel and some fish meal is not as expensive as purchasing the ready-made, overcooked varieties. Even the ones that are just ground are often rancid by the time you are able to feed it and you lose a lot of the nutrients in the mix. And if you can find a mill that will sell you the items it is usually much less expensive than purchasing it at a "human" store!
I love having the whole grains ready to grind fresh so it's not going rancid. I also lacto- ferment my feed as well and they get a good source of probiotics not only from the ferment but from the addition of other fermented items and some avian probiotics added from time to time.
I would love to be in an area in which I didn't have to feed any legumes at all to my birds. Based on what I've research over the last few years it seems that they are not designed to eat legumes at all. I keep striving for ways to reduce veg. protein and increase animal/insect protein as much as possible. I have several ideas to that end and keep working toward a way to continue a more natural diet for them even throughout the winter months as well!
