DIY chicken feed

[[E]thernet]

I will be getting 3 chicks, as one day olds, and was wondering if I can make them food without buying premade food. I want to keep costs low and them healthy. Thanks!

 

[EggSighted4Life]

Then you had best go with a formulated ration IMO.

 

[PirateGirl]

There are lots of online recipes for chicken food. Depending upon how many birds you plan to keep, this may or may not be more economical than a commercially available feed. The larger quantity you buy your ingredients the better your price per pound tends to be. Here are the top two recipes I was looking at, but since I would need to mail order all of my grains I found it not to be economically viable for me once I factored in shipping.

http://theelliotthomestead.com/2013/06/organic-homemade-chicken-feed/

https://www.gardenbetty.com/homemade-whole-grain-chicken-feed-updated-and-now-corn-free/

This is one of the better sources for the ingredients that I found if you are looking to purchase online and cannot locally source the ingredients.

https://www.azurestandard.com/

 

[cmom]

For 3 chicks you can get a smaller bag of Starter crumbles for them. Also I usually give my chicks some Save-A-Chick Electrolytes and vitamins from TSC for a good start. I would start with the starter crumbles and if at some point you want to experiment with DIY then you can. I agree that after you buy the ingredients it will probably end up costing you more.

 

[EggSighted4Life]

Yes... and your cost changes if your storage fails and you get rats or moisture... even condensation can cause mold.

I too cannot get my ingredients cheap.

Great input from others.

 

[PirateGirl]

I agree with @cmom start with commercial chick feed for now and it buys you some time to research your recipes and source your ingredients for them. I have spent so many hours on this. It's hard to decide what's best for the flock and then once I would decide on a recipe I wouldn't be able to get all the ingredients from the same source and it became complicated in a different way. Once you figure out your recipe and your ingredient source it should get easier, but it will take some research and time.

 

[ChickenCanoe]

I will be getting 3 chicks, as one day olds, and was wondering if I can make them food without buying premade food. I want to keep costs low and them healthy. Thanks!

I would never recommend anyone trying to make their own feed for chickens, especially chicks unless they live in a third world country where a nutritionally complete feed isn't available.
It is more expensive to make your own feed and less nutritious.
Chicks don't eat much and each bite needs to have the appropriate nutrients to insure they develop properly, unless you don't care. If you don't have a background in poultry nutrition, I wouldn't try it.
As was said, when they are closer to maturity, you can try it but you won't likely get optimal performance out of them.
Ignoring all the other essential vitamins, minerals and fats - baby chicks need at least 18% crude protein, about 1% lysine and about 0.35% methionine.
They need about 1% calcium and the ratio of Ca to phosphorus for chicks should be about 2:1. Too much or too little of either isn't good.
It is just too hard to insure they have the proper ratios of nutrients with a home mix.
Chickens don't eat much but with 3 birds, there really isn't a way to cut costs.
Small flocks aren't very economical from a feed perspective.
You'll have to buy small bags because the more economical 50# bag won't survive as long as it will take 3 chicks to eat it unless you have a way to refrigerate or freeze the bulk of it.

 

[lazy gardener]

All of what CC says and then some:

Feed has a limited shelf life, no matter what the feed store employees tell you. Within 6 weeks of milling, your feed is on it's way to becoming rancid. The nutrients are oxidizing. That being said, you will benefit from finding someone to split a bag of feed with, or plan to freeze it in portions which would be used up within a few weeks.

IMO, if you want to maximize the nutrition in your feed bag, consider fermenting it. There is a FAQ article in my signature about: how and why, and benefits of fermenting feed.