DIY Duck Feed vs DIY Chicken Feed

[happybird100]

Is it easier to grow your own duck feed or grow your own chicken feed? I don't have a ton of land to work with but not super small. I am trying to decide whether I want ducks or chickens, I don't have either. I live in a subtropical climate. Thanks!

 

[U_Stormcrow]

@happybird100 Welcome to BYC.

The sad truth is that modern birds need a lot if they are going to produce to modern standards. Unless you have rather unique circumstances (good ground, good climate, lots of both, heavy equipment, and good storage) you can't produce what you need on your own property to fully support your birds at optimum nutrition. If you have all those things, there are FAR more economically productive uses of your land, and you will never approach commercial economies of scale.

You can - with good climate or good land or lots of land - "bend the cost curve" somewhat by free ranging on a property that is either devoted to producing a monocuture of an expensive key ingredient you can then support with cheaper ingredients (like if you could plant and store an acre or three of hard winter wheat each year), or you can plant a polyculture with a mix of greens to take a more generalized approach, and count on seasonal reductions in total food consumption - then provide a realy high quality (nutritionally) commercial feed - because there is no way to be certain about what they are getting nutritionally from their ranging. You can make educated guesses, but that's as good as it gets.

I've not made a great study of duck feed (though I have a few). It mostly, apart from the extra niacin needs and some high level protein concerns, parallels chicken feed needs. Extreme protein levels aren't gong to come from a food plot, so the big difference is the extra niacin. I'm sure I could quickly look up good sources, so not difficult, but one more concern than feeding chickens, so on that basis, chickens are easier.

and yes, I'm happy to share what I think I'm doing right, why I think that, and what I know I'm doing wrong, so others need not repeat my mistakes. Hope that helps some.

I do feed once daily (in the evening, to encourage them to come back home to roost) a high nutrition commercial feed to my whole flock, then they free range acres of polyculture all day - and I do cull routinely to better judge how much to feed them. Their behavior tells you some, but the insides don't lie.

This will give you an idea of some of the things in my pasture, pros and cons.
and this is my culling project

ands I'm VERY active on the feed forums. One of the stronger voices against "make at home" efforts on basis of cost and nutrition both. Search my name, lots of answers to the common questions, often links to sources.

 

[U_Stormcrow]

I haven't read the whole thread, so this might be a repeated suggestion, but you might look at grazing boxes. I have these for my chickens, ducks and geese, and it's cut down A LOT on feed costs. Once the weather turns, I'm adding a bed (maybe 2) in my garden for veggies and forage for my birds: kale, squash, peas, tomatoes, lettuce, and sunflowers.

Edit: This is in addition to commercial feed, of course, which I still offer free choice. It should cut my feed bill in half once my garden fills in.

I have no experience with grazing boxes, but if you look at my Sig, you will see why I haven't tried it. I would need to scale up my already unsuccessful garden.

 

[nuthatched]

Unfortunately, you can't grow everything they need, you need swine blood meal/fish meal/offal etc for protein. Also vitamins. Ducks need added niacin.
You can grow your own scratch, as a treat, but not really feed.
Edited for clarity

 

[relicshunter]

Hmmm... I was hoping to grow something. I wouldn't care so much except I heard tractor supply's chicken feed not having the right nutrients. How much can you really trust these companies anyway. Even if I did cook the beans, would they be able to eat them on an everyday basis?

The tractor suppy/purina food conversation is pretty heavy on here but I think it's overdone. A company is allowed to change ingredients to make a product as long as the analysis is the same and they put it on the label, which they have. The other conversation is about lower methionine and lysine level in recent foods. It's still at a level that is recommended on most nutrition pages, but yes it has been lowered in a few foods. Another problem is in the organic foods those two amino acids have to be added to the food and the rules for what can be used and still be called organic is getting trickier. As the fules get tighter is will really be an issue. It's all based on birds not laying like they think they should. When you mix in tons of new bird keepers, genetic lines of birds that may not be breed for strong health and strong egg laying, crappy weather, stressful conditions and you get groups of people looking at the food as the cause to the problem. I have just added Saxony to my collection and I pulled from three different sources to get lots of genetic stock to work with. None of them have decent egg laying or egg size that the breed is expected to have. When a flock is not selectively bred correctly it can lose things like that. I'll get off my soap box now.

 

[NatJ]

Also, in the main "heritage chickens" are more like modern birds, because most of the heritage birds you are likely to get nowadays comes by way of a commercial hatchery - which has focused on egg production, because they sell day old chicks - for decades. They may be heritage breeds, but they are not (mostly) our great grandparent's chickens.

Unless you want to look at jungle hens - long lanky, flighty, infrequent layers, limited meat, generally smaller eggs than many of the Mediterannean breeds - there you might get something with significantly lesser needs, and lesser production expectations.

Some of the bantams from hatcheries might be a possibility, too.
They generally lay much less well than the standard breeds.
I would avoid feathered feet, crested heads, and other odd features.
But something like Old English Game Bantams might do fairly well. (Despite the name, they are not "game" in the sense of roosters fighting each other. They should be able to live like any other normal chicken.)

 

[U_Stormcrow]

I would've expected better feed savings, but that is helpful to know what to expect. Plus your setup would most likely be more optimal than mine. Are you able to save appreciable amounts on feed using other methods in addition to free ranging?

What other methods are there? Contrary to the lurid claims of some, fermentation won't save you 50% on your feed bill, Nor will sprouting. While its true that fermentation (and sprouting) make certain nutrients more bioavialable (and others less), which nutrients varies based on ingredients fermented and fermenting methods (which bacteria or yeast, what temps). Whether the more bioavailable nutrients are ultimately beneficial depends in large part on their relative abundance or scarcity before fermenting - if the feed is already high in Vit B, adding a yeast which makes B more available doesn't fix anything - they had enough already, and will simply excrete the excess....

Most of the savings from fermenting is mechanical - the same 10% savings associated with using pelleted feed (or as I do, feeding wet mash). It clumps the feed together, making it easier for chickens to find bits they missed and gobble them up.

 

[U_Stormcrow]

and to continue thoughts above, I have hopes of reaching 45% savings in late spring and again early fall, once I've fully developed my pasture - its still a work in progress. Then I can increase its size, since my birds free range beyond the 2+ acres of pasture into my surrounding woods, and net further savings.

and the "heritage" birds and NOT modern production hybrid layers - and never will be. But they have been raised for generations with a focus on having more chicks for sale and mostly preserving appearance, with the benefits of modern feeding. They've lost some of their "scrappiness", and often some of their eventual size,but do produce eggs better than they used to. A LOT of that difference is feed quality, but not all of it.

 

[happybird100]

If you want really good layers, I do NOT recommend bantams.
But if you want chickens that lay less eggs, then they might be a good choice.

Less eggs might mean they need less food each day. Smaller body size also means they need less food each day. But a small chicken can typically catch just as many bugs as a big chicken, so the bugs come closer to being enough food for that day. (This would go for all foods. I just used bugs as one example.)

A bantam does not eat as much as a large chicken, but I do not know how much less. I think one pound a month is probably too low, although bantams come in a range of sizes so it's hard to be sure. Some Serama bantams weigh less than a pound, while some Cornish bantams weigh more than three times that.

The main reason I want chickens are for eggs. Like everyone else these days, with the ridiculous egg prices. Also, they look quite a bit smaller, and there are hawks around, Red shouldered I believe. As far as I know they don't get big chickens, but I don't know about little ones. Still, I will look into it a bit further.

 

[NatJ]

The main reason I want chickens are for eggs. Like everyone else these days, with the ridiculous egg prices. Also, they look quite a bit smaller, and there are hawks around, Red shouldered I believe. As far as I know they don't get big chickens, but I don't know about little ones. Still, I will look into it a bit further.

Yes, hawks could be more of a problem for small chickens than for big chickens.