I am not a total 'newbee' to chickens but I have so much to learn. Does any one make their own chick scratch ? I start my babies on medicated crumbles. Have been feeding the older girls crumbles. Got the wrong feed one day which was scratch, corn, barley, milo. Now they won't touch the crumbles. The problem with the scratch is they won't eat the milo. I am thinking of making my own scratch ~ cracked corn, barley, and crimped oats. I also read folks talking about 'grit'. I have never used grit but I do use crushed oyster shell. If it is not available I can really tell the differance in the egg shells. Lemmeknow ya all's experience please.
If your birds forage where there are various sizes of stones you probably don't need grit. If you're not sure, it's best to provide grit with feeding so much grain and seeds since it is inexpensive. A 50 lb. bag lasts me a couple years and it never goes bad. My chickens don't like milo either. The cheaper wild bird seed mixes contain milo and the wild birds eat everything but the milo. Someone told me once that there are some birds west of the rockies that eat it but that's another story. I've always mixed my own scratch. If you read the scratch analysis tag, it lists contents but not the percentage of each. Feed mills may have a general formula but the majority of what they mix in is what's cheapest at the moment. I can do that at home. Furthermore, by making your own, you can do your birds a favor and mix it for the season. Higher energy ingredients in winter, lower in summer. In winter, mine is primarily wheat and BOSS. In summer, it's primarily oats. This way I can avoid corn which - in scratch grain mixes - will be GMO. I also sprout seeds and grains for them: field peas, buckwheat, flax, wheat, Sunflower, etc.. Peas, flax and sunflower are higher in protein than the feed, so that's a boost. The oats and wheat are slightly lower, but significantly higher than corn.
