Does anyone make their own scratch?

[melissastraka]

Does anyone make it themselves? What is the formula for it? I have so many chickens that i was trying to cut cost and trips into town for "special" things.

 

[spottedtail]

Scratch is just a combination of grains.
So in my opinion, it's easier and probably less costly to just buy it from the manufacturer.
But if you're a grain farmer, it could work.

spot

 

[Evermore Ranch]

We do! But I buy y individual grains from the farmer down the road. Mine would waste so much in the scratch mixes that we bought, so we picked the things they ate. Corn, Wheat, BOSS. I also add in Flock Raiser. My guys love it! and they don,t waste near as much. the only bad thing is I can only get whole corn so we grind it fresh everyday (keeps me from over feeding corn though).

 

[Evermore Ranch]

Quote:
I do save a tiny bit but it is not easier than buying it already mixed. My Birds just got so wasteful!

 

[ghulst]

I feed ear corn and they love it once they learn to peck it off the cob. I start with shelled and then go to ear corn.

 

[Glenda L Heywood]

go to
http://www.google.com
put in chicken feed recipes scratch grains
CHICKEN FEED: Topics of Interest Let the chicks scratch around in the feed for the first few days so they get .... Vitamins: a general term meaning "life-giving"; see RECIPES section for ...
www.lionsgrip.com/topics.html - 36k - Cached - Similar pages
CHICKEN FEED: Main Menu Feed Recipes Blend some or all of your own chicken feed, whether you're a .... Scratch: whole grains fed separately to chickens, usually scattered on the ...
www.lionsgrip.com/chickens.html - 44k - Cached - Similar


MAKE FEED WITH WILD BIRD SEED AND SCRATCH GRAINS
From http://www.upc-online.org/home.html
Providing a Good Home for Chickens

Fresh Food and Water
Chickens must always have plenty of fresh clean water. Their foraging areas should be free of applied chemicals and their food must be fresh. Store their food in clean, dry, rodent-proof metal containers. Moldy food poisons chickens and should never be fed to them. Premixed nutritionally-balanced food is available in bulk (e.g. 50 lbs), or you can make your own by mixing together chicken scratch (whole wheat & cracked corn sold in bulk at feed stores) and a good selection of wild bird food.

(Premixed poultry rations often contain antibiotics and typically include rendered dead and diseased birds, offal and other slaughterhouse refuse.) Mix roughly: 65% grains including barley, corn, milo (sorghum), millet, oats, wheat, brown rice; 10% alfalfa meal or ground hay; 16-20% sunflower or oil seeds, dried peas, cooked soybeans or soybean meal--don't feed chickens raw soybeans, which have toxins [See the Protein Section for a simple way to prepare soybeans; however, some farmers have reported feeding their chickens raw soybeans for years!]; 7% hydrated lime for extra calcium for eggshell formation; 1% trace mineral salt. Chickens have gizzards instead of teeth to grind food. To grind, gizzards employ grit--pebbles and other hard indigestible objects chickens pick up while foraging.

An indoor chicken should always have some grit available. Chickens love fresh treats. (Contrary to what you may have heard, chickens do not like garbage.) Offer them cooked spaghetti with tomato sauce, steamed brown rice, grapes, fresh greens, chopped cooked potatoes, whole grain bread, raw tomatoes, and their own eggs hard-boiled including the shells (eggshells have calcium and other minerals for chickens).

 

[melissastraka]

thanks Glenda L Heywood, i know you have raised a lot over the years, did you make your own? what were the pros and cons?

 

[Glenda L Heywood]

We had co-op make our ton at a time of hen layer pellets
I was not a scratch grain feeder
I raised white birds for show and most scratch grains are cracked corn
didn't need yellow tinti to chickens featheres
the lions grip site is very good and has some greatrecipes there
many times you can take the actual recipe to the feed grinders and they will follow it

I was a oat feeder for laying hens
as it takes unneeded fat off the hens gut
makes longer layer
as well as feeding he commercial hen feed