Everyone, post your best homemade chicken feed recipes!

[jmofaustin]

Let's try to come up with an inexpensive way to feed our chickens, that way, the feed companies will have to lower their prices to increase sales again

. If you have any organic recipes, that would be awesome!

 

[mudhen]

OK, here goes:
I've been doing an lot of reading over the past few months on this, and I am sure I am probably doing something wrong, so those of you with more knowledge, correct me please.
I want to provide a 1:1 ratio of mash:scratch. The layer mash I get has 18% protein.
In any ratio of mash to scratch, the minimum to maintain is 15% protein. I am going for 22-24% protein.
A scratch mixture of at least two grains is usually best for the laying hen, so I've overdone it and am using four. Each has a varying degree of energy content and benefits. You don't want any grain to be more than 50% of the scratch feed. Also, I've read that it is best usually fed in late afternoon and that overfeeding of the scratch will lower the feed intake of the mash and decrease their protein intake.
I am aware that summer/winter seasons will make a difference in the feed ratios, and that wether or not hens free-range also makes a difference.
So this mix is based on the fact that my hens do not free-range, get veggie/leafy greens in AM, and this mash/scratch mix in afternoon beginning in July of this year (when my pullets will be 19 wks old.)

100# Layer Mash:Scratch mix =

50# Layer Mash
.75# cracked corn
.25# whole oats
.50# soft shell wheat
.50# rice bran
1# sunflower
1# millet mix
.50# flax
.25# granulated garlic
.25# brewer's yeast

Final cost breakdown is $1.45/lb. So... I've mentioned before that my girls are the Paris Hiltons of the poultry world, haven't I?

So I'm waiting for your suggestions and comments...right off, I can answer a few of them....
-I'm not sure what I'm doing, most of this info has come from reading several thoughts, theories and weighing out the plusses and minuses of each of the items listed.
-I want to provide a high omega3 diet to decrease cholesterol content in the eggs.
-granulated garlic is used to reduce smell in coop.

 

[MarkR]

There's a great chapter in the Storey's chicken book about this as well.

Mudhen, I'm going to give your recipe a try. Looks good enough for us to eat. Sort of a savory granola. Well, okay, maybe not. But I bet the chickens will love it.

So, do any of you folk's birds just love tomatoes. Mind are particularly fond of the little grape tomatoes just when then get a little raisiney. You know, just when they start to wrinkle a bit. I throw 10 or 12 into the run and it turns into a chicken brawl in there. One grabs one and runs, and the others take off after her. . . then they notice there are more. Then it's like a shark feeding frenzy. I'd throw more in but I like them myself. The only thing I can compare it to is when I throw a mess of crickets in with them.

Mark

 

[mudhen]

Oh, my gosh! You were reading my mind! I've been working on some formulas this week, soon as I get the dollars and cents worked out I'll post.
Great thread idea, jmofaustin! Looking forward to everyone's input!!

 

[dlhunicorn]

I have read everyone of those articles in that sticky and if you really want to understand the basics on nutrition and what is required (and what happens when it goes wrong) then look here through the articles I have collected:
http://dlhunicorn.conforums.com/index.cgi?board=nutrition
(General Nutrition section-some of these articles are posted in the sticky at EZboard BYC)

http://dlhunicorn.conforums.com/index.cgi?board=feednutrition
(FEED articles on>Ration Balancing / Nutritional Analyses of Various Feedstuffs / Feed Calculation etc)

http://dlhunicorn.conforums.com/index.cgi?board=contributingfactorsnutrition
(Feed) Factors Contributing to Nutritional Disorders)

http://dlhunicorn.conforums.com/index.cgi?board=NutriDisorders
(Nutritional Disorders)

... I personally will not be attempting what is proposed in this thread (to make your own and not use the commercial mix). I use the commercial mix as a basis and then supplement that according to various factors such as season etc.
For those determined to get away from the commercial mixes alltogether I would suggest you go to a feedmill and talk with them...they have feed calculation software and can add the vit/nutr. premix to the ingredients you select so that the basic micronutrients are not forgotten and that the ratios of basic things like phosperorus/Calcium etc. are correct

 

[Lazy J Farms Feed & Hay]

Lazy J maintains one cannot compare our FF with brewers grains because one is distilled into a concentrate and the other is not. He could be right about that and I have no way of actually knowing for sure how much our proteins are augmented by fermentation or if they are just changed into a more usable form and that is what the study was trying to convey.

I think your lysine will be just fine according to this article...if you can trust the validity of it:

http://www.fao.org/docrep/x2184e/x2184e06.htm



Here's a good link about feed ingredients and their nutritive values....it shows brewers yeast at being pretty high: http://ingredients101.com/bydried.htm You can see other ingredients in a column at the right of that page.

While fermentation might change the protein content a bit by the bacteria using some free nitrogen to produce protein you will not double or treble the protein content of a fermentation product if you keep all of the contents of the fermentation vat. In most fermentation processes the protein content is not the primary product, in ethanol it is alcohol, in brewing it is the beer.

Just to reiterate, the reason the protein content in DDGS is higher than corn is due to the REMOVAL of the starch portion of the grain. When you remove the starch you CONCENTRATE the remaining nutrients. If you ferment a 5 gallon bucket of feed and feed the entire content of that fermentation to your chickens you are not increasing the protein available to the chickens.

Now as to the article you linked, you appear to be confusing Protein (Amino Acid) bioavailability with Protein (Amino acid) content. Fermentation has the possibility to improve the bioavailability of amino acids, this means more of the amino acid is available for absorption across the brush border membrane in the intestine. The cause of the improvement may be siply that the bacteria break peptide bonds in the existing proteins to either free single amino acids or increase that amount of short chains peptides compared to intact protein molecules. Regardless of the reasons for improved bioavailability, this does not equate to an increase in the amino acid or protein content in the fermentation product.

Nutritionist like me use bioavailability to more precisely formulated feed rations to meet the specific needs of animals. To do so we utilize research into the specific needs of nutrients and the stage of growth or production of the animal. We are now formulating rations to meet the cellular needs of the animal, this is many calculations past Crude Protein.

Jim

 

[KingsCalls]

One handfull of earthworms, a half jar of grasshoppers/crickets, some left over green beans or peas, un-cooked cauliflower and a little milk to wash it all down. Ducks love it! WARNING...! This is only a treat and only given about once a month. AND I have no clue to the calorie/vitamin/protein/fat/starch/sugar/etc.....content, so therefor I can't bag & sell it!

 

[mispollitos]

I made my own chick feed this a.m. My husband thinks it's better than what they were getting at the place we purchased them. Plus, rather than being caged, they are now living in a nice tractor w/fresh grass and bugs.

Mis 5 pollitos are only a few weeks old at most and we still aren't sure if they're a Barred Rock mix or I hope not black sex link & all male but anyway, if you make your own organic type feed and can see something is desperately missing from mine, please let me know. All ingredients are not readily available in my area...Mexico...I'd love to buy diatramatrus earth...so if anyone familiar with Guadalajara knows where I could purchase a food grade, I'd so appreciate it!!! Also, I'm wanting to know if I ground up egg shells, if baby chicks need that?

here's my chick feed recipe:

2 Cups corn meal
3 Cups soft white wheat(can't find hard red wheat berry)
1 Cup oat groats
2 Cups sunflower seeds
1 Cup split peas
1 Cup lentils
1 Cup sesame seeds
1/2 teaspoon sea salt
1/4 Cup brewer's yeast
1/2 Cup flax seed

 

[coq au vin]

One thing I'd like to point out, and I'm not sure it really makes any difference to anybody's home recipe, is that the nutritional analysis of feed ingredients is broken down by weight, not volume. So the "standard" method of calculating your recipe's value is to weigh all the ingredients and figure it out that way. It seems to me that the way Organics North is doing it is probably the same mathematically, but I cannot really comment on that for sure because I've just consumed a bottle of wine while working on my new coop.

Quote:
There are a few reasons, but here are mine...

1. Unless it's organic soy, it's probably GMO (and even still it could easily be contaminated by GMO).
2. Soy farming is one of the biggest destroyers of the Amazon Rainforest.
3. Soy is really not a natural chicken feed at all. It has to be heated (baked, steamed, I'm not sure how "they" do it) to a certain point before the protein is even available to the chickens.
4. Some folks are concerned about estrogen in soy, while some say it's a totally different type of estrogen and not a factor. I don't know, it doesn't matter to me due to the previous three issues.

 

[coq au vin]

Here are three more key ingredients that most people are not aware should be part of their recipes:

Iodized Salt: 1/2 lb. per 100 lbs. of feed.

Calcium and Phosphorus: These are essential for nutrient uptake. You need 2.5X more calcium than phosphorus. Here's how to get it...

1. Ground limestone: 1.5 lbs. per 100 lbs. feed.

AND

2. Steamed Bone Meal: 2.5 lbs. per 100 lbs. feed.

OR

3. Dicalcium Phosphate: 2.5 lbs. per 100 lbs. feed.

These are in addition to the standard practice of offering oyster shell free-choice.

http://www.motherearthnews.com/Sustainable-Farming/1975-09-01/How-To-Mix-Chicken-Feed.aspx
(I realize Mother Earth News is not the most reputable source for information, but I do think this is a good article.)