Everyone, post your best homemade chicken feed recipes!

[pdirt]

I have learned recently that chickens cannot digest oats or barely because they lack enzymes in their digestive system needed to break them down, it is something to do with beta-glucagon forming gels in the gut that can't be broken down, which means the chickens need to eat more of to have enough energy. I have now adjusted my feed mix to that removing all the oats and barely and replacing them mostly with whole wheat and maize. My chickens do actually look a little bit more active energetic already and my feeders are emptieing more slowly so I am saving on feed (wheat is actually cheaper that barely and oats aswell because it is not fed to many animals and the hens don't need as much to provide them with energy)

Hmm, I wonder if fermenting oats or barley helps create/activate those necessary enzymes so they are present in the feed...the bird consumes the enzymes along with the grains. Anyone know? I am going to look this one up

 

[pdirt]

So here is my rough draft of a basic grower type recipe (soy free), egg or oyster shells will be available on the side. All the food ingredients (grains, legumes) are organic and most of these are from Azure Standard. The below recipe comes out to $0.55/lb. The upfront cost would be about $400 to buy things in bulk 45-60lbs bags. It would be cheaper if I could find feed grade peas and/or feed grade corn. I haven't yet looked into the feed stores around here to see what their prices are or if they can get some of the items Azure doesn't carry (such as the fish meal). Any comments or suggestions are welcome

I'd be happy to email anyone who asks the Excel file. It's pretty easy to make one yourself, but let me know if you want it, send a PM.


Grain/Legume pounds Percent Protein In Grain
all organic, Azure

Wheat 33 12.5
Whole Oats 14 12
wheat bran 5 16
fish meal 6 62
kelp granules 0.5
barley 5 12.3
limestone 2
Redmond's salt 0.5
big sky scratch 10 14
big sky alfalfa 4 15
nutri balancer 3
split peas 17 24
total pounds 100

% protein in recipe 17.02

 

[ChickensAreSweet]

They also love birdseed- if you need something else for your recipe. Millet should be around 11% protein and BOSS is 16%. Sometimes you can get some on sale and then it is a good deal.

The organic cracked corn at the feed store here is $28 a bag, and at Azure was $21 (check prices yourself though). So I feed whole corn from azurestandard.

 

[LindaB220]

Hmmmm?

 

[sinde]

Hi everyone. Can someone please help me with a chicken feed mix calculator. I want to mix my own chicken feeds. the cost of feeds here in Botswana are very high.
The items we have here include;
1. Maize
2. sorghum
3. beans
4. sunflower
Can someone help me formulate a recipe using the given feeds. the ones listed are readily available in my country.

Looking forward to ur help. thanks

 

[ChickensAreSweet]

They also love birdseed- if you need something else for your recipe. Millet should be around 11% protein and BOSS is 16%. Sometimes you can get some on sale and then it is a good deal.

The organic cracked corn at the feed store here is $28 a bag, and at Azure was $21 (check prices yourself though). So I feed whole corn from azurestandard.

I posted this three weeks ago. I just checked azure prices again and oh they have gone wayyyy up. So I am going to go back to sourcing my feed at the feed store until prices come back down.

 

[ChickensAreSweet]

Hi everyone. Can someone please help me with a chicken feed mix calculator. I want to mix my own chicken feeds. the cost of feeds here in Botswana are very high.
The items we have here include;
1. Maize
2. sorghum
3. beans
4. sunflower
Can someone help me formulate a recipe using the given feeds. the ones listed are readily available in my country.

Looking forward to ur help. thanks

Have you seen lionsgrip?

Here: (I use weight instead of parts when measuring feed, personally.)
http://www.lionsgrip.com/protein.html

Your beans should be cooked before being fed to poultry as they have anti-nutrients in them. Unless you are serving lentils or peas- those can be raw (lentils have more tannins in them though and you may want to feed them a little more sparingly than the peas.
http://www.extension.org/pages/67359/feeding-field-peas-to-poultry#.Utx0PRDTnIU

Sunflower seeds are about 16% protein, maize is about 7-9%, sorghum is on this page, some information anyway:
http://www2.ca.uky.edu/smallflocks/Feed_ingredients/Grains.html

http://www2.ca.uky.edu/smallflocks/feed_ingredients/proteins.html
other page

Split peas are 24.5% protein. I am not sure about beans.

 

[sinde]

Thank you guys. am still going through the staff u sent me. this is good,

 

[Me alter]

Hi,
I feed using a choice feeding program to reduce waste. In one feeder, 10 lb. hanging feeder of whole oats, 1 - 25 lb hanging feeder of course ground corn (sifted through a colander to separate the fine and medium ground corn). These feeders are free feed. I Free feed concentrate in a third feeder ( 2.5 oz.Redman's salt, 4 lb. 12oz. of the fine corn I separated from the course, 2 lb. 4oz. Fish meal that I sift so I get a good mix, 1 lb.8 oz. Fertrell's nutri balancer, 12 oz. Kelp, 8 oz. Sucrant (certified organic molasses in cane sugar), 1 lb. 12.5 oz. Limestone, 14 oz. Oyster shell). This makes about 14 lbs total of concentrate. In a fourth feeder, grit. in a fifth feeder whole black oil sunflower seeds. These I measure out 1 lb. per 25 birds per day. Organic Black oil sunflower seeds (BOSS) per day.
Back engineering from feed labels have only gotten me so far in coming up with a recipe. Articles from vets located in India, Africa, or other countries give me much more specific limits on salt and molasses. Salt can easily be at toxic levels, and sugar or molasses can give them diarrhea. These levels I have give my girls a good turd instead of a little cow pie and they also get salt from kelp. I don't think they get enough salt from kelp but they get some according to another article I read.

I'm trying to keep my grains to locally grown organic oats, corn, winter wheat, and BOSS that I can get out of the field in a gravity wagon. Corn is the only one I grind so I can separate it out for concentrate. I soak the wheat to germinate it over three days and break that up with whey soaked wheat germinated in lactic acid. I give them enough wheat so they clean it up in 24 hours. Germinated, or germinated the wheat has the whole grain and is saturated with water so they drink a little less but over the daylight hours they clean it up one kernel at a time so I think it's pretty efficient compared to buying a ground mash and having 40 to 60% end up in the liter.

 

[NanaRose]

I have learned recently that chickens cannot digest oats or barely because they lack enzymes in their digestive system needed to break them down, it is something to do with beta-glucagon forming gels in the gut that can't be broken down, which means the chickens need to eat more of to have enough energy. I have now adjusted my feed mix to that removing all the oats and barely and replacing them mostly with whole wheat and maize. My chickens do actually look a little bit more active energetic already and my feeders are emptieing more slowly so I am saving on feed (wheat is actually cheaper that barely and oats aswell because it is not fed to many animals and the hens don't need as much to provide them with energy)

Here's my two cents about barley: it contains the same gluten protein as wheat. Wheat, barley, rye are very similar in make up, which is why when you are allergic to wheat, or have celiac or gluten-intolerance, you cannot eat any of the three grains. I'm seeing a lot of dog and cat food now being touted as 'no wheat, corn, or soy', but when you look at the ingredients, they are using barley. Using barley, one might as well use wheat. If chickens can digest wheat, they should be able to digest barley.

I am feeding a mixture of grains and seed based loosely on Harvey Ussery's formula and it is working fine for my hens. They are healthy and laying eggs, so I'm happy. Being celiac, I cannot use wheat or barley, and I choose not to feed soy.