Everyone, post your best homemade chicken feed recipes!

[chickengr]

If the cause it too many rats in the area, that doesn't explain why your neighbor doesn't have the same health issues as you implied...

he lives near the main road, more kind of urban area, about 1 km from me. I am surrounded by abandoned fields with olive/almond trees and old houses, a perfect place for rats - free food and housing, they just need water and that is why they come (they drink dog's and cat's water in the area as well). I live on the island.

 

[MeepBeep]

If the cause it too many rats in the area, that doesn't explain why your neighbor doesn't have the same health issues as you implied...

he lives near the main road, more kind of urban area, about 1 km from me. I am surrounded by abandoned fields with olive/almond trees and old houses, a perfect place for rats - free food and housing, they just need water and that is why they come (they drink dog's and cat's water in the area as well). I live on the island.

So the fact your neighbors chickens appear 'healthy' when they have more 'carefree' husbandry is likely and primarily because of their their location and surroundings not actually their 'carefree' husbandry practices... Location and surroundings can play a very big part in how 'strict' and scientific you need to be with their feed choices, if the birds have ripe, fertile and healthy land to forage on all day, their primary feed does not need to be 100% complete as they will attempt to fill in the gaps by foraging for what they lack... On the other hand if they are confined to a small run or confined to 'sterilized' and 'dead' land with little to no access to ripe foraging opportunities, their feed is going to need to be much more complete if not 100% complete...

The same applies to gardening, if you have ripe, fertile land with the proper level of light, chances are you can be a lazy farmer and get decent yields... That doesn't negate the science of what a plant needs though, it just means by dump luck you gardened where the conditions are right...

I do a lot of indoor gardening where pretty much everything is controlled by me, and I firmly stand behind the science of it as you can almost immediately see the effects when you do it wrong and the rewards when you do it right... Same with chickens if you observe them close enough and compare to a known good control...

For me 'crumbles' or 'commercial' food is only about 50% of my birds diet, I actually use it to fill in the blanks and needs that they don't get from the vast variety of every changing fresh food I feed them...

 

[Shengdanji]

Anyone please tell me why soy is bad for chickens. Thank you.

 

[MeepBeep]

Anyone please tell me why soy is bad for chickens. Thank you.

Because some people feel it's bad...

You can find the same circular arguments about pretty much any single feed ingredient or diet topic like gluten, organic, gmo, corn, vegan, this or that essentially any ingredient if you did deep enough...

When it comes to these arguments I focus on and that is conclusively peer studied and repeated, studies proving 'harm' of this or that ingredient beyond a doubt, and to be blunt there is usually about zero of those studies ever produced that show the demons level of harm many claim...

The way I look at it is like this, as I said earlier there is nearly 52 billion chickens raised globally for meat and many 100s of millions more are raised for eggs each year, a vast and I mean a vast majority of these chickens are fed feeds that contain some soy, corn, GMO, non-organic.meat or what not, so we have a HUGE scientific study base... In fact over the course of a few years time Trillions of meals are made from these billions of chickens and those Trillions of meals fed billions of people worldwide, yet there is about zero conclusive data directly linking back any harm originating from the conventional/commericial feed(s) ingredients...

Now, if someone for their own reasons wants to exclude this or that or use this or that type of food, I say go for it... But I'm personally not one to buy into the almost exclusively propaganda driven and propaganda based reasons and arguments I have heard for many of the choices...

That is not to say there isn't some legit concerns for some things and certain people, but in most cases I find it more 'trend' driven... For many the fact that they simply don't want to feed this or that to their chickens is sufficient cause to exclude it, and no one will change their mind...

 

[chickengr]

Anyone please tell me why soy is bad for chickens. Thank you.

non GMO is not bad. it does not mean that the other non GMO full of pesticides is good.

as I live in a hot climate I remained without greens for my chickens. for about a month I have been giving them leftovers from the guy who grows vegetables and sells (the same ones people eat) and almost half of my chickens got diarrhea. I will wait till some grass and vegetables in my garden grow before I give it to the chickens again.

 

[MeepBeep]

as I live in a hot climate I remained without greens for my chickens. for about a month I have been giving them leftovers from the guy who grows vegetables and sells (the same ones people eat) and almost half of my chickens got diarrhea. I will wait till some grass and vegetables in my garden grow before I give it to the chickens again.

Watery stool is not necessarily indicative of anything being wrong in poultry, eating food high in water content (fresh vegetables, fruits wet mash) will almost always produce watery stool in chickens because the chickens are consuming excess water that is in their food vs a dry feed void of water... This excess water intake is especially evident in warm climates where the chickens are bound to already be drinking excess water just to stay cool and foods high in water force even more water intake... The fresh foods are high in water content and likely just increased the overall water intake resulting in loose stools, but it's not necessarily bad, it's just a like a person that drinks lots of water/juice having to go pee more often then someone who drinks less water/juice, but in the chickens case they don't pee independently so it causes and overall water stools instead... Also sudden changes in diets can produce loose stools, so if your birds are not fed fresh vegetables and fruits regularly the sudden change in diet could cause loose stools and again this is not necessary an indicator of a problem...

Poultry stool consistency, color and even odor can easily be manipulated by the food they are eating, it's not necessarily an indicator of a problem or ailment in itself...

My birds get an every changing diet everyday, and thus their poop changes in color and consistency every day, it's not something I'm concerned about as it's natural and to be expected with dietary changes...

 

[chickengr]

Watery stool is not necessarily indicative of anything being wrong in poultry, eating food high in water content (fresh vegetables, fruits wet mash) will almost always produce watery stool in chickens because the chickens are consuming excess water that is in their food vs a dry feed void of water... This excess water intake is especially evident in warm climates where the chickens are bound to already be drinking excess water just to stay cool and foods high in water force even more water intake... The fresh foods are high in water content and likely just increased the overall water intake resulting in loose stools, but it's not necessarily bad, it's just a like a person that drinks lots of water/juice having to go pee more often then someone who drinks less water/juice, but in the chickens case they don't pee independently so it causes and overall water stools instead... Also sudden changes in diets can produce loose stools, so if your birds are not fed fresh vegetables and fruits regularly the sudden change in diet could cause loose stools and again this is not necessary an indicator of a problem...

Poultry stool consistency, color and even odor can easily be manipulated by the food they are eating, it's not necessarily an indicator of a problem or ailment in itself...

My birds get an every changing diet everyday, and thus their poop changes in color and consistency every day, it's not something I'm concerned about as it's natural and to be expected with dietary changes...

thanks.

I usually feed chickens greens but from my vegetable garden (no chemicals). I saw a dove with some respiratory issue so I am afraid it is not food causing diarrhea. I'll be watching them. unfortunately some of my birds have bad genetics.

 

[RobertPlamondon]

Anyone please tell me why soy is bad for chickens. Thank you.

Beats me! 10-15 years ago, soybeans were magic beans, and presented as being far better at being meat than meat ever was. Now they're the devil.

Me, I always figured that they're just beans, and about as interesting as beans ever are (not very), and about as much like meat as beans can be (not much). To use soybeans as a meat substitute in chicken feed, you have to add about a zillion other ingredients to make up for soy's innumerable deficiencies vis-a-vis meat. People do this because meat's expensive, so it pays to jump through all the hoops.

At the same time, the commodity poultry industry has wonderful hatchability with soybean-based rations. The most sensitive test of any diet is whether adult animals given it produce healthy offspring, so as far as I can tell, the early warning signs of an inferior feed just aren't there.

Back in the old days, meat byproducts like steamed beef scrap and meat-and-bone meal of high quality were affordable. These had all the balanced protein and all the minerals (except enough calcium for hens in full lay) a chicken needed. Feed rations were simple then. But meat byproducts cost a fortune now. It takes a complex spreadsheet to create a balanced ration that people can afford.

My best guess about all this stuff is that people take the nutrition fads that are intended to make humans live forever, and apply them to short-lived livestock.

I mean, suppose my hens were all chain smokers, spending all their time rolling and smoking cigarettes out behind the barn. Presumably, in fifty years or so, some would develop lung cancer. But in the 2-3 years they actually live, what would be the effect on their eggs? I don't know, but I'd bet that eating the eggs of a chain-smoking chicken is in no way comparable to being a chain-smoker yourself. Not that someone wouldn't try to make a buck-buck-buck out of the false parallel.

 

[MeepBeep]

Beats me! 10-15 years ago, soybeans were magic beans, and presented as being far better at being meat than meat ever was. Now they're the devil.

It's not just 10-15 years ago the 'soybean' fad is still going strong even though an anti-soybean fad is also going strong... There are still plenty of people hyping soybean and tofu as the healthiest food on the planet, especially for vegan diets...

From my experience a majority of the 'demonize' this or that food is nothing short of trendy fads, that are forever rotating like a game of leap frog with many never questioning why or being mislead by hear-say or false information...

 

[weidnercharm]

Soy has a chemical called esterase. This is very closely related to estrogen. Esterase has been linked to premature puberty in girls, thyroidism and hormone based cancers. The eggs from the birds who eat soy have esterase in the eggs. No government agency is looking out for what is best for you. They are bought and paid for. If scientists have shown esterase causes hormonal imbalance in women........ that's good enough for me to stop eating it and stop feeding it to anything I am going to eat. You are what you eat eats. The chemicals they consume, you consume.