Everyone, post your best homemade chicken feed recipes!

[pbjls]

I have my own mill and currently use peas, wheat, and barley. I also will use trit or oats when available in place of either what or barley. I will add fish meal for starter and grower rations but not for layer. the vitimans, minerals, enxymes and a little bit of lysine and methyanine(sp) are custome blended for me to match the grain balance I use. I grind no more than a weeks worth of feed at a time to keep it as fresh as possible. I do not add a lot of calcium to the layer feed and instead offer oystershell free choice next to the feed.

I plan on reducing the fishmeal and adding camalina meal this spring.

pbjls in WA st

 

[RedRidge]

Does any who grinds and mixes their own feed have trouble with the fact that there is no moisture and this can cause sorting?
I use primarily non-gmo corn, field peas, and oats, and add a few supplements to it that are all in powder form (nutria-balancer, limestone, kelp, fish meal)...
Even if I didn't grind the grain as fine (or not at all), I'd still have the powder to deal with and would like to avoid feeding a mash.
Any thoughts?
Has anyone else experienced this and what have to done?

As an aside... I feed BSF for my protein (just in case someone piped up and thought there was no protein in the mix - they also free range).

Thanks for the advice,
Sheri

 

[newchick60995]

Does anyone have a recipe that is gluten, corn and soy free? I'm having a really hard time finding a commercial feed and am thinking I might be better off mixing my own.

 

[NanaRose]

Does anyone have a recipe that is gluten, corn and soy free? I'm having a really hard time finding a commercial feed and am thinking I might be better off mixing my own.

I make my own. Mine does have corn, but not gluten or soy. You do not have to use corn. I first based mine on Harvey Ussery's natural feed recipe, simply using what I could get. Now I base it on the recipe found in Storey's Guide to Raising Chickens, by Gail Damerow. She gives a table for making a formula from whatever you have at hand. You can use milo and millet grains, rice, rolled oats, sunflower seeds, ground sunflower meal, flax seed, etc..

I am also adding to my mixture a great new product: Farmer's Helper Ultra Kibble. It is a supplement for regular ration, to be used to boost nutrition. It is gluten free, soy free, and it may be corn free, think it relies on sorghum (milo), and contains fish meals. Can get it at Tractor Supply.

 

[newchick60995]

Thanks so much! I'll look for that supplement and book!

 

[RedRidge]

I grind and mix my own also. I too use corn but it is non-gmo organic. I do not use soy. My other grains are field peas (higher protein than many other grains and the chickens love em) and oats. I add limestone and nutri-balancer, and for higher protein demands (such as chicks) I add fish meal. I supplement everyone with BSFL and balance the remainder of the ration weekly according to how many pounds of BSFL I estimate I will produce that week.
Raising my own BSFL has proven to be a huge money saver on feed costs since the highest protein ingredients are the most expensive. When I'm producing peak BSFL I can eliminate fish meal all together.
Sheri
www.red-ridge-farm.com

 

[Wilson Chickens]

I'm considering making my own feed due to not only price but my four 6 week old pullets will have a couple layer hens as roommates in the the next couple weeks and I don't really want to spend money on two different kinds of feed with prices being high. I'm trying to find recipes to make my own feed but I'm not very good with math and percentages ha ha. Right now I am feeding my pullets a non medicated chick starter and I had a few people in my area tell me that I could keep my pullets on the chick starter until they start laying I didn't have to switch them from the chick starter to grower. Anyhow getting off topic ha ha I'd like a little help in coming up with a recipe that would work well for my pullets and adult layers. Thank you fellow chicken lovers.

 

[jessica1982]

When people mention sprouting, is it seeds that have sprouted, or just been soaked over night in water?

 

[ChickensAreSweet]

When people mention sprouting, is it seeds that have sprouted, or just been soaked over night in water?

As far as I know it means feeding the sprouted seed. I have not fed this though so hopefully someone else will answer. There is a fodder thread too- "Growing fodder for chickens."

 

[Lorien]

If yall are looking for cheaper feed with better nutrition, I would suggest you look into fermented feed. It has saved us 50% easily.
https://www.backyardchickens.com/t/644300/fermenting-feed-for-meat-birds