Farm Bureau Layer feed

[drinkoj]

Thinking about buying my layer feed from my local Farm Bureau and stop buying from TSC to support local but I wanting some input to if this is a good layer mix.

Analysis​

Crude Protein......Min.......16.0%
Lysine......Min.......8%
Methionine.....Min......0.25%
Crude Fat.......Min.......3.0%
Crude Fiber......Max.......6.5%
Calcium......Min........4.1%
Calcium......Max........4.4%
Phosphorus......Min........0.6%
Probiotics.......Min.......100 million CFU/lb
Salt.......Min.......0.45%
Salt.......Max.......0.8%

Ingredients​

Wheat Middlings, Fine Ground Corn Meal, Distillers Dried Grains with Solubles, Calcium Carbonate, Dehulled Soybean Meal, Porcine Meat and Bone Meal, Salt, Choline Chloride, Fermentation Products of Lactobacillus acidophilus, L. casei, Bifidobacterium thermophilum, and Enterococcus faecium, Manganous Oxide, Zinc Oxide, Ferrous Sulfate, Dried Trichoderma Longibrachiatum Fermentation Extract, Vitamin A Supplement, Vitamin D Supplement, Vitamin E Supplement, Niacin Supplement, d-Calcium Pantothenate, Copper Chloride, Riboflavin Supplement, Dehydrated Pichia Pastoris Fermentation Extract, Thiamine Mononitrate, Biotin, Magnesium Silicates, Diatomaceous Earth, Yeast, Kaolin, Pyridoxine Hydrochloride, Ethylenediamine Dihydriodide, Menadione Nicotinamide Bisulfite (Source of Vitamin K activity), Vitamin B12 Supplement, Folic Acid, Sodium Selenite, d-Limonene, Mono- and Di-Glycerides, Calcium Propionate (a preservative).​

 

[nuthatched]

I would imagine that the farm bureau stuff is just as sound as anything, protein is the minimum so I'd supplements protein.

 

[Mother-Hen-Michele]

I noticed it was not "all vegetarian ingredients" which all my feeds say.

The fat source as pork might be rough to digest. I noticed they have 'min' fat but no 'max' fat or fiber.

I would love to hear any feedback if you do switch.

 

[NatJ]

I noticed it was not "all vegetarian ingredients" which all my feeds say.

The fat source as pork might be rough to digest.

Chickens digest meat just fine. No worries about the pork.
The "all vegetarian" feeds are because of cost and sometimes government regulations about what meat products can be used where and how (aftereffects of "mad cow disease.")

I noticed they have 'min' fat but no 'max' fat or fiber.

I notice that you're in Canada, while OP is in the USA.
The tag is a normal tag for US chicken feed.
The tag lists min fat but max fiber, which is normal here (I think the government tells what things they have to list on the tag.)

Fat is a source of energy (good/useful) and expensive (so the company is unlikely to put in much extra). Too much fiber can be a problem, but is cheap, which would be why they have to list a maximum on that.

 

[Ponyiqandhens2]

I would imagine that the farm bureau stuff is just as sound as anything, protein is the minimum so I'd supplements protein.

Double check the lysine and methonine amounts one is really low and one really high..it may just be atypo..depending on your hens 16% may be a little low..or might be fine..i havemine on 18-20% until consistently warm/hot weather then will drop to 17%

 

[Mother-Hen-Michele]

regulations about what meat products can be used where and how (aftereffects of "mad cow disease.")

You read my mind

Perhaps also caused by my being Canadian is my fear of offending, so I didn't expand. But I do worry about our remaking mistakes feeding concentrated amounts of pathogens to animals who can't fight them.

(This may have been debunked) but I had read the initial studies that linked Alzheimer's to countries where feeding bone meal to ruminants was introduced. (Germany was the first to do this on a mass scale, first to have the illness, then falling dominoes of introduction then illness)

At the time I wondered if it wasn't just about industrialization and the means to identify diseases that require high cost machines to diagnose. (If your population is starving you worry about feeding then, you don't buy a scanner to diagnose empty bellies)

I have seen my girls kill and eat mice, but the only time they ate any pork they got ill in order of snack pecking order. (It was very little, chopped, lean, well cooked). Opportunistic feeding is different from mass scale introduction (I feel we would agree on that).

But all I can do is watch and hope (or is that worry?)... The pork industry is feeding fish to pigs, poultry industry feeding pork to chickens. Meanwhile the advice is increasingly not to eat too much fish because of plastic and poison in the ocean. Is there a tipping point coming?

 

[Mother-Hen-Michele]

I notice that you're in Canada, while OP is in the USA.
The tag is a normal tag for US chicken feed.
The tag lists min fat but max fiber, which is normal here (I think the government tells what things they have to list on the tag.)

Fat is a source of energy (good/useful) and expensive (so the company is unlikely to put in much extra). Too much fiber can be a problem, but is cheap, which would be why they have to list a maximum on that.

Excellent points, we definitely do have different labeling requirements. I have no information on some things that seem common on the US side. (Is "label envy" a thing?)

 

[NatJ]

I have seen my girls kill and eat mice, but the only time they ate any pork they got ill in order of snack pecking order. (It was very little, chopped, lean, well cooked). Opportunistic feeding is different from mass scale introduction (I feel we would agree on that).

Yes, I agree that feeding it all the time is different than occasional bits.

I have fed chicken feed that contains pork and did not see problems, neither when it was first introduced nor later when they had been eating it for months. I have also fed leftover cooked pork, and I have not seen problems then either.

So your experience has me puzzled. Maybe it was something specific to your hens or that particular pork? Since it happened to you & your hens, but not to me and mine, I have no way to predict how likely it is to be a problem for anyone else's hens or any other pieces of pork.

I do worry about our remaking mistakes feeding concentrated amounts of pathogens to animals who can't fight them.

(This may have been debunked) but I had read the initial studies that linked Alzheimer's to countries where feeding bone meal to ruminants was introduced. (Germany was the first to do this on a mass scale, first to have the illness, then falling dominoes of introduction then illness)

I think that's a valid concern (pathogens to animals that can't fight them), but I think it applies more strongly to the ruminants and less strongly to chickens and pigs. Chickens and pigs are naturally omnivores, who eat both fresh-killed and scavenged meat along with many other things. Both chickens and pigs also have a history of being fed various food wastes (including meat-based ones) when humans raise them. So I would expect them to have a higher tolerance for such things. The ruminants would naturally eat a diet that's mostly plants, and when they are domesticated they have still been fed mostly plants, so they do not have all those centuries of selection for being able to tolerate miscellaneous things that might be found in meat. ("Selection" here meaning natural or by humans. Either way, the one that dies or gets sick is not likely to be the one passing on their genes to the next generation.)

 

[Rurumo]

No one is getting Alzheimer's disease from ruminants fed bone meal. Maybe you are thinking about Mad Cow disease from cows being fed other cows (which no longer happens in the USA), which causes creutzfeldt-jakob disease in humans.

 

[Mother-Hen-Michele]

I have fed chicken feed that contains pork and did not see problems, neither when it was first introduced nor later when they had been eating it for months.

That is interesting. I am curious, but not enough to retest. My plucky Rougette (French play on Little Red Riding Hood) got diarrhea from that snack and sat all hunched up in a sad feather ball afterwards for what seemed a painfully long time.

The change in her behaviour was extreme, therefore enough to close that file.

These are (spoiled!) beloved pets so I just rather not try again. It might be in part because they have only ever had vegetarian feed (living in Canada, as you noted, we seem to have some rule about that in their feed). They may have lost digestive ability.

They don't even eat the voles &such that they kill. I find them in the run, a big peck to the neck like they were shived in a prison brawl. Executed in some settling of account and their dead body left as a warning to others. (As tender as I can be, I imagine my girls are tough, survivalists)

I think it applies more strongly to the ruminants and less strongly to chickens and pigs... The ruminants would naturally eat a diet that's mostly plants

Thank you for that clarification, yes, I think that might be the issue. The ruminants had nothing to work with. Feeding them pellets made up of leftovers of their own species was especially problematic. They may eat an occasional mouse in a bite of hay, but cannibalism was likely, if not bound, to make issues. If anything it was amplifying anything that was a minor pathogen already in their species.

you are also making an excellent point about chickens & pigs in human care.

Chickens may not share common ancestry with pigs, but they easily grew up eating leftover human food which would have included pork dishes on occasion. I can't imagine my grandmother not having fed unfiltered table scraps to her hens. I am equally sure she didn't spend time cuddling them when they had a tummy ache. Her hens would have learned to eat what was served, no question.

thank you for expanding on the topic