Feed approval/advice & brewers yeast question

[Kichibo]

Very well written; hope you don't mind us following suit! Super informative. Thank you for taking the time to research the fermented feed.

My partner and I have been throwing ideas back and forth about worms and sprouts, so to read that you are pumping that out is brilliant inspiration for us! Striving for sustainability.

Best regards in the new year

Getting both the worm and sprouting systems (and now microgreens with the wheat grass) was a bit of a pain and took a couple of months to work out to make them convenient, but well worth it. Now they run smoothly and take very little work. I highly recommend both, you will love watching the girls go nuts over them. The worms especially disappear in literally seconds! Refer to the posts of people smarter than I am for just how much lol!

In my case, everything i feed them is human food grade organic, because what they eat, I eat through their eggs and the plants I will grow with their compost. Because of that, I have the added benefit of stealing some of their sprouts and microgreens for my own use in salads etc, so that system has become dual purpose. A cup for them, a pinch for me! I call it a quality check! I wouldn't recommend doing that with anything but human food grade organic seed though, no telling what's on the other stuff, probably nothing we want in our bodies.

Just dive in and be adaptable. From one hatchling to another, it all seems so itimidating and ends up so much easier than you thought it would. Be flexible and adaptive and you will learn so very much that you never knew you needed to know.

 

[U_Stormcrow]

Believe it or not, we did the math on feeding back eggs. Its here.

Chickens don't put on fat like we do, which is why some of us are as concerned about it as we are. Yes, you can strip out some of your higher fat ingredients, even though they are also one of your protein sources. Flax and BOSS yhave similar AA profiles, but flax is about 50% more protein dense (with about 75% the fat). However, Flax (at least, around me) is about $8/lb. Shelled Sunflower seed is about $1.50/lb. Based on cost, I'd look to strip out the Flax first, and replace it with more hard wheat. Reformulate/recalculate with the new recipe.

 

[Kichibo]

Believe it or not, we did the math on feeding back eggs. Its here.

Chickens don't put on fat like we do, which is why some of us are as concerned about it as we are. Yes, you can strip out some of your higher fat ingredients, even though they are also one of your protein sources. Flax and BOSS yhave similar AA profiles, but flax is about 50% more protein dense (with about 75% the fat). However, Flax (at least, around me) is about $8/lb. Shelled Sunflower seed is about $1.50/lb. Based on cost, I'd look to strip out the Flax first, and replace it with more hard wheat. Reformulate/recalculate with the new recipe.

Thet egg post helped, ty! So flax better but far more expensive.

I got a bulk bag of flax that will last the better part of a year, figuring that if it turned out not to be a good chicken idea, i could learn to use it for myself, maybe get a little healthier. I might as well use it up and recalculate when it's gone.

If I just completely strip out the boss and make it an occasional treat, and leave the flax in, the recipe protein goes to 16.5 and the fat is 4.5. That doesn't include the eggs at a about half a medium cooked scrambled egg per bird per day, and added benefit of sprouting /microgreening the wheats, plus rotating weekly worms and other treats and sprouts.

Without using my sadly inadequate math skills to calculate in the eggs (i can't seemed to find a calculator that includes the eggs) this seems to me like a decently rounded winter diet of grains, eggs, bugs and greens, and the eggs should help the methionine deficiency you calculated earlier. They are active, feathers glossy and fluffy, all are still regularly laying eggs with good shells, even in bitter cold short winter days (no extra lights in the coop even), so I can't be doing too bad short term. That said, I'm a whopping 7 months into having them and want to make sure my short term success isn't going to cause long term problems, so if you disagree with any of this, please let me know, i very much appreciate your help and advice!

 

[U_Stormcrow]

Thet egg post helped, ty! So flax better but far more expensive.

I got a bulk bag of flax that will last the better part of a year, figuring that if it turned out not to be a good chicken idea, i could learn to use it for myself, maybe get a little healthier. I might as well use it up and recalculate when it's gone.

If I just completely strip out the boss and make it an occasional treat, and leave the flax in, the recipe protein goes to 16.5 and the fat is 4.5. That doesn't include the eggs at a about half a medium cooked scrambled egg per bird per day, and added benefit of sprouting /microgreening the wheats, plus rotating weekly worms and other treats and sprouts.

Without using my sadly inadequate math skills to calculate in the eggs (i can't seemed to find a calculator that includes the eggs) this seems to me like a decently rounded winter diet of grains, eggs, bugs and greens, and the eggs should help the methionine deficiency you calculated earlier. They are active, feathers glossy and fluffy, all are still regularly laying eggs with good shells, even in bitter cold short winter days (no extra lights in the coop even), so I can't be doing too bad short term. That said, I'm a whopping 7 months into having them and want to make sure my short term success isn't going to cause long term problems, so if you disagree with any of this, please let me know, i very much appreciate your help and advice!

Sounds like you have dialed it in the hard way.

I'd be perfectly happy with a feed in the 4.5% fat range. I prefer protein crude protein, and put more emphasis on Met and Lys, but I have special considerations.

Continue to pay close attention to your flock, and play it by ear. Don't make the perfect the enemy of the good.

 

[PoultryPedia]

When buying a large quantity of flaxseed, do what you can to keep it fresh.
Store it in freezer/frig, in a container that prevents extra oxygen flowing through (plastic, etc--but not metal), and in dark container or area. It is REALLY beneficial to buy whole and then grind it yourself. I grind ours in a small "Magic Bullet" blender and freeze it in small baggies, and then pull out one at a time to use.