Feed Nerds! Opinions wanted re: whole grain feed recipe

[Chris09]

Forgot to mention, ordered Fertrell's Nutribalancer too.

I still have so much to learn! Countryside Organics has fish meal available again, so I'm looking at that as a feed ingredient... How much would you recommend @Chris09 ?? Don't want fishy tasting eggs...

And what, in your opinion, is a good balance for the oats, flax, and BOSS? Someone said no more than 10% BOSS earlier, do you agree?

Fish Meal should be from 5 to 10% per 100 lb mix, for layers I would stay around 6%.
Flax 3% of 100 lb mix

If your using both flax seed and fish meal I would go 3 to 4% fish meal and 2% flax. (both fish meal and flax seed fishy eggs if using too much)

BOSS 10% or below per 100 lb mix
Oats no more than 20% per 100 lb mix

 

[Double Kindness]

So what might be a good blend lb wise for making 100 lbs of feed for layers?

And for meaties? Then should I grind them into a meal dried to ferment the feed? I offer free choice shells etc.. the gluten is literally killing me.

I'm easily going through 200 lbs of food per month for my 26 dp meatie chickens, and 50 lbs a month for my layer flock of 10.

 

[centrarchid]

So what might be a good blend lb wise for making 100 lbs of feed for layers?

And for meaties? Then should I grind them into a meal dried to ferment the feed? I offer free choice shells etc.. the gluten is literally killing me.

I'm easily going through 200 lbs of food per month for my 26 dp meatie chickens, and 50 lbs a month for my layer flock of 10.

A lot of your feed is likely not going to your birds.

 

[LindaB220]

So what might be a good blend lb wise for making 100 lbs of feed for layers?

And for meaties? Then should I grind them into a meal dried to ferment the feed? I offer free choice shells etc.. the gluten is literally killing me.

I'm easily going through 200 lbs of food per month for my 26 dp meatie chickens, and 50 lbs a month for my layer flock of 10.

Honey, you need a better set up. I have 35 birds and only go through maybe 60-75#. A dp bird whether layer or grower should not eat more than 1/2 c dry feed each day. I ferment so it stretches the grain out some. I save about 30% or more by doing it this way. It takes 5 min to get a bucket ready and is okay to feed the next morning. I don't have to refill my waterers as much either so Don't grind anything. Unless it's for the babies. After they are 2 lbs or so it's okay to feed whole grains. I bought a steel grain mill on Ebay for about $35. It works

 

[bootsNbirds]

Quote: Ok great to find another source Thanks!

 

[bootsNbirds]

Quote: Eeek, that's way off.

Now I feel silly.... Recalculation time.

 

[bootsNbirds]

Quote: Very helpful, thank you so much. Yeah, I'd like to use the flax in the recipe too because I happened upon a HUGE tote of it for a really low price. Gotta use it up now. Is the fish meal okay to soak? Sorry for so many questions, everyone.

The chickens got more soaked grains tonight, gobbled them all up. I'm still feeding them the layer crumble, just half of what they usually get. The geese seem to like the mixture too; the ducks are indifferent. Hehe

 

[Double Kindness]

Yeah my dp meaties waste a lot of feed, I do ferment it, it seems like they like to scratch it all out of their feeders, they're probably 4-5.5 weeks old and wasteful! They don't get dry feed.. I have their water nipple bucket hanging, but trying to figure out the best type of feeder, as I feed them 5x a day. My 10 chickens in my laying flock don't waste their feed like these ones do.

It looks like I may make a trip to wardel's to pick up some seeds to customize their feed. I'm opening hopefully the last bag of commercial flock pellets today.

Boots- please ask away I have lots of questions too obviously! I am hating wasting the 26% protein gamebird feed on my meaties, and that it all is gluten filled and making me so sick again. My bf is starting to worry about it b/c my symptoms are coming back and it's bad...

 

[bootsNbirds]

Instead of trying to formulate a balanced feed yourself with feed ingredient restrictions, go to your feed mill and talk to their staff nutritionist. You sound like you are grasping at straws and don't really have a handle on the big picture. If these birds are generating your income, you can't diddle with their diet. It must be spot on or you are wasting money everyday. Give them the parameters you are trying to hit, cost point and let them come up with a formulation. They do it for everyone. You just have to ask. You will be going through a minimum of 400# a week. They have price discounts for bulk ingredients and some will even deliver it and fill up your bulk feed bin. It should be cheaper than buying and mixing your own. They also have the ability to blend and bind the feed so it won't be picked through.

Alfalfa is a good protein and Ca source for chickens. Pellets are not the way to go because they are typically milled for horses and are too large and too hard for chickens. You can either buy the fines or even easier just buy bales of high quality dairy hay and put them in the run for the chickens to forage on. Gives them hours of entertainment.

Charge what you need to for your eggs and don't second guess it. You are producing a special niche product that people expect to pay a premium for. $6 was the going price for non GMO cage free XL brown eggs by me last summer. Brown eggs at the grocery store are $4 and those aren't even organic.

@Percheron chick I don't know how I missed your post!! Such good advice and I completely missed it somehow... you're absolutely right, since I'm on such a large scale of production, I can't experiment too much & risk losing eggs. I'll keep on feeding their layer crumbles and just give them some of the whole grains on the side; if they seem to do well I'll keep on increasing the ratio of whole grains up to 50%, but not more.
As for my lack of knowledge, you got me!

that's why I came to BYC to learn.

I have tried getting in touch with my local mills, but we're in a terrible area for that apparently. One mill has already screwed me a few years ago with regard to their normal feed (charging me for 50 lbs when there were only 40 lbs in the bag, giving me feed full of bugs & then refusing to believe or refund me) and so I won't do business with them again, and the other one went out of business. Everyone around here gets their bulk feed from several counties away, which is not cost-effective for me. But if this latest recipe i'm working on is too expensive, it may be a wash & I'll have to do that anyway. :/

You were right about the alfalfa pellets vs. hay, they refused to eat much of the pellets unless I soak them.

Quote:

Since you're in the business of selling eggs too, what kind of hens do you have? I have to start over in the spring... found MG in my flock and so I have to cull all of them.

 

[LindaB220]

Eeek, that's way off.

Now I feel silly.... Recalculation time.

I don't know. Your milo and oats seem to be the only low % on there. The BOSS is good. It looks to be fairly reasonable to me. I'm not an exact person. If I tend to do it I usually overdo the protein some. But I ferment and they are so incredibly healthy that I don't care. A couple of quarts of hog pellets 13% or so and 1.5 qts of crimped oats. 9-10% followed by a qt of catfish feed 36% and 1/2 qt of Boss. 16%. Usually I add a couple of cups of alfalfa pellets and a handful of azomite for extra trace minerals. I just bought selenium and will add one tablet to a 5 gallon bucket. Do I know what I have? No. But they are healthy and getting plenty of what they need. Am I missing something anyone?