Feeding with mealworms as the only protein source

[Sara S]

Is 22 euro for 18 kg correct? Because it equals 30,55 euro for 25 kg. So what I pay ( 25 euro for 25 kg ) is cheaper.

Yea it is more here I think idk

 

[Perris]

https://www.evmi.nl/nieuws/circulair-kippenvoer-gemaakt-van-reststromen-uit-voedingsindustrie

First part with google translate:
Kipster markets circular feed for hobby chickens. Nijsen Company makes it from residual flows from the food industry, such as broken crackers, oat shells and leftovers from bakeries. "What does not reach the consumer and that is not wrong with it, is contained in this feed," says Kipster.

Many foods are lost in production for many reasons: a misspelling on the label, baked too long, a slicing machine malfunctioning, and so on. Kipster gives these remains a new purpose. Mixing the right leftovers into a nutritious and safe chicken feed was not easy. Quality assurance in particular proved difficult. "This feed has been preceded by four years of development and experimentation. The complexity of apparently simple recycling makes it a world first."

thank you so much!

 

[Scholastica]

Thank you for your input; and I know bagged feed is the easiest way to make sure they are getting proper nutrition. They are currently on layer feed and I'm not going to start experimenting on them with my guesses. However, I can't imagine that all historical chickens were nutritionally unbalanced and unhealthy before the relatively recent addition of bagged feed to the market. I am sure there are combinations of foods that would work for them. I want to do some research on this, and talk to anyone else who may be ahead of me or had experience feeding this way.

I agree. Chickens have survived for centuries without bagged feeds.

 

[JacinLarkwell]

I agree. Chickens have survived for centuries without bagged feeds.

But they didn't lay nearly as many eggs and almost all of them didn't get as large as quickly, if at all

 

[Perris]

But they didn't lay nearly as many eggs and almost all of them didn't get as large as quickly, if at all

But they lived a lot longer.

 

[saysfaa]

But they lived a lot longer.

Why do you think so?

 

[Perris]

Because modern production breeds have been selected to lay as many as possible in the shortest time possible, at the expense of their health. Their bodies are physically exhausted by the production of so many eggs so quickly. Any poultry book from the last 100 years or so will confirm.

 

[saysfaa]

Because modern production breeds have been selected to lay as many as possible in the shortest time possible, at the expense of their health. Their bodies are physically exhausted by the production of so many eggs so quickly. Any poultry book from the last 100 years or so will confirm.

I understand that is why modern production breeds don't live very long even if one wants them to live longer.

I was asking why you thought chickens lived longer in previous centuries. I've thought maybe they weren't exhausted by the production of so many eggs so quickly but they still didn't live very long for other reasons.

I was just thinking about what my grandparents said about their chicken keeping back in the day. I remember being told no one knows how long chickens can live because none die of old age. I got the impression, none got remotely close to it, either. All of the older generations of my family are gone now; I can't ask them what they or their parents or neighbors did.

I just wondered if you had information or if it was based on something like more logic compared to today.

Since you mentioned books, I got my 1952 poultry management textbook back out. It doesn't say very clearly. The first chapter has a dozen or so examples of successful farms with number of laying hens kept and number of replacement pullets raised for each... usually about 75% - 85% as many pullets raised as hens kept. There is also a whole chapter on culling. It compares selecting pullets to selecting hens who have gone through one laying year. I think that means some hens get a second year. It has a chart of how many hens need to be removed from the flock to increase egg production by a given amount because "the amount of culling necessary in any particular flock depends on several factors. Chief among these are breeding, feeding, and general management... [such as] overcrowding, poor ventilation, the presence of lice and mites, and other factors." Also, some farms wish to remove all hens not paying feed costs while others wish to remove those not paying most of the production costs.

 

[3KillerBs]

I agree. Chickens have survived for centuries without bagged feeds.

Survived, yes, but at a MUCH lower production level.

You can download a 100yo poultry book here which was aimed at helping farmers achieve a profitable 100 eggs per year -- from LEGHORNS.

The Brahma in my avatar, the worst layer in the flock who *ought* to have been culled this past fall if she weren't my grandaughter's favorite, did better than that.

 

[Perris]

I just wondered if you had information

Indeed; I have recently been reading Katie Thear's Free range poulty from 1990. She draws a distinction between commercial flocks that are usually culled at 74 weeks or sometimes molted and kept for a second laying season and those kept on a domestic scale till the end of their lives (pp.101-2 in 3rd ed), with some testimony on p.160 from people whose hens were still laying at 9 (and there are BYC members who have experienced the same), and others that lived to 15. And I have read books from the first half of the last century or earlier that weighed up the reduced production of older birds against the money not spent on new birds, though I don't remember the details off the top of my head.