Feeding your flock amidst of feed shortages

[U_Stormcrow]

It depends where you live. Growing corn and rice is what is available where i live. I can throw a handful of kernels on the ground, and a new plant will spring up in a matter of days. The chickens eat the green and kill the plant, but it is that easy to sprout. I think in an emergency, i would enclose an area and grow corn.

Corn is possibly the worst thing you can feed them, of the modern grains. apart from nothing at all. In most ways, rice is marginally better. Neither, on its own, or in combination with one another, is sufficient.

Are you familiar with protein comnplimentation?

While your scattering your corn, you should also be thinking about what legumes you can grow. and what seed you can offer. Make your three legged chair with equal parts of a seed, a grain, and a bean or pea (i.e. chickpeas, winter peas, field peas, fava beans, lentils, soy bean, alfalfa or clover meal, etc) [which likely needs to be heat treated in some fashion] and you have inadequate, but balanced. If you then add one part animal or fish protein, you've engineered your way to an old time feed recipe.

 

[Banana01]

Corn is possibly the worst thing you can feed them, of the modern grains. apart from nothing at all. In most ways, rice is marginally better. Neither, on its own, or in combination with one another, is sufficient.

Are you familiar with protein comnplimentation?

While your scattering your corn, you should also be thinking about what legumes you can grow. and what seed you can offer. Make your three legged chair with equal parts of a seed, a grain, and a bean or pea (i.e. chickpeas, winter peas, field peas, fava beans, lentils, soy bean, alfalfa or clover meal, etc) [which likely needs to be heat treated in some fashion] and you have inadequate, but balanced. If you then add one part animal or fish protein, you've engineered your way to an old time feed recipe.

My chickens love corn, but they get it mixed with high protein purina feed. I agree pure corn without a protein source is not healthy. But for a free renging flock, corn is by far not the worst thing to feed them. It's probably in the top 3 best supplemental feed sources. It's also so easy to grow, I figured out how easy just by spilling a dish of it one day and it was growing green in a few days. The chickens also eat the green sprouts and naturally fermenting grains on the ground providing benfits as well. For the sake of emergency feed, depending where you live, corn plus free ranging is viable. Also by placing a lot of rocks and wood piles around your yard, you are creating places where insects will hide, and your chickens will appreciate that. If I had a choice, I would take corn and free ranging over protein feed alone. I raised chickens on that before discovering purina, and they did fine.

 

[U_Stormcrow]

Wheat is far superior. Barley and Oats, even sorghum are in most respects superior.

(Source Feedopedia.org)

 

[saysfaa]

...

If you don't mind, what about buckwheat to lower the dependence on meat to get a good balance?

https://fdc.nal.usda.gov/fdc-app.html#/food-details/170286/nutrients

Buckwheat grows very well around here. Our farm usually has some in as a cover crop. It has a few issues that limit the percentage of the diet it can be to about a third (if I remember correctly); I'm not sure if that is in general and light-skinned animals need to have less or that is for the light-skinned animals.

It is too high in fiber if it isn't fed hulled and it is very hard to hull. After he retired, my dad played around with building a huller for it.

 

[U_Stormcrow]

If you don't mind, what about buckwheat to lower the dependence on meat to get a good balance?

https://fdc.nal.usda.gov/fdc-app.html#/food-details/170286/nutrients

Buckwheat grows very well around here. Our farm usually has some in as a cover crop. It has a few issues that limit the percentage of the diet it can be to about a third (if I remember correctly); I'm not sure if that is in general and light-skinned animals need to have less or that is for the light-skinned animals.

It is too high in fiber if it isn't fed hulled and it is very hard to hull. After he retired, my dad played around with building a huller for it.

I don't mind at all, and will add Buckwheat to my tables. Source is Feedipedia.org.

Short answer? For a grain, its decent protein - better than most, around 13%. Fiber, as you know, is quite high. Fat, around 2.2% is very reasonable, as a number of grains go higher. Amino acid profiles are good (for a grain).

There are some concerns with the high starch content, but more for phototoxic compounds (light skinned creatures more susceptible), though a lot of the data is very old and/or anecdotal, and a high concentration of tannins, which can negatively impact vitamin absorption and digestibility generally.

Poultry
Defective grains of buckwheat and waste products from processing like buckwheat bran or hulls are used as feed in poultry farming (Taranenko et al., 2016; Benvenuti et al., 2011). Buckwheat grain is mainly a source of energy for poultry. Though it has relatively low protein content, its amino acid profile, high in lysine, methionine and threonine makes buckwheat grain a suitable protein source for poultry. The fibre contained in the hulls/bran of the grain are not considered a limiting factor. The risk of skin sensitization due to fagopyrin exists in birds fed on buckwheat but is considerably lower than in ruminants as the fagopyrin is mainly contained in the green parts of the plant and not in the seeds (Leiber, 2016).

Broilers​

Buckwheat grain could be included in broilers diet up to 40% (diet DM) in order to replace wheat or maize grain without compromising growth rates, slaughter weights, and feed conversion ratios (Leiber et al., 2009; Jacob et al., 2008; Gupta et al., 2002). An early study reported that buckwheat, as a main component of broiler diet, was superior to wheat and oats cereals, regarding N retention, growth rate and feed conversion. However, the buckwheat diet resulted in a feed conversion ratio poorer than with the commercial diet (Farrell, 1978). Above 40% DM dietary level, feeding buckwheat results in a poorer feed conversion ratio due to reduced body weight gain (Gupta et al., 2002) or higher feed intake (Jacob et al., 2008). This could be due to the fibre brought by buckwheat hulls in the diet (Leiber, 2016).
When buckwheat replaces wheat in the diet, it can significantly increase the tocopherol concentration in broiler meat due to the high tocopheraol content of the grain (Leiber et al., 2009).

Laying hens​

Grain​

Laying hens fed on whole grain buckwheat or shelled buckwheat at a dietary level of 40% dry matter had similar egg production and significantly heavier eggs compared to those on wheat-based control diet (Leiber et al., 2011). Former results obtained with a less performing genotype were not in accordance with this promising results (Farrell, 1978).
Buckwheat grain was reported to improve egg quality. Feeding whole buckwheat grains was reported to improve the shell strength of the eggs (Leiber et al., 2011). The tocopherol concentration in egg yolk may be more than doubled when whole grain buckwheat replaces wheat (Leiber et al., 2011).

Bran​

Partially substituting maize and soybean with buckwheat bran (30% DM) in a diet for layers maintained their performance on the same level as the control (Benvenuti et al., 2011).

I've not read the individual studies, just leaving this here for later. I also need to add quinoa to my chart. Reminder to self.

 

[Lazy J Farms Feed & Hay]

Wheat is far superior. Barley and Oats, even sorghum are in most respects superior.

View attachment 2862884
(Source Feedopedia.org)

You are missing one key point when sharing the data from Feedopdedia. The data are expressed on a Dry Matter basis but when we formulate rations for chickens we use As Fed. Using the data straight from Feedopedia without adjusting back to As Fed skews the value of the feed for chickens.

It is good that Feedopedia is sharing data we just need to understand how the data can be used.

 

[micstrachan]

...I'm on my second year of failure trying to get a BSFL composter working, btw. and while they are a good supplimentary protein source, over the long term, the rest of the diet needs to be balanced around them, if that's going to be your main source of non-plant prtein and amino acid profile.

In past centuries, we expected MUCH less of our poultry, and they got by on the scraps/leavings - but it was a varied menu because the farm also had a cow (or more), pigs, grains, a robust veggie garden, etc. There are even old feed recipes for chickens that involve removing all their water, feeding mixed grains, and having them drink skim milk!

You start taking away those sources of variety - the cows, the pigs, the garden plots, and suddenly the chicken's diet excludes both the feed those other animals missed, but also the scraps and excesses OF those animals - and the whole system falls apart.

Modern society is based on highly efficient specialization. Doing one thing exceptionally well, and trading all over the State/Nation/World for everything else you need. Sustainable homesteading involves inefficiently doing a lot of different things, just well enough to keep juggling. Its a completely different mindset. and skills set.

Good post!

 

[U_Stormcrow]

You are missing one key point when sharing the data from Feedopdedia. The data are expressed on a Dry Matter basis but when we formulate rations for chickens we use As Fed. Using the data straight from Feedopedia without adjusting back to As Fed skews the value of the feed for chickens.

It is good that Feedopedia is sharing data we just need to understand how the data can be used.

I agree its an imperfect estimate, but as most chicken feeds are made with dried ingredients - cracked dry corn, dried processed soybean meals, dried flaked/crushed oats, etc - its still a useful estimate, and yet another reason why I don't "shoot for the minimum" (together with variability between crops, season by season, by location, and by cultivar)

Feeding wet/fresh is obviously much less nutrient dense.

If you've got a better source, or there are feed components I should be particularly aware of, I'd love to improve my knowledge base.

for those following along, compare:

Ear maize (fresh, no husk) 55% dry matter as fed

Maize grains (dried) 86.3% dry matter as fed

Maize cobs 91.5% dry matter as fed (I can't imagine this is much value to much of anything except maybe goats, but its a cheap byproduct, so...)

Maize Green Forage (23% dry matter as fed) - Yes, this means the earlier poster suggesting just eating the greens was really overestimating the benefits, something I should have pointed out mire directly. Lazy J's point above is absolutely an important one when green forage is being considered.

 

[saysfaa]

...One possibility is growing your own protein in the form of black soldier fly or meal worms. ...

That is a good idea. It won't work as the whole solution long-term because the fat content is too high. It would work well as part of the solution.

 

[TooCheep]

That is a good idea. It won't work as the whole solution long-term because the fat content is too high. It would work well as part of the solution.

Agreed. My birds free range, but are limited to my backyard. Greens are easy to come by and I expect that grain will be available at least to some extent, so protein/fat are my primary concerns to maintain robust health/production.