Fermented feed with dried nettles, protein levels, report....

[annagoodspeed]

For years I have been feeding a basic 2-1 wheat peas mix plus minerals, to which I add a little fish meal and alfalfa, and ferment - really just adding hot water and letting it sit overnight, which gives a yeasty smelling mash. Last season I cut flowered mature nettles, laid the stalks out on a tarp to dry, stripped the stalks and bagged the leaves with seed, and used that as my green additive. No actual study, but it seemed like a nice substitution for the alfalfa, the chickens looked great, not sure about increased egg levels as I had a lot of new pullets, but plenty all winter. Soaking the dried greens with the feed works well and seems to increase palatability.
I live in snow country so no free range in winter. I would love to move away from the fish meal, but not the increased protein level.
Does anyone get away with feeding wheat / peas (around 16% protein) with a just a green added to get up to 18-20%? Also, I still add fish meal in the summer, but the birds are totally free ranging (garden is 8’ fenced, they go everywhere else) with a big yard full of alfalfa mix pasture... is the fish meal needed in the summer? Keep it for the enzymes?
Dried nettle leaves are supposed to be 20-40% protein, can’t find info on seed levels, but have to be a lot higher.

 

[Perris]

Harford Edible and medicinal wild plants 2019:118-121, has nothing on protein levels but says that stinging nettle is "packed full of vitamins A and C, and some B vitamins. Fresh nettles contain (per 100g) 670mg potassium, 590g calcium, 18mcg chromium, 270 mcg copper, 86 mg magnesium, and 4.4 mg iron... Mashed nettles make a cheap and nutritious poultry feed, being particularly good for young turkeys... it is said that chickens who eat nettle lay more and stronger eggs."

So nettle looks like a good choice, fresh or dried! Grass typically has higher protein levels than alfalfa too, so if your pasture is good, I'd have thought your chickens are fine with that in the summer. A little cod liver oil periodically added to the fermented feed just before serving in winter should supply enough Vit d for them to process the calcium if they are still laying and you prefer that to fish meal.

 

[glib]

Nettles are particularly good because the leaves are so thin and dry fast and dry well. And yes, nettles are specially nutritious, but they are within range of other greens. You would get similar results with dandelion for example, or with either plantain form (but they are harder to harvest). Generally, if chickens can eat the poop of ruminants (or rabbits) they get all that on the real cheap, and they prefer it that way, because mineral absorption increases, and vitamins and enzymes are so much higher.

 

[annagoodspeed]

Thanks for the new information! I never thought of fish oil, or knew poultry went for manure other than to scratch insects out.
I use nettles in several ways, eating the new greens in spring, hopefully some day using the tall stalks for fiber (processed in the same way as flax and hemp), and using the seeded mature dried for feed.