Well said. What I am talking about is NOT adding something extra. Most any commercially produced feed will have supplements mixed in, like Leslie said. What I am thinking of doing is to mix my own feed for reasons of superior nutrition and reduced feed costs. If I want it to be similar to commercial feed, I would need to add a vitamin/mineral supplement. Since I could control when the supplement is mixed in, I'd prefer to put it in at the time of feeding, not before the feed is fermented. A small extra step. I suppose there are folks who a fermenting simply bulk whole grains and legumes, not a premixed commercial feed. Perhaps with the right mix of fermented grains/legumes and the right kind of forage, they would thrive and get all the nutrition they need. But I don't know enough about chicken nutrition to know that yet.
To be a complete feed, a lot of additives have to be supplemented because some of the nutrients for essential poultry nutrition just aren't present in the main ingredients of grains and legumes - or at least not in high enough levels.
Things like selenium, salt, iron, vitamin D, vitamin K that - if they weren't supplemented - would cause deficiencies.
It's true that good pristine forage will supplement some of those things but for housed or penned birds or even free range birds in winter, that isn't happening.
IMHO, unless one has a large enough foraging area with an excellent mix of succulent greens and bugs, year round, they're probably not going to be able to provide a ration of both superior nutrition AND reduce cost. If one has thousands of birds it can be possible but the economy of scale isn't there. Check the price of a bag of grain or soybean meal and compare it to the price of a bag of feed. There isn't that much difference. Then one has to add the correct proportions of the essential nutrients that aren't in soy or grain.
The feed mills are buying everything in bulk and they have the science to know the blend of cheap additives to make a sufficiently nutritious feed.
Weird things one wouldn't suspect go into feed, like ferrous sulfate, which comes from the pickling process in sheet steel manufacture is added to provide iron. I once did an install of enzyme tanks at turkey mills around Arkansas and Missouri to inject a bit of an enzyme in the mix so turkeys could better utilize the protein present in corn thereby they could use less soy, making the feed cheaper to produce. Some of that science is available but some is a closely held corporate secret.
It may exist, but I'm not aware of a vitamin/mineral supplement that is formulated to provide the amounts of each nutrient that will supplement those missing or deficient in one's chosen grain/legume combination.
I still say one of the best advantages to FF is that all those essential added vitamins, minerals and amino acids get bound up in the slop and don't get lost as fines in dry feed.
I'm not happy about it either but until one is a poultry nutrition expert, I recommend buying feed.
I just started doing that here awhile back because I found it much easier to stir in the feed and then discovered it made for a quicker jump start on the fermenting of the new batch also...it's a win/win. So, I've changed to water then feed. Just an accidental, but pleasant, discovery of a side effect.
It does work better with the water first, additionally, my feed is pretty fine with large grain particles and if I don't put water in first, the water won't penetrate all the way through. It can sit and ferment for days and still have dry spots.
I have to add water, add a little feed, stir, repeat, repeat.
