Flock party egg maker feed

[nuthatched]

We have our birds separated between two small flocks with the different breeds. The Welsh Harlequin flock has 1 drake an 4 adult females. The ancona flock has 1 drake and 4 adult females as well. We live in NC so the Southeast U.S. if that gives you any guide on feeds that are available.

Not really. I don't keep tabs on national wide availability. I'm sorry.

How is this feed?

Nutrena NatureWise All Flock 20%​

We have fed it before but we’re trying to buy more locally produced feeds but if it is good then we may try it again.

That's fine. Local feeds are fine, if there's a starter or grower available. Or has decent protein.

 

[U_Stormcrow]

Flock Party Eggmaker is pricey. Its a Layer Formulation, albeit one with better Methionine and Lysine levels than some. That said, it is a LAYER formulation, providing calcium level intended for peak production layers. That amount of calcium is NOT good long term for hatchlings, adolescents, roosters of any age, or even hens who are infrequent layers of small or medium eggs. Its intended for first and second year Comets, Isa Browns, Leghorns, and other high producers of large to xtra lg eggs.

Most of us BYCers maintain mixed flocks of things other than peak production layers, which is part of why most of us active on the feed forums recommend an "all flock" type formulation, all the time, for all your birds at all ages, with free choice fresh clean water and free choice oyster shell or similar supplemental calcium source, as @nuthatched did above. FWIW , I have a mixed flock of chickens and ducks, all getting the same feed. My flock is in my sig below.

Yes, plenty of BYCers use Nutrena NatureWise All Flock with good result. I've used it myself and was pleased, though its a little pricy locally compared to similar products.

You said, " Looking at the labels gets confusing when you don't know exactly what everything means."

We here at BYC are happy to help you understand how to read a feed label. If you don't get an answer quickly (there's a lot of common questions with broad agreement as to the answer) feel free to @ me. I'm on every other day, sometimes more. Plenty of other very experienced posters on this topic. If you troll this forum, you will see some names float to the top.

 

[Happy Hill Farmstead]

Flock Party Eggmaker is pricey. Its a Layer Formulation, albeit one with better Methionine and Lysine levels than some. That said, it is a LAYER formulation, providing calcium level intended for peak production layers. That amount of calcium is NOT good long term for hatchlings, adolescents, roosters of any age, or even hens who are infrequent layers of small or medium eggs. Its intended for first and second year Comets, Isa Browns, Leghorns, and other high producers of large to xtra lg eggs.

Most of us BYCers maintain mixed flocks of things other than peak production layers, which is part of why most of us active on the feed forums recommend an "all flock" type formulation, all the time, for all your birds at all ages, with free choice fresh clean water and free choice oyster shell or similar supplemental calcium source, as @nuthatched did above. FWIW , I have a mixed flock of chickens and ducks, all getting the same feed. My flock is in my sig below.

Yes, plenty of BYCers use Nutrena NatureWise All Flock with good result. I've used it myself and was pleased, though its a little pricy locally compared to similar products.

You said, " Looking at the labels gets confusing when you don't know exactly what everything means."

We here at BYC are happy to help you understand how to read a feed label. If you don't get an answer quickly (there's a lot of common questions with broad agreement as to the answer) feel free to @ me. I'm on every other day, sometimes more. Plenty of other very experienced posters on this topic. If you troll this forum, you will see some names float to the top.

Thank you very much! If you could give me a simple breakdown of what I should look for in feeds that would be great. Right now I have all of our birds separated into their breeding flocks, 5 anconas, 5 welsh harlequin, 6 chickens, and 4 Roman Tufted geese. During the rest of the year they are all in the same open space, but to keep the breeds pure during breeding we have them separated out. I want to make sure that everyone is getting what they need so I guess I would love to have feed label information for both individual species as well as what a good all flock looks like. When we have ducklings and goslings we always feed the mazuri waterfowl starter feed and have had wonderful success with it, but it is super pricey and we can't afford to feed mazuri feeds to everyone year round...we have joked that if we won the lottery one of the only things we would change in our lives is our birds would all get mazuri feeds .

 

[U_Stormcrow]

Thank you very much! If you could give me a simple breakdown of what I should look for in feeds that would be great. Right now I have all of our birds separated into their breeding flocks, 5 anconas, 5 welsh harlequin, 6 chickens, and 4 Roman Tufted geese. During the rest of the year they are all in the same open space, but to keep the breeds pure during breeding we have them separated out. I want to make sure that everyone is getting what they need so I guess I would love to have feed label information for both individual species as well as what a good all flock looks like. When we have ducklings and goslings we always feed the mazuri waterfowl starter feed and have had wonderful success with it, but it is super pricey and we can't afford to feed mazuri feeds to everyone year round...we have joked that if we won the lottery one of the only things we would change in our lives is our birds would all get mazuri feeds .

Sadly, there isn't breed by breed research available. We can tell you a lot about the research on production layers, and we can tell you a lot about Cx aka "frankenchickens" or "supermarket birds", but can tell you much less about every chicken in between, except by inference.. Wish it were otherwise. We can also tell you that gender makes a huge difference in calcium needs, and AGE, not breed, has the biggest effect on nutritional needs. Growing chickens have need for the most nutrient dense feed, particularly certain amino acids, among which Methionine and Lysine are key to good muscle, connective tissue, and digestive organ formation. The same is true of growing ducks and growing geese. Growing anything, really.

We can tell you a bit about ducks, most of what is published is about Pekins, and that Pekins need more niacin than most other breeds of duck, and that all ducks, on average, need more niacin than chickens.

there is even less research on geese. I've read almost none of it.

We can also tell you about CA : P ratios. and a bit about vitamin needs (beyond Niacin, above).

Where do you want to start?

(mazuri is good feed, btw. you could do worse than to start with their label and compare other labels of available products to see how they compare)

 

[Happy Hill Farmstead]

I would like to know about vitamin needs and proportions, and how to know if they are nutritionally dense