Gluten/soy free chicken feed recipe help

[potagergirl]

The recipe I have adapted:

6 parts Milo (this is red feed milo only 12.00 for 50# in our area)
2 parts rice (if no where else 50# bag at Sam's 17.00)
2 parts oats (50# bag 12.00 for whole oats 20.00 for rolled/oat groats)
2 parts sunflower seeds (18.00 for 50# bag)
1 part corn (I can't get non-gmo in my area but as soon as I can I will change it) (gm corn isn't even 6.00 for 50# I'm told if I could find non-gmo it would be about 10-12.00 for 50#)
our birds also free range and get all the left overs from the house and garden.

We do not use barley, rye, spelt, wheat, canary seed, or the like as they are all glutenous grains.

Twice a week I add to the water:
3 gallons of water
1 vitamin
1 clove cracked garlic
1 cayenne pepper or the hot pepper I have on hand sliced in half
days without garlic I use ACV 1/4 cup to 3 gallons water.

Winter:
I make cooked mash 2-3 times a week with peas and lentils added to the regular feed mix. I add pumpkin, squash seeds or whatever I have on hand to lend extra nutritional value to the meals.

yes I honestly believe gluten transfers over to eggs and meat the same way any other chemical or product does. If you do a search on soy found in eggs you will find many articles with studies that have been done on a variety of animals throughout the world. http://www.westonaprice.org/health-topics/the-soy-ling-of-america-second-hand-soy-from-animal-feeds/ Is just one article. I realize there is a lot of argument against the thought of celiac disease and/or gluten allergies but when you are like me and find food hurts your body you do what it takes to feel better. It is no different then a diabetic changing their diet to feel better or anyone else with other allergies.

The one thing my husband reminds me of often when it comes to the health/feeding of the chickens is that they were here long before we were and unless you are keeping them pinned up away from nature itself they are foraging to get what they need it is how God created them.

This is my personal opinion and what works for me may not work for you or anyone else but it works for me and our chickens are very healthy. We recently acquired my MIL chickens which had leg mites/lice/red mites. It has only been a few weeks and they are now healthier then they have been in the last two years. They are even back to laying eggs every day which is saying a lot for birds that are between 10 and 16 years of age.

I do wish you luck with your chickens and hope you find what works best for you.

 

[Monkeybean415]

Thank you for your reply! I really appreciate it. Your recipe sounds great except we also have a rice allergy here. Would you recommend anything to sub for that? I'm going to look into how much it would cost for us to do it

 

[potagergirl]

Before I added the rice to my mix the chickens did well enough on the other grains. I just think adding the rice gave them a few more nutrients but it doesn't have to be added.
The other things i looked into but did not feel were cost effective for my area (all areas are different in what is available):
field peas, lentils, peanuts (allergen issue for many) this would be a 2 part in the mix. You could also look into beet pulp or alfalfa those usually come in a pellet type and you have to make sure they are small enough or the chickens won't be able to eat them/they get stuck. The other thing about these is you want to only use 1 part in the mix.

Not sure where you live but if you have Indian grains available to you more choices would be quinoa or flax. We used to have an Indian/European type store close to us that carried these grains in large quantities but they closed a couple years ago.

Good luck with your mix. I know first hand it can be difficult working out a good structure that works for your animals and you.

 

[pdirt]

A couple of suggestions:

* Consider adding some animal protein, such as Fertrell Fish Meal (it's high quality protein preserved with a natural rosemary extract)
* Consider ditching the kelp meal and use Fertrell Poultry Nutribalancer


The hardest thing with mixing a vegetarian (chickens aren't vegetarians, they're omnivores, eating bugs, snakes, mice, etc.) chicken feed is getting enough of the essential amino acids. Amino acids are in proteins and some of them can be created by the body (at least for humans, I think it's similar with chickens) and others cannot, so these are "essential". You need to a mix of correct portions of grains/legumes to get a complete profile. This is not easy. Animal proteins have (I think) ALL of the amino acids, so your bases get covered. If you simply add in 5-6% (or 5-6 parts, assuming your recipe parts all add up to 100 parts total) of fish meal, you will be adding these necessary amino acids. One of the hardest to get is methionine, which can be found in animal proteins, but generally not in sufficient quantities in grains/legumes. Typically methionine is created synthetically and mixed in with the feed.

Nutribalancer is a kelp based feed amendment. It can help fill in your nutritional gaps. In addition to kelp, it has a mixture of vitamins, minerals, amino acids and probiotics designed to fill in nutritional gaps and improve overall nutrition of a home-made feed. Some of the better feed companies use this product in their feeds, though they usually don't list it by brand name. Nutribalancer comes in an organic and non-organic version...the only difference is the organic version has no synthetic methionine and simply has extra kelp instead. I haven't found any good reason to avoid synthetic methionine so far and we generally feed organic. My cost is $2.50 per pound for nutribalancer, but a 100lbs recipe only needs about 3lbs of Nutribalancer

To get your price below $1/lb for your recipe, be sure you are only use feed-grade ingredients. Buying human (aka food-grade) grade ingredients is going to cost you an arm and a leg. If you have a good feed store, they should be able to order you just about anything you should want. If they make it for humans, there is most likely a feed-grade version of it. The main difference is feed-grade has not been as finely processed, meaning there could be small stones, twigs, stems, etc, or the feed could have gotten scooped up off the ground and has some dirt mixed in with it. All fine for animals. Feed grade sells for typically far less per pound than food grade (aka human grade). Generally the feed-grade stuff I have bought is very clean and looks good enough to cook and eat (I'm sure some folks do!)

 

[potagergirl]

thank you pdirt I will look into this tomorrow when the feed plant opens.

 

[pdirt]

I should also add it's not just about getting enough of the essential amino acids, but getting the right balance of those. Animal proteins (aka meat) have not only those amino acids, but already in appropriate amounts. That's the basic version though, or about as much as I know about it. Good luck!

 

[potagergirl]

I should also add it's not just about getting enough of the essential amino acids, but getting the right balance of those. Animal proteins (aka meat) have not only those amino acids, but already in appropriate amounts. That's the basic version though, or about as much as I know about it. Good luck!

I talked to the feed store and ordered a 50# bag of the nutribalancer/kelp. As you said it is very concentrated and will equal out to 1 pound per 100 pounds of feed. The 50# bag cost 42.00 but will last a very long time with the number of birds I have. I'll start adding it into the next batch I mix because I only mix the bags I need for the 7 day week. Thank you for the input it's the little things like that which help us to improve what we are doing for our chickens and ultimately our health as well. I appreciate you and all the wisdom each person has to offer

 

[pdirt]

I talked to the feed store and ordered a 50# bag of the nutribalancer/kelp. As you said it is very concentrated and will equal out to 1 pound per 100 pounds of feed. The 50# bag cost 42.00 but will last a very long time with the number of birds I have. I'll start adding it into the next batch I mix because I only mix the bags I need for the 7 day week. Thank you for the input it's the little things like that which help us to improve what we are doing for our chickens and ultimately our health as well. I appreciate you and all the wisdom each person has to offer

Unless, they've changed their formula, you should be adding 3 pounds of Nutribalancer per 100 lbs of feed, not just one pound.

Also, I wasn't aware it came in anything other than 60lbs bags. A 60lbs bag of Fertrell Nutribalancer should also cost you about $100. I would make sure that what you ordered is the Fertrell product and not a cheap knock-off. Not that a cheaper knock-off couldn't be useful, but it's not the same thing.

http://www.fertrell.com/poutrynurtibalancer.htm
Feed/use tag: http://www.fertrell.com/analysis_tags/Poultry_tag_with_meth14.pdf

Azure Standard also sells it: https://www.azurestandard.com/shop/search?q=fertrell&submit= (if you happen to already be an Azure customer)

 

[potagergirl]

It isn't fertrell. I can't get Fertrell or Azure unless I become a drop for them. Trying to order it by myself is extremely cost prohibitive especially when the shipping amount is more then the cost of the feed. I wish I could get these brands where I live but after hunting for the past year my best luck is driving 3 hours to get to the closest non-gmo/organic feed mill. Which is a sad thing to say when I live in farm country. Everyone around me is planting Monsanto and that is just the way it is for this area. I do the very best I can with what is available.

 

[pdirt]

Yeah, you do the best you can.

If you can convince friends and family to buy from Azure, it's really great. We order about half of more of our monthly groceries from them and save a ton of money. I think you only need $500 minimum group order to qualify for a drop point. The drop doesn't need to be at your house, necessarily. Our drop is at a public park. No shipping fees, just a $50 minimum order per household.