Hard red WINTER or hard red SPRING wheat???

[sparkles2307]

All the recipes that I see call for winter wheat in the mix to give them the protien they need. OK but we raise hard red SPRING wheat, which actually has almost 2% more protien in it and about 1.5% more fat... by MY figuring that would be better to feed our birds, especially having more fat in the winter...but is there a reason why all the recipes only call for winter wheat?

 

[AZKat]

If I had to make a guess, it's because hard red winter wheat is more common.

 

[sparkles2307]

OK, thanks. I was hoping there wasnt some chemical difference that would kill them or anything! We eat it raw so it should be ok for them right!?

 

[Wynette]

Right! Gosh, I wish I could remember who it was that posted a REALLY LONG post about chickens and nutrition and mixing your own feed. Gosh, it was REALLY a great post! Maybe do some searching on here to find it. It even had why you feed what - what each ingredient is for, and if you're having problems with feathers, increase this or that...etc. It almost made me want to mix my own feed! Then, I remembered that I work full-time and have a myriad of other barn chores other than my chooks...

 

[sparkles2307]

LOL we have pretty easy chore routines for caring for the cows, goats, ducks, and chickens...(if only I cared as much about my house as my pets) so mixing out own feed is our top agenda. We will be combining cracked corn (home grown), oats from the neighbor, millet, flax, and sunlfower seed. They will also get milk/yougurt and egg shells (does anyone know if these have to be ground up or with the birds break them up internally?) along with salad scraps and grass clippings. Hoping to fine tune it to achieve some fat sassy chooks!

 

[upthecreek]

Winter wheat is recommended for the reasons you mentioned , if you only have the other it's OK to use it .

Egg shells work better if ground up in the processer or whatever you got . The whole broken shells is to much like the real egg (don't want to get them eating eggs) .

Shannon