I can only assume your mother saw this on some social media site, has not recently priced rabbit food, bird seed, or cat food, and has spared no time to critically thinking this thru.
Reminds me of back when the government was tampering with chicken feed so all our chickens would quit laying eggs.
Everyone was saying feed your chickens sweet feed, goat feed or dog food.
I will sit down at my computer tomorrow, link some samples and show the math. I see that recipe and immediately thinks stupid, but I understand it would be helpful to others if they saw why I thought that.
The fact it says “can add extras for nutrients and minerals” at the bottom in tiny letters is a red flag to me. If you want some good science @Perris and @U_Stormcrow have lots of feed knowledge, including making your own homemade feed.
It is also prefaced with "Keep your hens laying all winter long", which is not something I would aim for. I like those hens who want it to have a proper break from laying over winter. Since I have 8 year old hens that are still productive, this approach demonstrably works.
I also like to know what exactly they are eating, and when 3 of the ingredients are ultra-processed (layers pellets, high-protein cat food, rabbit pellets), that's impossible. The combination also probably delivers a veritable smorgasbord of non-nutritional colourings, flavourings, preservatives etc. to suit the different target species and manufacturing processes.
This is a crazy imbalance. A majority of their meal would not be the feed, the main thing they need to eat. Cat food isn't exactly healthy, chickens crave it but it often is high in chemicals and a bunch of weird things they put in it. Bird seed often has a lot of calcium in it, which chickens often slow laying in the winter. They'd get too much calcium from this. Scratch is fine, but not in that amount where it seems to be 1/6 of what they get. Rabbit food sounds fine, but I've never looked into it myself. Just stick to chicken feed and provide appropriate greens/leaves if you really want to. Chickens shouldn't even be on layer in the winter, they should be on an all flock with available grit and calcium separate.
Besides all most of the above, it won't keep chickens laying all winter because nutrition is not why chickens stop laying in the winter.
Well, at least it isn't if they are getting at least the minimal nutrition they need. Even the cheapest commercial chicken feed does that.
The most perfect diet will not keep a hen laying if they she is not getting enough hours of light, doesn't have the genetics for high rates of production, is too young or too old, etc.
Ultra processed food does not belong in my house, being it animal food or human food. Give your chicken some beef fat if you have cold winters, that's it.
That's another bad point about this recipe: we don't really know if the scratch is 1/6 or 1/4 or what of the feed, because there are no "parts" listed for the cat food and the rabbit food. They could be almost nothing, or they could be in even larger amounts than the scratch or birdseed or layer pellets, and it just does not say.
Given that the list says "every other day" for the cat food, I'll bet the scratch is more than 1/6 of the diet.
Rabbit food is mostly hay, ground up and squished together into pellets. A little bit is not going to hurt chickens, but it will not be any better for them than providing a bale of hay for them to peck through: a little bit of variety in the diet, but not a big proportion of what they need in the day.
Math. As promised. I'm going to pick on Purina in this example (BOTH Purina's) because they are readily available throughout the U.S., where this idiocy probably started, and because [at least locally] they are cheaper than Nutrena, $/#. I'm going to pick on Pennington for the same reasons - its ubiquitous. Tractor Supply because they are one of the site's sponsors, and Wallyworld because they are everywhere.
First, we will turn this:
into an actual recipe. We will do so by assuming the unknown amount of rabbit pellets is "1 part", like the scratch, and the mixed bird seed. So 2 parts layer, 1 part scratch, 1 part (every second day) cat food, 1 part rabbit pellet, 1 part mixed bird seed. Thats 2:1:1/2:1:1. Recipes aren't written in "half" parts, that's stupid. The whole point of doing a recipe this way it to use a single measure. Rewritten, as averaged over 2 days, that's 4:2:1:2:2.
We aren't going to look at the complete nutritional profile, it is both highly variable and impossible - because you don't get complete nutrition tags for either the scratch or the mixed bird seed.
Dumor Scratch 5-Grains. $21.8/40 ($0.545/lb). 8%CP, 0.2% Avg Ca, P 0.2%. Undisclosed, but unbalanced and inadequate AA profile. [Yes, this has HALF the protein of the layer pellet, but is more expensive! See why this is already looking stupid???]
Purina ONE High Protein Cat Food I can find this as "cheap" as just over $2.00/lb ($34.46/16#), making it more than 4x more expensive than the layer pellet. Its 38% CP, 1.1% Ca, 1.0 % P, and has an (undisclosed) AA profile expected to heavily favor Methionine. [More evidence of "curious"? Purina's Cat Chow is 34% protein, and just $14/17.6# or $0.83/lb - that "high protein" label is a 14% increase in CP and almost a 250% increase in price]
Purina Rabbit Pellets (Alfalfa 1st Ingredient). $26/50#, or $0.52/lb. 16% CP, 0.25% avg CA 0.4% P. AA balanced for rabbits, not chickens, fiber content is ridiculously high for chickens, slightly more expensive, and no superior nutritional numbers. [is Alfalfa supposed to be a magic word???]
Pennington Mixed Bird Seed $19/40#, $0.475/lb. 9% CP, Undisclosed but imbalanced AA profile. About 0.9% avg Ca, P ??? [Once again, roughly half the CP considered minimal with a proper AA balance, no significant cost savings, and no superior nutritional numbers]
SO, the icky math part. We started with a nutritionally balanced, barely adequate, Layer Feed intended to be a low cost solution ($0.48/lb) for prime production layers.
We have replaced it with 4 parts (we'll use # for convenience) same (4x0.48) + 2 parts Scratch (2x $0.545) +1 part Cat Food (1x $2.00) + 2 parts Rabbit (2x $0.52) + 2 parts Bird Seed (2x $0.475) = $7.00 for (4+2+1+2+2 = 11 parts of feed. $7 / 11 = $0.64/lb. [Remember, we started at $0.48/lb, so we've increased our costs almost 33% - I'm not sure in what world that is an improvement. PARTICULARLY when you can buy a vastly nutritionally superior All Flock, no mixing required, and put oyster shell on the side for about $0.56/lb, and allow your birds to self regulate their Ca intake]
But wait, I didn't count the cost of the Oyster shell... [next post]
