healthy adds to chicken scratch

[chickeylady]

My flock likes scratch but it's not that healthy so what are some things I can add besides sunflower seeds and mealworms to make their scratch healthier and go farther? Oats, milo, wheat etc...

 

[All4Eggz]

I would argue scratch is pretty healthy for chickens.

Table scraps are a great healthy snack. Bugs, corn, meat are also some favorites.
They also love greens, fruits, and veggies.

 

[Acre4Me]

I feed Kalmbach feeds “Henhouse Reserve” as scratch. It is a complete feed, but looks like scratch. Other brands have similar whole grain feeds. I figure, they are getting a prope balanced treat this way, and protein intake isn’t diluted like it is when feeding regular scratch.

 

[cherrynberry]

I like to add in flax, corn, mealworms, seeds. Its pretty healthy, but you dont want to feed treats more than 10% of a chickens diet.

 

[kerbotx]

Most scratch formulas already include millo & sunflower seed, so what product are you using now? I've finally settled on Royal Wing economy birdseed from Tractor Supply with Milo, White Millet, Cracked Corn, Wheat, & Black Oil Sunflower seed. If I'm feeling fancy I might amend it with any of the following: barley, rolled oats, dried mealworms, flax seed, and grit. Seems like I'm missing something - I'll have to rummage through the bin, it's almost time to mix up another batch anyways!

 

[U_Stormcrow]

My flock likes scratch but it's not that healthy so what are some things I can add besides sunflower seeds and mealworms to make their scratch healthier and go farther? Oats, milo, wheat etc...

Without knowing what's in your scratch, we can't know what might be added to benefit. Neither is scratch **necessarily** unhealthy. What it is is UNBALANCED, why is why its recommended that scratch only be offered as treats, and as less than 10% of an otherwise balanced and complete diet.

Even if you were to somehow mix up a complete and balanced scratch mix using one of the calculators (which would at least help you get protein and fat dialed in), your amino acids might still be unbalanced. Would need to add those to the calculator. Same with fiber. Trace minerals? and even if you got that correct, you would still have picky eater syndrome - chickens picking out the whole grains and seeds they prefer, ignoring the rest...

One of the problems posters have commented on with whole grain feeds, like the Kalbach product, is that there is powder added to balance the diet and provide missing vitamins not present enough in the grains - and many birds will either not eat it, or they will pick thru for the favorites, and leave the others to birds lower on the pecking order. Leading to many either wetting, fermenting, or even partially sprouting their whole grain feeds.

Its a lot to try and manage, more than the typical backyard flock owner is willing to put forth in effort, even if the resources can be found to try and balance the diet.

I advise sticking to the rule of thumb - infrequent, and less than 10% of diet by weight. But if you want to go to the effort, one of the posters made a GoogleSheet a while back for mixing custom feeds - its a good jumping off point for calculating how unbalanced your scratch might be. I believe it was @humblehillsfarm ??? I had a link to the old version, but its not loading for me right now (poor cell phone signal).

 

[U_Stormcrow]

and here's a link to the Kalmbach 5-grain nonGMO scratch. Cracked Corn, Wheat, Oats, Barley, Milo, Soybean oils. Here's its spec sheet. 8% Protein, 2.5% fat, 6% Fiber - so you already know that chickens making meals of this aren't getting near enough protein.

They also have a soy-free version. and here is its spec sheet. Same basic breakdown as the Soybean oil version.

To get the numbers as low as they do, the contents are mostly barley and soft wheat. Then likely cracked corn, which is also low protein, but higher fat.