Hello, I will soon be picking up some new chicks.

[rjohns39]

Hi and welcome to BYC We're so happy you've decided to join us

As the others have said, you're better off with a formulated feed. What part of the country are you in? You can put your zip code in the fertrell site and see if there are non-gmo or organic feed mills near you. You can also check with the APPPA site and see if there is a farmer near you and ask where they get their feed.

 

[chrissynemetz]

Hello and welcome to BYC! We're glad you joined. I agree with everyone else, I would buy whatever chick starter is available, and go from there. Good luck and have fun with your new chicks!

 

[One Lucky Momma]

You’re so right about wanting clean food for your chicks. This sounds like it would be a great project to take on when the dust settles but there’s a lot of good advice here re trusting a commercial product. The list of ingredients is daunting and you’d need at the least a vitamix. And for how many chicks? It’s amazing how fast they’ll go through food.

Research online and shop online for now if you have to. Then try to find a local mill where you can talk with someone who knows how chicken food is made. They’re out there; it’s the sort of place you don’t know about until you need what they sell.

 

[Nigel27]

Ive been feeding my chicks homemade starter and they’re growing like crazy, I’m privileged to live in a coastal rainforest so I can get some ingredients wild, I use dried powdered nettle, seaweed, Pine buds (for the steroids) cornmeal, flax roughly ground, boiled egg with shell, red river cereal, ground oatmeal, and I added cooked red lentils to the last batch. They also get lots of earthworms. I’m going to sprout wheat and lentils and flax, and soon I’ll start harvesting duck weed and nettle seeds to dry to add in for their winter feed. I really feel like any store bought chicken feed can’t be made with very high quality ingredients, but it’s hella easy.