Heritage Feeds for Heritage Breeds

[Jake Levi]

Very impressive Chooks, you got your thinking out of the box by thinking a bigger and better box.

Nutritional density is important and it does closer approximate a free ranging chickens diet ! I have crimped all my grains at time and did see it accepted very well.

You gave us real food for thought.

Your chicken numbers are about what I am looking at for about a year from now so I have got to get this resolved for my own situation. I have been ordering my grain in 500# batches as that is what I can store in 35 gallon galvanized trash cans, each one holds about a 100 #s.

I am in total agreement in NO soy. THe trash ingredients of commercial mixes are another no-no, as you say, feathers no one needs in their feed.

You and Chris and Yakima have me rethinking the molasses. I have thought of feeding the spices, especially the cayenne. I grow my own, and will probably grow a LOT more of it. I use it and Chillis a lot in my own cooking.

As I said , much food for thought, thanks, I am really interested what others will chip in about their mixes.

Life is good !

 

[Farmerboy16]

What if you grow your own gmo free soybeans? I had brought a small package of soybean seeds from Bakercreek Heirloom seeds last spring, and it grew well. I harvested, shelled it by hand, from about 100 seeds I had planted, I think I got close to a quart of seeds. I plan to plant them all in the spring, and repeat the process, until I have enough to mix in the feed, and plant another crop.

 

[welasharon]

Quote:
Thanks- I have a spreadsheet worked up on Excel and it figures the fat/protein for the formula, and if I change anything, it reformulates. I punch in the amount I want, it figures out how much I need of each ingredient, and I email it to the mill. They get it all weighed up, I bring in my ingredients, they crimp (break-up) the bigger stuff, then mix it all in their big auger mixer. I have it done in batches of about 400# most of the time, because I don't want to pay the $2.20/100# bagging fee, and that's about how much my bins will all hold. I go through about 200-250# a month with 100+ birds, mostly huge Orps, Marans, Chanteclers and Ameraucanas. I've been feeding this for over a year, with minor tweaks in the formulation. I really prefer to have MANY grains, as that's what will be closest to the diet achieved if they were roaming the prairies...etc. I wanted to augment with black soldier fly larvae, but I didn't do anything to really achieve that goal this year as I'd intended to, and the heat made it too difficult to store them up.

It's an important formula to me, because I KNOW the grains are whole until I have them crimped. I don't have them use crimped oats or chopped corn, because the longer it's broken up, the less it holds in nutrition. Oxidization causes nutritional loss. The molasses coats everything in the fish meal and spices, so it's sealed nicely and smells great. Rodents don't like the cayenne, turmeric and cinnamon, so those helpful spices also dissuade the pests. It scoops nicely and can be served wet or dry. If they spill it and don't pick up after themselves, it sprouts, rather than dissolving into the soil and stinking up the place with sour mash! Of course that rarely occurs, because they don't let it hit the ground.

I didn't like the idea of having the bulk of my feed be undescribed, and further, hexane-extracted soy meal. Ground feathers? No thanks. Who knows what nutrition THOSE chickens ate, and what residue is in their feathers? I just can't believe there's no consequence to that.

If I wanted to really make it cost-effective, I'd up the corn and serve tons of black soldier fly larvae. That would be the way to go. I'll work harder on that this spring, as kitchen scraps that can't be fed to poultry can be used to produce those, not to mention disgusting stuff can be used...I know a fellow who feeds his larvae roadkill, and because they exude an antimicrobial film , they are still sterile at harvest!

40% protein, 30% fat. Perfect feed supplement.

Did I read correctly that you can send someone the spreadsheet?
sharon

 

[Jake Levi]

Well, I am going to try and price out a very similar mix in a couple weeks when I go down to Spokane area. Thank you for sharing all of this.

I do believe that it comes closer to a free ranging chickens diet then any commercial mix I have seen.

I am anxious to see others thoughts on this.

 

[nanncee]

Great thread guys! I have been doing lost of research on heritage breeds, and this have given me a good idea about feeds. I am going for a no grain diet, but the numbers you guys are providing give me some starting points.

 

[Erica]

Farmerboy16, I've had the same thoughts as you. I've currently got 2kg of soy beans about to go in somewhere, not sure how they'll grow here but am looking forward to the results.

Whole boiled non GMO soybeans are hard to beat as a complement for grains, and the hens love them. However they tend to deplete minerals so the addition of a mineral source like seaweed (not too much because it's so high in iodine) is necessary, as is some methionine supplementation (I use soured milk).

But then again, if birds are free ranged the whole thing gets a lot easier...

cheers
Erica

 

[Jake Levi]

Hi Erica

The jury is still out with me on the soybeans, so I will tweak the other without them and see about them later, right now about the only practicable way for me to feed them would be separately from the regular mix, rather then that I would prefer to supplement with sprouted grains, mealworms etc, I am considering both.

As of now I am looking at a batch of approximately 700lbs, to give enough of a feeding trial with it. This would be with several breeds, its very close to the spreadsheet mix. Minus kelp and several others.

read your blog, I like it.

Are you in Canada?

 

[Jake Levi]

Addenda:

I started this thread to underscore our Heritage Breeds, and the diets that they were developed on, and that certainly recognizes that the Heritage Breeds were certainly free ranged and supplemented their farm grain raised diets with proteins and carbohydrates that they foraged for around the farmstead, produce, grasses, forage and fruits along with insects, even mice along with table and butchering scraps. Only some of this is available to out present day homestead flocks, therfore the question is what diets can we provide them that will approximate their diets that they were developed on ?

This also in my own case is a quest to find a fresher and more nutritious diet then the present often stale and low nutritive feed value of the present big box store commercial chicken feeds offered to home flock owners.

Chooks Chick has provided her own spread sheet that she uses, I am looking into duplicating it largely. One thing that it has which is missing from most diets offered is a nutritional density missing from most commercial feeds, that is, nutrition from a widely differing combination of feedstuffs .

This is what I am hoping for input and discussion on. I think this thread has a very good start on the original premise of seeking diets for our present homestead raised breeds.

 

[Erica]

Hi Jake, I'm in Australia (which institutionally is a lot like Canada in some ways).

Glad you liked my blog.
This is a great thread, and has got lots of us thinking.

cheers
Erica

 

[Jake Levi]

Hi Erica

I was curious as your measurements you give in metric, so my first guess was Canada, greetings to you in Oz, one of my favorite countries, I was one of the lucky first planeload members to land there for R&R from Vietnam, I absolutely loved it there. Its a lot more then a little bit of the alright !

Thanks for your input.

We are all in this together.