Homemade Chick food

[Prestons07]

Can I make food for my 3-4 week old Chicks and Ducks out of what I have at home? I have, lentils, barley, oatmeal, meal worms, frozen peas, eggs and cornmeal. Just curios if any of that mixed would be nutritious enough for them and if so, how much of each to use. Thank you!

 

[ChickenCanoe]

Is the purpose to save money or provide better nutrition?
You can mix some of that stuff in a pinch but IMHO, you'll still be missing some essential nutrients. Some vitamins, minerals and amino acids are inevitably going to be lacking.
I've looked into it many times and determined it would be difficult to get things like selenium, zinc, copper vitamin D3 etc. in the right quantities and it definitely is more expensive.
The main reason is, feed manufacturers are buying grains and legumes by the trainload and other ingredients like vitamins and minerals in 100 lb. to ton quantities. A 50 lb. bag of barley is more expensive than a 50 lb. bag of starter feed.

 

[Prestons07]

Thank you for the information. The main reason I was asking is because, we had a family emergency come up and in the midst of that I didn't realize we were low on, their feed and we live in a small town, where everything is closed until Tuesday, for the holidy. So I was going to make them some to hold them over until we can get to a feed store.

Is the purpose to save money or provide better nutrition?
You can mix some of that stuff in a pinch but IMHO, you'll still be missing some essential nutrients. Some vitamins, minerals and amino acids are inevitably going to be lacking.
I've looked into it many times and determined it would be difficult to get things like selenium, zinc, copper vitamin D3 etc. in the right quantities and it definitely is more expensive.
The main reason is, feed manufacturers are buying grains and legumes by the trainload and other ingredients like vitamins and minerals in 100 lb. to ton quantities. A 50 lb. bag of barley is more expensive than a 50 lb. bag of starter feed.

 

[ChickenCanoe]

Quote:
In that case, I'd boil the eggs and crumble them, cook the peas and lentils, soak the barley for about 2 hours, and that should do it. Mix the lentils, barley and peas perhaps equal parts or half barley. Serve the eggs and perhaps oatmeal separately. A few meal worms every day will give them complete amino acids.

That will be plenty of nutrition to get them through for a few days.

Soaking the barley and cooking the lentils will get rid of any anti-nutritive and anti-digestive components.