Homemade Chicken Feed

[Ais]

That's a list of potential ingredients, not a recipe. So no one can tell you what the final results will be. What they can tell you, and what I said on the first page, is that you can't make a nutritionally complete healthy feed from those ingredients. For reasons I explained on that page.

Making a Homebrew chicken feed is not an Endeavor to be lightly entered into. If you know what you're doing, and you are not doing it on Commercial scale, you know enough to not want to do it. If you don't know what you're doing but have specific needs or unusual circumstances, start with Justin Rhodes formula then come here for help adjusting it to your needs.

So the Justin Rhodes formula has 20% peas - not something I have found locally and super pricey online. Anything I could substitute? Or any ideas where I could find cheaper?

 

[U_Stormcrow]

So the Justin Rhodes formula has 20% peas - not something I have found locally and super pricey online. Anything I could substitute? Or any ideas where I could find cheaper?

You mean a high protein, low fat source which is very high in lysine, good in threonine, decent in tryptophan, and runs around $2-3/lb? You can look to other beans - cow peas or field peas, fava beans, etc. All generally in the same range, though with differing concerns for anti-nutritional factors. Honesly, I'm not a fan, but as I keep saying, this isn't a road which should be undertaken lightly, and certainly not based on the anonymous advice of an internet poster - even me.

 

[Data]

I know that I failed pretty miserably in formulating a chukar diet in my Animal Nutrition class in college. I had some of the puniest chukars in the class. We were required to formulate a "balanced" diet based on the basic dietary needs of the birds, but that clearly wasn't enough. My choice of ingredients obviously lacked important nutrients or not in an available form that could properly metabolized. That was discussed after the experiment. I think the real point of the experiment was to show us how hard it was to formulate healthy diet for animals.

 

[Kiki]

I know that I failed pretty miserably in formulating a chukar diet in my Animal Nutrition class in college. I had some of the puniest chukars in the class. We were required to formulate a "balanced" diet based on the basic dietary needs of the birds, but that clearly wasn't enough. My choice of ingredients obviously lacked important nutrients or not in an available form that could properly metabolized. That was discussed after the experiment. I think the real point of the experiment was to show us how hard it was to formulate healthy diet for animals.

I would love to hear details of this experiment if you feel like sharing.

 

[U_Stormcrow]

As would I.

 

[Data]

I would love to hear details of this experiment if you feel like sharing.

It's been over 20 years now, but I'll do my best.

We were assigned a small flock of game bird chicks that would be fed the ration we formulated from the ingredients provided based on the basic nutritional needs of each species. The minimum percentage of protein, fat, ect. (think categories on a nutrition label) had to match those. Other than that we could use any ingredients to supply that. I don't recall if cost was a constraint, but remember it being discussed. We were provided dry nutrient values or each of the available ingredients and mixed them to meet the minimum requirements. Once it was formulated ration was prepared, each flock was fed it for most of the remaining semester. It was effectively our final project. At the end of the growing period, the birds in each flock were weighed and evaluated for condition and we wrote a report on the results and a short independent written piece on the experiment. I wrote a humorous "essay" on Pica, with is a form of malnutrition that causes birds to be very aggressive with a graphic from a poster from Alfred Hitchcock's "The Birds". It was definitely the most interesting practical experiments I participated in college.

 

[U_Stormcrow]

TY for sharing that.

 

[Folly's place]

Fortunately we didn't have to formulate feed and try to raise chicks on it. We did have to plan, in detail, housing for a commercial layer flock. Actually an interesting project too, and my cage free plan cost way less than the caged layer plans.
Formulating feed in hard!
Mary

 

[Data]

Fortunately we didn't have to formulate feed and try to raise chicks on it. We did have to plan, in detail, housing for a commercial layer flock. Actually an interesting project too, and my cage free plan cost way less than the caged layer plans.
Formulating feed in hard!
Mary

That was a different class.

 

[BlossomC]

I like Scratch and Peck. Its a very quality brand without corn or soy, and its organic, and non-GMO. Do note that most of their feeds are whole grain like U_Stormcrow mentioned in his post. Their grub layer is a pelleted feed, but it wont be high enough protein for you meat birds.
You will have to soak the feed, or ferment it before feeding, or else they will pick through it and there will be a lot of waste. I would use the starter for the meat birds. Its 20% protein and you can feed that their whole lives.
To soak it, simply fill a bucket with feed, and add water and stir. Once the water is mixed with the feed, then fill it so theres about an inch of water on top of it. The next morning all or most of the water should be absorbed. You can feed them twice daily, and you'll figure out how much they eat as you go.

Which feed do you recommend for layers that can have soy. Im a backyard chicken keeper and I am looking for the most nutritious feed. I have 7 Welsummers and live in Colorado. I do add some cracked corn to their feed in the winter. Also when using flaxseed in their feed, should it be ground or whole?