Be careful, more is not better in many cases. Let me show you:
If you have a problem you are trying to fix, and you are thinking deficiency, think again, it may be too much of something.
Protein is not an ingredient by itself. The most used "Protein Supplement" is Soybean meal as an example: It is made of many things besides protein. It has vitamins, minerals, protein, isovlavones, it has estrogenic effects ( hence early puberty in girls, and I wouldn't want my young sons eating much soy, look up "FDA Scientists Against Soy") and the protein is less bio-available than feather meal or fish meal.
An ingredient may test high for protein, but what of the other vitamins and minerals in it? Without knowing how much of each vitamin, mineral, etc., is in the protein supplement, you can throw the "balance" of the ration out of whack.
I have feed test results of the biggest feed manufacturers in the nation, and they all showed too much Selenium. The tests were so high that there was a big investigation. The end result is that after 3 years, Oregon is now making a law against too much Selenium. The FDA investigated also, and they figured out they don't have a law written about too much Selenium in whole grain, so they won't do anything. But if the companies had "added" too much they would have recalled it. So much for the Government making sense.
That would cause your birds to go off feed, not like their feed, loose feathers and have aggressive behavior, I could name about 100 different symptoms of Selenium Toxicity.
If you feed extra minerals you could cause a toxicity problem or imbalance in the important relationship between many important minerals. Such as too much zinc will cause copper depletion.
After years of buying from the big feed companies, we tested their feeds and they were all toxic with high levels of selenium. That means it was being carried in the whole corn and soybean meal and any other grain grown in high Selenium soil. Tests on individual grains proved it. Look up "Oregon Department of Agriculture Selenium".
Needless to say, the big companies dropped us like a hot potato, and left us with hundreds of pigs to feed and no safe feed to give them. (I am sure they are hoping I will be quiet about it, but they messed with the wrong person). They refused to fix their feed, they just figured they could walk away and nobody would ever know.
My husband and I now manufacture Pig and Poultry feed, on our farm, because we saw an important need out there for safe feed. It is Corn and Soy free (because safe corn and soybean meal is not available in the western half of the US). It is truly made of whole grains, no wheat middlings. All ingredients are scrutinized to the Max. Because, with what we now know about feed ingredients, we don't take anything for granted.
Anyway, we bought the grinder and mixer, computer program, and started making feed. We sold the pigs and are now making feed instead. We talked with the poultry people, and listened to what they wanted to see in their poultry feed, then we made it. We also have a grinding process which keeps the particles larger and eliminates most of the "dust".
We are just getting started and distribute the feed through "Naomi's Organic Farm Supply" in Portland, Oregon.
If you are interested, you can e-mail me for a copy of the label, and I am going to talk to my husband about giving out samples so people can see it, feel it, smell it, before they buy it.
You can e-mail me for more info and references too at
[email protected]