Homemade chicken food

[U_Stormcrow]

We've often disagreed on feed and feeding practices. But I totally agree with you on this post. I never intended to learn feed, but circumstances necessitated it. I was a commercial producer of grass fed birds and didn't do bad selling day old chicks of rare breeds.

When I moved here and couldn't find feed, my learning curve began. My chief nutritionist is the principal nutritionist at fertrell (Jeff Mattocks <[email protected]>). Jeff turned me on to a couple of books, gave me a couple of sample recipes and I've followed his studies on APPP.org.

At my hayday, I had over 300 birds. A mix of ducks, chickens, and turkeys. But circumstances changed and we went down to only a dozen or so birds. And then I got hurt while DW was away and my remaining birds starved to death because I couldn't get to them.

I'd like to get birds again but I have to know that I can care for them. I'd like to focus on endangered breeds, but DW wants Marans. So not sure where this will go.

I wish you all the best, whatever you decide.

I can tell you, I'll never have chickens and ducks again - I'm just not so "never" that I've removed all my ducks to freezer camp (yet). My Pekins have massively underperformed expectations and simply constitute extra risks to my flock for not much benefit. Plus the additional considerations in housing design, cleaning waterers, blah blah blah blah. WOuld be different if I didn't free range. But my experience with chickens and ducks living together (why am I reminded of the Bill Murray scene in Ghostbusters in front of the mayor?) are why I keep telling my wife we aren't adding turkeys to the ducks, chickens, goats, rabbits, dogs, cat, and did I mention we had a wild pig (sow, actually) bust the electric fence with her pigglets? Looked like a tiny black VW bus, she did....

 

[U_Stormcrow]

SO, sources - (VERY Partial)

These are my "go to"s for most questions, because they cover most of the questions we see here on BYC, and because they are either summaries of the state of the research at the time or they are metastudies providing links to some of the more prominent research.

https://s3.wp.wsu.edu/uploads/sites/346/2014/11/Protein-and-amino-acid-for-poultry-final.pdf

https://extension.uga.edu/publications/detail.html?number=C954&title=Nutrition for the Backyard Flock

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8024705/ (excellent metastudy, recommend reading the studies from which this data was drawn, most of which are freely available)

That's how I found this https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30508158/ Lysine requirements of laying hens from roughly 20-45 weeks, involving areound 900 birds. and that led me to this
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34111610/ Lys for chickens 20-60 weeks, 650 birds.

{examples of why I offered weak defense to the rhetorical flourish about the quality of the studies out there - but I can as easily find studies of very short duration, or only with 16-20 birds, total! You really do need to read past the study summary at the way the study was crafted. You will also find studies where a single experiment with a small number of birds is used as basis for a host of papers - very common out of some of the EU. As if they weren't looking for anything in particular, just recorded a bunch of data, then combed through after the fact for anything that might be of statistical significance. In my view, if your study size is a medium backyard flock, and your time period is a couple months, unless the results are shocking [and repeatable] the study doesn't really tell you much.}

and lots of other, similar articles.

When I get questioned on Calcium and Phosphorus specifically, I have to dig those links back up, I didn't save them. Likewise with a few other common questions - like how Amprolium works.

Honestly, I treat it like the Youtube game where you start with a video you like, then look down the suggested list on the side for the next one that catches your interest and keep going down the rabbit hole till you are exhausted, or find yourself in a loop.

and I keep this around as reminder of how much I still have to learn. https://www.uvm.edu/newfarmer/production/livestock/Growing Broilers-Darre.pdf

When I can comfortably give a complete presentation based ont he contents of these slides, I'll feel like I have a useful grasp of the subject overall.

For those interested, hope you enjoy the readings. Welcome down the rabbit hole!

 

[Perris]

These are my "go to"s for most questions, because they cover most of the questions we see here on BYC, and because they are either summaries of the state of the research at the time or they are metastudies providing links to some of the more prominent research.

one could not guess from this description that 2 are extension dept short summaries, dating from 2008 and 2002 respectively, the last is just the abstract (which maybe all you read and is what you falsely allege of me) and anyway both of the last 2 are simply about lysine, which is quite beside the point. So only the middle one is a proper academic research paper which discusses methodologies in depth, and it is all about the variability in measured and recommended AA levels (several others as well as lysine) in the scientific literature and how that problem may have arisen and be overcome. While that is interesting in itself, and supports my view, it does nothing to support your case. And incidentally shows you have not understood why lysine plays the role it does in these things, to whit, partly because it is relatively unimportant in body maintenance and has fewer interactions with the gut metabolites, so is easier to measure.

Focussing on the matter we were arguing about, which is the age and condition of the birds on which the testing is done, I just quote this from the one relevant paper of the 5 you cited.
"Furthermore, studies in the literature are mainly over a short time period in the production cycle which is not totally representative. Egg production is not stable throughout the production cycle; therefore, different protein and energy levels are required over time."

 

[Perris]

What is so easily overlooked on this matter is the driver of all the research. I quote from the USA's own authorised Nutrient Requirements of Poultry

p.22: "Progress continues in the quest to use less feed in producing eggs. Most of this progress has resulted from decreasing the amount of feed that is required for body maintenance of laying hens…With chickens bred for higher rates of egg production, there is a decrease in the maintenance requirement relative to eggs produced. At a rate of 100 percent egg production (that is, one egg per hen per day), maintenance requirements must be fulfilled for the 12 days needed to produce a dozen eggs; at a rate of 75 percent egg production, 16 days of maintenance requirements must be met to obtain a dozen eggs"

p.24 "Most egg-type hens are given ad libitum access to feed; however, feeding programs may be modified after the maximum rate of egg mass output has been attained (Cerniglia et al., 1984; Cunningham, 1984). Laying hens eat more feed than is needed to support egg production. As a result, it may be more profitable to limit their feed intake. Doing so would also reduce the likelihood of health problems that can also result when hens are overly fat." (and ironically some people on BYC blame 'treats' for overly fat chickens!)

and I'll stop with p21: "the pullet appears to have a fairly precise innate ability to regulate its energy intake regardless of dietary energy level (Cunningham and Morrison, 1976; McNaughton et al., 1977b; Doran et al., 1983). Manipulation of energy intake is, therefore, best considered in relation to feeding management and, in particular, methods of stimulating feed intake. For example, feed intake may be increased through use of pelleted feed, increased frequency of feeding, feeding at cooler times of the day, and, where possible, use of longer periods of light."

 

[U_Stormcrow]

Perris, I am unsure why you persist in misreading me, and misunderstanding the research. I'm not the one who said

...But most of that research was done on birds that were not anatomically entire, and in particular had a significant portion of their digestive tract surgically removed (because it interferes with the results in ways the researchers couldn't explain, so they removed it, in typical scientific method fashion). That's the caeca, now recognized as a very important part of the biome. So not obviously a good paradigm for our entire birds. And we're only just starting to understand the biome.

Most would be more than half. I doubt you could find modern research with surgically altered birds comprising more than a few percent of the studies, if that. Certainly, I don't recall reading one published in the last thirty years or so, though of course there are plenty of studies which involve taking the bird apart at the conclusion of the experiment.

Lysine use's for relative measure is part of the "Ideal Protein" concept - which is important for commercial operations interested in reducing nitrogen waste by ensuring that the protein the birds are fed is comprised of the proper ratio of amino acids to support their biologicical process without excess or deficit. Lysine is then used as the reference, not because its unimportant, but because its relatively easy to measure its use, being involved in few biuological processes. Those processes, however, are mostly muscle creation and maintenance. Hardly unimportant.

I am not a proponent of the "Ideal Protein" concept, and you will not see me advocating it here - its focus is essentially irrelevant to the typical BYCer - though I'm familiar enough with the concept to work their ratios "backwards" to arrive at minimum recommended levels of particular amino acids. Historically, Ideal Protein began as a concept before we could even measure some of the Amino Acids directly (the Sulphur-containing Amino Acids particularly), and before the function of many amino acids was well understood. Nor is ideal protein concept unique to chickens - its also used for pigs, cows, sheep, fish, and other livestock. Its an evolving field, and one which can't offer a one size fits all solution to every breed at every age - but its not inherently bad science, its just focused on providing an answer to a question BYCers needn't trouble themselves with. Still useful studies for us, but only indirectly, as an analogue.

Neither am I the one who made this claim,

The nutrient figures for broilers are based on experiments done on birds up to 3 weeks (yes, 3 weeks) old; body maintenance beyond that is not an issue in those calculations because the bird will be harvested at 5-6 weeks old for KFC or suchlike and all they're interested in for the 'finishing' stage is weight gain.

The sources I linked, a mere fraction of what I read, largely (though not exclusively) suggest different feed regimens for different ages of broilers, not merely "up to three weeks". I keep the older NRC guidelines around in part to show how the state of the science has evolved over the years as compared with more modern study - and that feeds, largely, have not kept up.

Now this part:

A better descriptor would be 'conforms to the minimum nutrients required to keep the bird alive at least cost'. I don't know what age they test it to for all flock type feeds. They lose interest after 18 months for layers as that's when commercial producers throw their layers away.

Is largely true of layer formulations, and has been the source of one or two screeds by yours truly. (See, for example). But that things are not well studied beyond those points is not reason to suggest "we can't know, therefore we should not make educated supposition." We know the negative impacts of reducing Met in the diet, reducing Lys, Tryp, Threonine, and a host of others. We know the buildup of calcium and its effects as a progressive pathology. We understand the importance of various vitamins. and on that basis, suggest continuing to provide levels of protein (as analog to amino acid contents) or minimum levels of certain aminos specifically which have been shown to have benefit in birds.

I'm not one of the layer advocates - the numbers I routinely recommend, based on what I've read, well exceed the typical layer formulation's levels of certain keys, while drastically reducing total calcium (as a part of the feed itself), allowing birds to self regulate calcium intake through seperate source - something studies suggest they do effectively. I also recommend higher than layer minimum levels of non phytate phosphorus, for its role in buffering the effects of excess calcium in the theory that it should result, on average, in healthier, longer lived birds.

and that's as much time as I intend to spend knocking down your strawmen.

As I've said before, Its Complicated. But the studies (in general) are not so flawed and uinreliable as you seem to suggest - nor is there any ready, more reliable, alternative.