Homemade chicken food

[U_Stormcrow]

Depends on your definition of "safe". EPA levels of acceptable mercury in water 2ppb (parts per billion) or .002 mg/kg - 1 / 10th the levels in that feed.

OTOH, the allowed levels of (methyl)mercury in food are 1 ppm. (1 mg/kg) - that's well below those levels.

and from testing, here's what the FDA is finding in seafood, for comparison.

So yes, most of us would deem that w/i acceptable limits, although most of us would use Fertrell's product (its basicly the at-home "industry" standard, and seems to be used by many small commercial producers as well).

and yes, I've used Tucker's products. I was satisfied, but by no means impressed. I use Harrell Milling currently, just came home with another 500# (once a month). Cheaper, Cheaper ingredients, superior nutritional label.

 

[007Sean]

Howdy, and Welcome to Backyard Chickens.

Happy to have you here with us. Enjoy your time here at BYC!

As other posters have mentioned, it would be better and probably cheaper to find a good, balanced and complete feed that is locally available.

Thanks for joining our community!

 

[U_Stormcrow]

Most of the articles I read suggest adding DE to feed (small amount) to help chickens digest better, to prevent worms, and for general health purposes. Is DE bad in feed?

Its worthless for those purposes. People who write that are repeating the ignorance of others. If they understood how DE worked, they'd immediately reject those claims as utter nonsense.

/edit I suspect you are reading that on various websites suggesting you should make your own feed for [bs] benefits. I suggest to you that you should not attempt an at home feed unless you have some severe dietary need, you hjave extremely unique circumstances, or you have no other choice - and if that is the case, you are likely better off not having chickens.

 

[muddy75]

Its worthless for those purposes. People who write that are repeating the ignorance of others. If they understood how DE worked, they'd immediately reject those claims as utter nonsense.

Welcome to BYC!

 

[Perris]

Home made food for chickens... It's not easy to get all the nutrients right. Especially for chicks. If some of the essential amino acids are missing/inadequate, it can cause serious harm to developing/growing chicks.

I'm tagging one of our members who knows more about the topic.

@U_Stormcrow...

you might find an article that @saysfaa found interesting: it contradicts that traditional view. If you offer them the same nutrients but as separate options instead of already blended into a crumb, they choose the right balance themselves - even without a broody or person to guide them
https://www.backyardchickens.com/threads/can-the-chick-balance-its-ration.1555475/

 

[raingarden]

Trying to make your own food is a good learning experience. But, in the end, you will find it is very expensive and time consuming. Off-the-shelf chicken feed is more nutritionally complete, better for the birds, less expensive and more convenient.

If the bird is given free choice of what to eat from the ingredients, then what happens to the material they choose not to eat? Chicken feed is a very sophisticated product with a century of research and development behind it. Part of the developmental process has been to make it palatable and cost effective at the same time. If time and money is no object, you can feed them smoked salmon and cream cheese on a bagel. They will probably do fine and be very happy with it.

 

[Perris]

Chicken feed is a very sophisticated product with a century of research and development behind it.

Indeed it is sophisticated and old. 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.

 

[Perris]

And do you know why such a fuss is made about lysine?
"In theory, the greater the relative contribution an amino acid has toward functional roles versus its use as a substrate for protein synthesis makes its overall requirements more dynamic and difficult to determine experimentally. This is partly why lysine, which has relatively fewer maintenance roles compared with other essential amino acids, is used as the denominator for expressing amino acid ratios to Lys when applying the ideal protein concept (Emmert and Baker, 1997)" Lee et.al Functional properties of amino acids: improve health status and sustainability Poultry Science 102 (2023)

 

[Perris]

Hi Bob @RedHillChicken

As someone who makes my own chicken feed, including chick feed, and without scales or a calculator, my advice to you is first to keep your ingredients whole so that your chickens can see what they're eating and choose what they want.

Try to offer them a wide range of fresh foods (mostly grain, ideally mostly wheat) and give them access to pasture (grass + weeds) from 2 days old; mine free range dawn to dusk. Trust their instincts to do the rest, and reassess or ask again asap if any start to look under the weather.

On the 'fish meal' front I give mine tinned sardines, sold for human consumption in small quantities and at relatively low cost, about once a fortnight. It does take a little more time to make your own feed than it does to scoop the contents out of a single sack, but it's not expensive, especially if you run a mealworm farm for insect protein too. A sack of wheat is about half the price of a sack of processed chicken feed here BTW.

If you want to see what my birds look like on this regime, you'll find most of them in the recent photo competition threads.

 

[swampfox440]

Welcome to BYC! pleased to meet you and thanks for joining us.