Homemade feed?
- Thread starter Allman27
- Start date
chickenlittle21
There's a piggy in the pasture
It is recommended to buy store bought feed unless your chickens are free ranging or you professionally know how to make chicken feed. I personally recommend to just buy feed from the store because making chicken feed takes time out of your day and many things can go wrong if you don't use the right amount of everything necessary.
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333113
Guest
The good brands of feeds add vitamins, minerals, calcium and grit to their mix, so it is an all-in-one feed, nothing extra needed. You can usually also buy chick feed with or without medication, which is primarily for preventing coccidiosis. Here in my part of Missouri those brands include Purina and MannaPro. You can usually buy it as pellets or crumbles. There are usually some cheaper brands that leave out one or more of those ingredients.
At the MFA and some feed stores you can buy a mix of grains, ground or pulverized for wet mash. Those usually don't include vitamins, calcium, grit, or medication, so you would need to add those or provide them on the side.
If you mix your own you will want to do some research so that you know what's available, what's cost-effective, and what your chickens need. Layers tend to need more calcium, meat birds are meant to be fed more so they grow faster, etc.
However, in the summer, I keep a pan of food in the dry parts of their runs and let them pasture. "Pasture" doesn't actually mean they eat only greens, because they eat moving food, too. They are serious omnivores who will eat road kill, if you let them. They eat hardly any of their pan food in the summer, preferring to catch or find their own. In the winter I use a good brand of store-bought feed, plus selected table scraps, fodder when I have time and room to do it, and the occasional baked and cooled cabbage, squash, or root vegetable that went too soft for my table.
If there is a protracted period of icky weather and everyone seems in the doldrums, I add a handful of scratch, bird seed or red millet to their usual food. That usually cheers them right up!
At the MFA and some feed stores you can buy a mix of grains, ground or pulverized for wet mash. Those usually don't include vitamins, calcium, grit, or medication, so you would need to add those or provide them on the side.
If you mix your own you will want to do some research so that you know what's available, what's cost-effective, and what your chickens need. Layers tend to need more calcium, meat birds are meant to be fed more so they grow faster, etc.
However, in the summer, I keep a pan of food in the dry parts of their runs and let them pasture. "Pasture" doesn't actually mean they eat only greens, because they eat moving food, too. They are serious omnivores who will eat road kill, if you let them. They eat hardly any of their pan food in the summer, preferring to catch or find their own. In the winter I use a good brand of store-bought feed, plus selected table scraps, fodder when I have time and room to do it, and the occasional baked and cooled cabbage, squash, or root vegetable that went too soft for my table.
If there is a protracted period of icky weather and everyone seems in the doldrums, I add a handful of scratch, bird seed or red millet to their usual food. That usually cheers them right up!
- Thread starter
- #4
Sounds good! I just want to feed my ladies what is best. Sounds like i should stick to a higher quality of feed for them. Is there anything i should stay away from in a specific feed? My girls are 4 weeks now and on starter feed and will be running out of that in 5 days or so.
I'd recommend sticking with a crumble or pellet type fee. NOT a whole grain type feed.
3
333113
Guest
Oops, maybe you were asking about that other kind of chicken math, Pearson's square. Some of the AG colleges and the US Department of Agriculture have these calculations, like this one from Colorado State University:
https://extension.colostate.edu/top...lating-rations-with-the-pearson-square-1-618/
https://extension.colostate.edu/top...lating-rations-with-the-pearson-square-1-618/
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