how much do i feed chicken scratch?

[U_Stormcrow]

Have you considered a burr mill, like is used by brewers for cracking grains? Yes, they are usually hand crack (unless you hook up your variable speed electric drill), but they will crush your dried foodstuffs to pretty much any size you want. Sometimes spot one in an antiques shop cheap.

New, they will run anywhere from $40 to $500, depending on design, appearance, name brand, features.

and if you go to your rice and dried beans section in your local supermarket, good chance you will find Camellia brand. If so, you can likely by dried field peas (and thus avoid all the salt and everything else in the canned products) in a little celophane bag, 1# at a time. Will be next to the black beans soup mix, split pea soup mix, (yellow) split pea soup mix, dried great northern beans, dried chick peas, 7 bean soup mix, etc...

Still MUCH cheaper to buy in bulk - but if field peas are providing a needed nutritional suppliment you aren't getting in the rest of the feed, or you are just trying it out as a treat, it should be there on the shelf.

/edit SECOND on the "wet mash" suggestion above, which will also aid with both heat and potentially digestion if you make your wet mash in bulk and it begins to ferment.

 

[Araucana1]

Scratch is ok as a treat only or as a way to get your chickens inside the coop. It’s not that it’s completely unhealthy altogether, it’s just that it lacks certain vitimins & minerals that are added to their regular lay ration. People who want their hens to stop laying for some reason can feed scratch as a sole diet temporarily only. After all, scratch is just a mix of whole grains, so nothing unhealthy but your hens won’t lay on it, whereas layer ration is comprised of many of those same whole grains but ground down for faster digestability with added nutrients for good lay production.

 

[cundare]

Will he eat wet mash?

That would be a good way to give him a nutritious diet in a potentially more palatable form.

I'm not familiar with wet mash, but a quick Google suggests that it may be a good idea. I'll give it a try.
Related: I see that a lot of the bags of "feed" we buy at the local feed store are heavy in cracked corn. Do you all consider that to be "chicken scratch junk food", or something that I should continue to keep a large part of his diet. He won't eat whole kernels, but gobbles down the smaller, cracked corn.

 

[U_Stormcrow]

Scratch is ok as a treat only or as a way to get your chickens inside the coop. It’s not that it’s completely unhealthy altogether, it’s just that it lacks certain vitimins & minerals that are added to their regular lay ration. People who want their hens to stop laying for some reason can feed scratch as a sole diet temporarily only. After all, scratch is just a mix of whole grains, so nothing unhealthy but your hens won’t lay on it, whereas layer ration is comprised of many of those same whole grains but ground down for faster digestability with added nutrients for good lay production.

With respect, this ^^^ gets more wrong than right. I STRONGLY recommend readers disregard the above advice.

The typical Scratch (let's pick on Purina for a moment, and we'll use their Flock Block as our reference, noting that it is nutritionally superior to their "Scratch" mix) is comprised of whole or cracked corn, grains, and typically with the addition of some seeds. In the case of the Flock Block, it comes in at 9% protein, 8% is more typical. That's less than half what USDA/NRCS recommends for meat bird breeds, and roughly half what they recommend for laying hens (pages 3, 4, 5). The hens stop laying because they are starving to death, converting muscle to energy, with real risk of long term damage to the internal organs, particularly the heart and brain. On request, I can link numerous studies establishing these figures in commercial meaties and commercial layers, going back decades.

Moreover, the composition of the the typical Scratch is corn, grains, and nuts. Science time. Every animal on the planet is made up, in part, of proteins. Proteins are comprised of amino acids. Typically, an animal can not create on its own every amino acid it needs to survive - some it has to get from its diet. These are called (most commonly) "Limiting" Amino Acids or Essential Amino Acids. "Limiting", because without which they can't build needed proteins, and will fail to thrive, ultimately dying. In the case of a chicken, the Limiting Amino Acids are (marked in bold are those most critical for our purposes):

Arginine
Cystine
Histidine
Isoleucine
Leucine
Lysine
Methionine
Phenylalanine
Threonine
Tryptophan
Tyrosine
Valine

Now, as it turns out, Corn is nutritionally deficient in Tryptophan and Lysine. Grains are usually defient in Threonine and Lysine. Nuts/Seeds are typically deficient in Lysine. So while it may be that here is enough "extra" Threonine in Corn and the Nuts/Seeds to make up for its deficiency in the grains chosen, and enough Tryptophan in the Nuts/Seeds and the Grains to cover its lack in the corn, all of them are low to almost absent in Lysine.

Lysine helps chickens regulate nitrogen, regulate carbohydrates, synthesize nucleotides, deposit calcium to make bones, absorb phosphorous, and a handful of other life critical functions. Like a sailor developing scurvy from lack of vitamin C, feeding an all Scratch or significant Scratch diet is so deficient in this critical, LIMITING Amino acid that chickens won't even be able to effectively use what protein and energy the Scratch does provide.

Now, as it turns out, poultry feed labels aren't well regulated. Most don't list their amino acid levels. A few will list a couple of them, usually Lysine and Methionine, because those are the two most critical, most limiting Amino Acids in a chicken's diet, and because (typically, due to the way many common forage and feed plants make amino acids) if you can get those right, you often get the right ratios on the others, as well.

Purina doesn't list those for its Scratch. Neither does Nutrena. But Purina does provide Lysine and Methionine numbers for its Flock Block. According to USDA/NRCS (link above), UGA, and numerous studies over the decades, you want to see a number around 0.5 - 0.65% (sources differ a bit) Methionine for Chickens, and around 1.20-1.40% Lysine. Remember how I said that corn, grains, and seeds/nuts were all deficient in Lysine??? Purina's Flock Block contains just 0.15% Methionine, and a mere 0.3% Lysine - less than 1/4 of what they need to survive.

SO, having devoted more time to this post than the prior respondent, I would ask that - in the future, before others provide similar response to a person who may know less about feeding chickens than yourself, come here to BYC for advice, either say nothing (a certain famous quote "Better to remain silent..." comes to mind), or be honest enough about your recommendation to offer it accurately, to wit:

"You can cause your hens to stop laying by starving them to death on an all Scratch diet. But don't do it for long."

There is no "one, right way" to raise chickens responsibly, but there are an awful lot of wrong ones. An All Scratch/mostly Scratch diet is among the definitively, provably wrong ways to do so. I don't have the patience to lay out what you got wrong in your summary of "layer feed", and have run out of the respect needed for it to be worthy of my time investment.

/end rant.

 

[3KillerBs]

I'm not familiar with wet mash, but a quick Google suggests that it may be a good idea. I'll give it a try.
Related: I see that a lot of the bags of "feed" we buy at the local feed store are heavy in cracked corn. Do you all consider that to be "chicken scratch junk food", or something that I should continue to keep a large part of his diet. He won't eat whole kernels, but gobbles down the smaller, cracked corn.

When you make wet mash -- pellets or crumble mixes with water to a thick-oatmeal texture -- from a balanced feed it's good nutrition.

If this bird has had compromised health you might want to put him on chick starter for extra nutritional punch.

 

[U_Stormcrow]

I'm fond of wet mash as well - and while I don't sing the praises of "fermented feed" (which is what happens when my wet mash sits around for a few days in five gallon buckets), I'm not at all opposed to it - I just don't find it providing as much nutritional benefit as some claim, so its not worth my time to make it consistently.

Besides helping my birds deal with heat, its helps reduce waste (similar to pellets) - and when you are buying between 2 and 3 tons of feed each year, the savings starts to add up. Ruduced waste ALSO helps in that there is less uneaten food to attract pests like rodents, or to rot and add a malodorous aroma to one's coop and run.

 

[U_Stormcrow]

Sorry @cundare for my rant above. Did not intend to hijack/siderail the thread, but could not let that "opinion" go without response. I understand the tone of the post is likely something less than friendly or welcoming. I'm not wired well for polite social interaction, though I made effort to tone it down.

 

[MysteryChicken]

Thanks for all the guidance, everybody.

One compllicating factor is that this bird is a finicky eater. For some reason, he won't eat anything much larger than a sunflower kernel or kernel of corn. Field peas, vegetables cut too large, whole sunflower seeds, he just leaves. He'll gobble up millet, finely chopped veggies, etc., but usually won't even go after dried meal worms. He won't touch pellets that approach the size of peas. When we find something he likes, he's excited at first and clucks away, as though trying to call hens to eat, before diving in himself. But after a week or two, he gets tired of that particular item and ignores it from that point on.

As I may have mentioned before, he's an abused bird that we "rescued", possibly from cockfighters who threw him in the street after he was injured. The vets fixed him up for the most part, but he still has injuries that prevent him from folding his wing normally. So maybe he has some sort of psychological damage, or larger pieces of food that most chickens can handle are hard for him to swallow. Who knows? The bottom line is that we sometimes have to jump through hoops to find things he likes. Yes, he's pampered, but he's very good-natured and a wonderful pet. We'd like to keep him as healthy as possible.

Cracked corn and various types of nuts -- cashews, sunflower kernels, pine nuts, etc. -- are a big part of his diet, so long as they're broken up small enough for him. And once in a great while, he does eat some dried larvae. So maybe his diet needs just a fine-tuning, not a complete overhaul. Regardless, this thread has been really helpful (ESPECIALLY GC-RAPTOR's lengthy response) in helping us get a handle on how to keep this guy healthy. Thanks again.

Birds can be picky sometimes. They pick out what they like, & leave what they don't. Usually if you leave it in there for a certain amount of time, they'll eat it eventually.

 

[cundare]

Have you considered a burr mill, like is used by brewers for cracking grains? Yes, they are usually hand crack (unless you hook up your variable speed electric drill), but they will crush your dried foodstuffs to pretty much any size you want. Sometimes spot one in an antiques shop cheap.

New, they will run anywhere from $40 to $500, depending on design, appearance, name brand, features.

and if you go to your rice and dried beans section in your local supermarket, good chance you will find Camellia brand. If so, you can likely by dried field peas (and thus avoid all the salt and everything else in the canned products) in a little celophane bag, 1# at a time. Will be next to the black beans soup mix, split pea soup mix, (yellow) split pea soup mix, dried great northern beans, dried chick peas, 7 bean soup mix, etc...

View attachment 2823505
Still MUCH cheaper to buy in bulk - but if field peas are providing a needed nutritional suppliment you aren't getting in the rest of the feed, or you are just trying it out as a treat, it should be there on the shelf.

/edit SECOND on the "wet mash" suggestion above, which will also aid with both heat and potentially digestion if you make your wet mash in bulk and it begins to ferment.

Burr mill? Like a coffee grinder set to "coarse"?

 

[Fluffy Lambs]

With respect, this ^^^ gets more wrong than right. I STRONGLY recommend readers disregard the above advice.

The typical Scratch (let's pick on Purina for a moment, and we'll use their Flock Block as our reference, noting that it is nutritionally superior to their "Scratch" mix) is comprised of whole or cracked corn, grains, and typically with the addition of some seeds. In the case of the Flock Block, it comes in at 9% protein, 8% is more typical. That's less than half what USDA/NRCS recommends for meat bird breeds, and roughly half what they recommend for laying hens (pages 3, 4, 5). The hens stop laying because they are starving to death, converting muscle to energy, with real risk of long term damage to the internal organs, particularly the heart and brain. On request, I can link numerous studies establishing these figures in commercial meaties and commercial layers, going back decades.

Moreover, the composition of the the typical Scratch is corn, grains, and nuts. Science time. Every animal on the planet is made up, in part, of proteins. Proteins are comprised of amino acids. Typically, an animal can not create on its own every amino acid it needs to survive - some it has to get from its diet. These are called (most commonly) "Limiting" Amino Acids or Essential Amino Acids. "Limiting", because without which they can't build needed proteins, and will fail to thrive, ultimately dying. In the case of a chicken, the Limiting Amino Acids are (marked in bold are those most critical for our purposes):

Arginine
Cystine
Histidine
Isoleucine
Leucine
Lysine
Methionine
Phenylalanine
Threonine
Tryptophan
Tyrosine
Valine

Now, as it turns out, Corn is nutritionally deficient in Tryptophan and Lysine. Grains are usually defient in Threonine and Lysine. Nuts/Seeds are typically deficient in Lysine. So while it may be that here is enough "extra" Threonine in Corn and the Nuts/Seeds to make up for its deficiency in the grains chosen, and enough Tryptophan in the Nuts/Seeds and the Grains to cover its lack in the corn, all of them are low to almost absent in Lysine.

Lysine helps chickens regulate nitrogen, regulate carbohydrates, synthesize nucleotides, deposit calcium to make bones, absorb phosphorous, and a handful of other life critical functions. Like a sailor developing scurvy from lack of vitamin C, feeding an all Scratch or significant Scratch diet is so deficient in this critical, LIMITING Amino acid that chickens won't even be able to effectively use what protein and energy the Scratch does provide.

Now, as it turns out, poultry feed labels aren't well regulated. Most don't list their amino acid levels. A few will list a couple of them, usually Lysine and Methionine, because those are the two most critical, most limiting Amino Acids in a chicken's diet, and because (typically, due to the way many common forage and feed plants make amino acids) if you can get those right, you often get the right ratios on the others, as well.

Purina doesn't list those for its Scratch. Neither does Nutrena. But Purina does provide Lysine and Methionine numbers for its Flock Block. According to USDA/NRCS (link above), UGA, and numerous studies over the decades, you want to see a number around 0.5 - 0.65% (sources differ a bit) Methionine for Chickens, and around 1.20-1.40% Lysine. Remember how I said that corn, grains, and seeds/nuts were all deficient in Lysine??? Purina's Flock Block contains just 0.15% Methionine, and a mere 0.3% Lysine - less than 1/4 of what they need to survive.

SO, having devoted more time to this post than the prior respondent, I would ask that - in the future, before others provide similar response to a person who may know less about feeding chickens than yourself, come here to BYC for advice, either say nothing (a certain famous quote "Better to remain silent..." comes to mind), or be honest enough about your recommendation to offer it accurately, to wit:

"You can cause your hens to stop laying by starving them to death on an all Scratch diet. But don't do it for long."

There is no "one, right way" to raise chickens responsibly, but there are an awful lot of wrong ones. An All Scratch/mostly Scratch diet is among the definitively, provably wrong ways to do so. I don't have the patience to lay out what you got wrong in your summary of "layer feed", and have run out of the respect needed for it to be worthy of my time investment.

/end rant.

Amazing