Can you tell me what ingredients I should purchase at my local mill to create a well rounded feed? I want my eggs to be as healthy as possible for my family. We are also thinking of raising meat birds, but I want them to be as healthy and free of chemicals as possible. This is the whole reason I want to raise my own. Our birds do not free range, because we have crazy drivers on our road and our neighbors would not be happy to have chickens in their yard. However we do catch bugs for them from time to time and give them scraps from our dinners. But I'd like to create a well rounded organic feed for them as none of our local stores sell this.
In all honesty, it is very difficult to come up with everything they need. Some vitamins, minerals and other trace elements essential for their nutrition are hard to come by except in quantities that would go bad before you could use a fraction of it which is the reason I haven't done it yet. There are a few recipes on the net. http://tlc.howstuffworks.com/home/organic-chicken-feed-cheap.htm http://www.gov.mb.ca/agriculture/livestock/poultry/bba01s12.html the above link was recipes from 1945 so if you use that read these notes http://www.gov.mb.ca/agriculture/livestock/poultry/bba01s12.html because much has been learned in the last 70 years that wasn't well understood at the time http://www.motherearthnews.com/homesteading-and-livestock/what-to-feed-chickens-zmaz75sozgoe.aspx