Welcome to BYC!
There is no "One Right Answer" or everyone would be doing it (except that one guy, because there's always that one guy...). How to feed your birds depends on your needs, your circumstances, your resources, and your goals. That said, for the typical backyard owner, of the typical backyard flock, under typical backyard management conditions, feeding an "All Flock/Flock Raiser"-type* crumble, to all your birds, all their lives, without regard to age, gender, status of molt, start of lay, etc is the best combination of nutrition for them, and ease for you. Seperate dishes of oyster shell and grit, as well as fresh clean water should always be available.
A "Treat" is anything NOT their complete commercial feed. Treats should be restricted to less than 10% of the diet, by weight daily - if you give them at all - and should be "rotated" so you don't give them the same treat every day. Treats are not inherently bad. Treats ARE inherently nutritionally unbalanced.
*For our purposes, an "All Flock/Flock Raiser"-type feed is 18-20% protein, 3.5% fat+/-, 1.5% calcium +/-, preferably with Methionine levels above 0.35%, Lysine of 0.7% or higher, Phosphorus of 0.6%+, and Fiber around 3.5%+/-. In that order of importance. Many "Starter" or "Starter/Grower" feeds also meet this definition, and during periods of shortage are used as alternative to "All Flock". The two most important things on the bag are the guaranteed nutritional analysis, and the date of manufacture. How the company describes their product is irrelevant.
Back to Treats - whatever, besides the All Flock, you feed your birds will NOT match the numbers above, meaning when averaged into the rest of their daily diet, some things might be higher, many things will be lower. Again, not because they are inherently bad, just imbalanced. Some treats - BOSS, BSFL, Meal Worms (particularly dehydrated varieties of the last two) are nutritionally dense, it takes only a small amount to really throw off a diet. All three are high protein (that's good). All three are also VERY high fat. As result, even when keeping to just 10% of the diet by weight, that small serving of BOSS/BSFL/etc might add 2-3% to their daily protein intake, but DOUBLE their fat intake. Nutritionally, that's like you eating 4 oz of lean chicken, wrapped in 4 oz of Crisco shortening. Not recommended as a long term meal plan...
Veggie scraps, due to high moisture content, and low nutritional value, don't have those imbalancing tendencies - plenty of people throw veggie peels, tops, bruised bits etc with limited concern. They are (usually) high fiber, so make sure your birds have a source of grit available. Try to avoid routinely offering highly sugary treats as well.
There is no "One Right Answer" or everyone would be doing it (except that one guy, because there's always that one guy...). How to feed your birds depends on your needs, your circumstances, your resources, and your goals. That said, for the typical backyard owner, of the typical backyard flock, under typical backyard management conditions, feeding an "All Flock/Flock Raiser"-type* crumble, to all your birds, all their lives, without regard to age, gender, status of molt, start of lay, etc is the best combination of nutrition for them, and ease for you. Seperate dishes of oyster shell and grit, as well as fresh clean water should always be available.
A "Treat" is anything NOT their complete commercial feed. Treats should be restricted to less than 10% of the diet, by weight daily - if you give them at all - and should be "rotated" so you don't give them the same treat every day. Treats are not inherently bad. Treats ARE inherently nutritionally unbalanced.
*For our purposes, an "All Flock/Flock Raiser"-type feed is 18-20% protein, 3.5% fat+/-, 1.5% calcium +/-, preferably with Methionine levels above 0.35%, Lysine of 0.7% or higher, Phosphorus of 0.6%+, and Fiber around 3.5%+/-. In that order of importance. Many "Starter" or "Starter/Grower" feeds also meet this definition, and during periods of shortage are used as alternative to "All Flock". The two most important things on the bag are the guaranteed nutritional analysis, and the date of manufacture. How the company describes their product is irrelevant.
Back to Treats - whatever, besides the All Flock, you feed your birds will NOT match the numbers above, meaning when averaged into the rest of their daily diet, some things might be higher, many things will be lower. Again, not because they are inherently bad, just imbalanced. Some treats - BOSS, BSFL, Meal Worms (particularly dehydrated varieties of the last two) are nutritionally dense, it takes only a small amount to really throw off a diet. All three are high protein (that's good). All three are also VERY high fat. As result, even when keeping to just 10% of the diet by weight, that small serving of BOSS/BSFL/etc might add 2-3% to their daily protein intake, but DOUBLE their fat intake. Nutritionally, that's like you eating 4 oz of lean chicken, wrapped in 4 oz of Crisco shortening. Not recommended as a long term meal plan...
Veggie scraps, due to high moisture content, and low nutritional value, don't have those imbalancing tendencies - plenty of people throw veggie peels, tops, bruised bits etc with limited concern. They are (usually) high fiber, so make sure your birds have a source of grit available. Try to avoid routinely offering highly sugary treats as well.
