Is there anyone who is able to review the feed I have created-soy, wheat, corn, and dairy free due t

[PoultryPedia]

I had about 9 tons of custom poultry feed milled before, & sold it locally. I used some triticale grain (a hybrid of wheat & rye--which I realize wouldn't be useful for your feed recipe) that had a 19% protein level as the foremost ingredient.(Note: I've read that wheat & rye should be fed at a limited level to minimize risk of illness that can cause diarrhea, & I assume triticale should be, too. I would think that a chicken's diet should contain no more than 15-20% of those ingredients.)

Anyway...
When the triticale was harvested, there were a lot of grasshoppers in the field. So we ended up with tasty, high-protein "dried grasshopper meal" in the layer pellets we had milled.
I don't know if you might locate a harvest of some useful feed crop with a similar "secret ingredient"

from someone there locally? Probably a lot of different "pests" would be delightfully nutritious to chickens.

 

[naadarien]

We have diet issues as well (gluten and dairy allergies) and was wondering how to feed a more traditional (non-grain) bird diet to our chickens.

Has anyone researched purchasing insects and worms (besides the mealworm thread, which was great; I highly recommend reading it) or, ick, raising them?

We plan on feeding scraps from our table (organic store bought or homegrown organic [from non-Monsanto seed] veggies) but we also have a fair amount of seed and nuts in our diet. Can chickens eat chia seeds? Cashews, walnuts, and/or pecans (organic, raw, shelled)? I make cashew milk and the resulting pulp (which is only water and cashews) can easily be given to the chickens both wet or dry (if they can eat cashews). It would be most economical if we and the birds share some common foods (no plans on adding grubs, worms, or other insects to our diet though

).

The worms seem like a good choice if you want to compost chicken manure as we do. There is a place here in Vermont where their chickens eat mainly from what they find in the huge compost piles they keep. If I can find the link, I'll post it.

Anyway, just wondering if anyone has researched that angle and is willing to share what you found out.

Thanks!

 

[celticgarden]

I heartily recommend looking into fermenting the feed when you settle on a formula. There is much info on this here at BYC complete with photos of the vibrancy fermented feed gives to the birds.

If you haven't already I suggest perusing the writings of Harvey Ussery including his book The Small Scale Poultry Flock. His website is
http://www.themodernhomestead.us/ I have his book and found it enlightening. FYI his topics about chickens are located at http://www.themodernhomestead.us/article/Poultry.html He writes about raising insects as a source of additional protein, about growing some or all of the feed, about creating your own.

I applaud your efforts to formulate your own feed. You are lucky to have access to a feed mill. Here in CT we have very few resources for creating our own feed, both in terms of inputs or milling. I know you are trying to avoid wheat, but here in CT we can't even buy bagged feed wheat, it just isn't available.

Let us know how it goes!

 

[byveidt]

This might be odd, but if my birds need an extra protein boost I feed them quality cat food, usually Taste of the Wild. I pick a non fish variety and it's corn and wheat free. But your mix sounds proteinatious enough. It sounds great. I think the seeds are your best bet for fat and protein.

 

[naadarien]

This might be odd, but if my birds need an extra protein boost I feed them quality cat food, usually Taste of the Wild. I pick a non fish variety and it's corn and wheat free. But your mix sounds proteinatious enough. It sounds great. I think the seeds are your best bet for fat and protein.

That is a cool idea. We use Taste of the Wild as well. None of our cats like the salmon flavor so we never buy it, but that is a decent way to use something we already buy. Thanks for the idea.

 

[chasmyn]

Oh, we feed Taste of the Wild, too! I was wondering about feeding it to the Chickens....

Also re: mealworms. Turns out they're super easy to raise. We're getting a 20 gallon aquarium off of freecycle and doing this:

https://www.backyardchickens.com/a/how-to-raise-mealworms

https://www.backyardchickens.com/a/mealworm-fam-experiences

I am not sure where to get them in quantity locally, but there is a great source on Amazon that sells 2000 for about $27 - and he is in California. I had just been rdering them and feeding them to the chicks, but it's THAT easy to raise them, so now I'll be ordering and raising them instead. And my son is super excited, so the bonus is it's a great learning tool for him and his friends about the life cycles of insects.

 

[earthfriendlyfarm]

Hey, this may sound ignorant, but I have no knowledge of celiacs disease. Does the feed that you give your chickens effect someone with celiacs disease if they eat the eggs/meat? or just that the feeds is around your daughter and she is so senstive it will effect her that way? Appreciate the education. Seems like there are more and more folks out there with celiacs

 

[Island Roo]

I would be cautious about adding more salt. Some of those ingredients contain sodium. My bag of kelp says it may contain up to 10% salt -

don't they rinse it? Fish meal has sodium too. Once I added up the salt in my ingredients, I stopped added extra to the feed.

I keep flax and fish meal below 5% (due to claims about egg taste).

My birds love the peas. They will eat the alfalfa if it included in the fermented mix but not by itself.

 

[susienoe]

earthfriendlyfarm,

I'm happy to give you my take on the issue. For extremely sensitive indiviuals (My daughter and myself) food proteins from wheat, soy and dairy that pass into the egg can cause a reaction in people who are sensitive to these food proteins. There is little study on this, except for a study done on soy isoflavones that show up in the eggs of soy fed chickens. Soy is my daughters main issue, and she has horrible reactions to eggs from soy fed chickens. Many people will poo poo this idea, but many others have learned from first hand experience that what a chicken eats can greatly affect the egg (and possibly the meat as well). Hope that helps. Also, Celiac disease can cause a great many other food intolerances besides wheat, so many people with Celiac disease are unable to have dairy and soy.

 

[aliceroyle]

Oh no!
I haven't got the hang of this forum at all. I keep writing posts, scrolling back to refer to the original post and the next thing I know my message is gone!
I'm Alice Royle, owner and nutritionist of Union Point Custom Feeds. I spotted Susie's and Gayle's messages doing a web search while working on the new website this weekend. I am so sorry I didn't get back to you folks. I don't remember what was going on, but I thought I could retrieve the number from my phone and I couldn't. (I tried to send you a PM yesterday but I don't think it worked) so I signed up for this forum too, although we make feed at a larger scale than most of you would ever need, and we are tiny compared to most mills.
Anyway, I'll be glad to weigh in on some of this as I have time. I love chickens and talking nutrition, and lately I have had to spend more time than I'd like with the mechanical, business and purchasing ingredients part of milling, so as I am able I'll help if I can.
I hope this goes through!

Alice
[email protected]