Is this a good non-GMO feed?

[matt44644]

For me if it has Ethoxyquin in it why even bother with it being non GMO.

 

[Michael Apple]

For me if it has Ethoxyquin in it why even bother with it being non GMO.

Yes. Ethoxyquin was a preservative linked to cancer that was banned for use in dog food some years ago. Overuse of copper in Nutro dog foods was also linked to kidney and liver failure, which caused those employees with a conscience to walk off the job when Nutro management refused to be accountable. I have seen ethoxyquin listed occasionally in poultry feeds since the ban.

 

[aart]

So the trickery in labeling continues; USDA labels, soy-free labels, GMO-free labels, and I've even seen soy and corn-free labels.

Boy, THAT'S for sure! ..and it always will be there, you've got to read beyond (way beyond) the 'headlines'.


My local mill offers gmo free and I asked them how they knew it was...they said, the farmer told us it was...Pffft!
One guy sheepishly admitted they don't really know...and I believe they use the same milling equipment for all products.

 

[speckledhen]

The simple truth of it is we can't buy all these supplemental feeds for our chickens. Yes, I know about them, I've seen them. We can barely feed ourselves on a military pension. That's the long and short of it. I free range my birds on mountain property, hoping they will find enough natural forage to supplement the feed itself. in winter, that's a bit more difficult.

Overall, I have healthy flocks with long lived birds (after the hatchery genetics have left the building). I have 6, 7 & 8 year old hens laying. I do what I can. I do not care about organic, frankly. I just don't care, for me or my birds, and even if I did, I could not afford it anyway. I bought some organic minced garlic in a squeeze tube the other day for my birds, only because it wasn't much different from the non-organic package, but I do only those few-and-far-between spot buys like that. I bypassed bags of organic apples for those non organic due to price considerations. That's what we must do to live around here. So, if I do that for myself, well, the birds already get a huge chunk of my food budget and we can't eke out anymore for them. As it is, we're allowing their numbers to dwindle over time through attrition because of cost of keeping this many around. We may have to buy nasty grocery store eggs occasionally, but we can't continue to feed large numbers of birds anymore just to insure we never run out of eggs.

I buy the best quality feed I can find in my area on my budget. As it is, I spend more on my 40+ birds than I do on my husband and me, trying to keep them eating well and their coops clean and dry. @Michael Apple, I am concerned that feed based on only wheat and fish meal would encourage enteritis, if that is the case. I am grateful for that information, thank you. Since the 22% Super Layer has come down in price now, about the same price as the non-GMO from Tucker Milling, I think I paid $13.25 for that last bag of 22%, I will probably be buying that for awhile. It contains porcine animal protein and they seem to do well on those feeds. With the molt and winter approaching, seems prudent to up the protein now.

Mtnmomma3, I hope you gleaned the information you needed from the replies here. I would be concerned about there not being any corn at all in the Tucker Milling Non-GMO feed, if what Michael says (and he provides links for backup) is true about the enteritis concerns with wheat-and-fish-meal based feeds. I bought a bag, it smelled good and the pellets are wonderful like all their mini pellets, not dusty at all, etc. I do wish they had done a little better on the ingredients, though for a basic non Gmo feed, they have kept the price low; the price is possibly low because they didn't formulate it with non-GMO corn but wheat instead? Though TM usually has good prices anyway.