Is this article legit?

[Dominique King]

https://silverhomestead.com/homemade-chicken-feed-recipe-for-laying-hens/

This is a homemade chicken feed recipe article and I wanted some BYC experts to tell me if this is okay. @Perris I wanted to ask you as well since you seem to be an expert on this kinda stuff.

 

[Perris]

It seems fairly typical of the (few) home made recipes I've seen.

There are some things I might query - for example, if the cost of fish meal is the reason for not using it, are dried mealworms [of no specified origin, which might be more of an issue than fishmeal for some people] really cheaper? And very few feed stores round here stock 25kg sacks of whole wheat, and only one has dried peas in quantities greater than 1kg, so sourcing may be more of a hurdle than she suggests; I guess it depends very much on what stores near you carry. It's also rather proscriptive for my taste; I aim to vary the feed with availability, as it does naturally with the seasons. It's as important that whatever is fed is fresh as that it's clean and not mouldy or infested with weevils (to give her example). Something that's been sitting in a damp store for 6 months is not going to do your chickens much, if any, good, whatever it says on the packet.

The same feed would be more nutritious if fermented; if live mealworms were substituted for the dried ones (and then you could tweak whatever diet you gave via whatever you chose to feed the mealworms); and if some real meat or fish were added. I personally am a fan of tinned sardines as a major source of complete protein and many other goodies including salt, some of which chickens need and a source of which does not jump out at me from her recipe. I also give animal (complete) proteins in the form of dairy products now and then. Both are widely available in your local grocery store.

If you want to see how I do it, see here
https://www.backyardchickens.com/ar...eat-tears-a-calculator-or-deep-pockets.78655/
and here
https://www.backyardchickens.com/articles/wholesome-homemade-feed-2.79307/

Good luck if you are going to try making your own; it is so worth it, but you can only see that if you give it a try.

 

[Dominique King]

@Perris Can you tell me the weights of the ingredients in your mixtures? I live in the USA so I use the imperial system.

 

[Evadig]

@Perris Can you tell me the weights of the ingredients in your mixtures? I live in the USA so I use the imperial system.

A couple websites that might help you (there’s others, these don’t appear to have ads):

To convert metric to imperial: https://www.unitconverters.net/weight-and-mass/kg-to-lbs.htm

To convert money:
https://www.xe.com/currencyconverter/

 

[Perris]

@Perris Can you tell me the weights of the ingredients in your mixtures? I live in the USA so I use the imperial system.

no, I don't weigh them. I am not interested in providing the bare minimum necessary sustenance at the least cost, in a closed and sterile environment, which is what all those percentages are about. My birds free range dawn to dusk and I have little idea of what they are individually and collectively eating during almost all of that time. Just after dawn and about an hour before dusk I supply a variety of good foods in sufficient quantity that the chickens can choose what to eat from it; I observe carefully what's being preferred and what is left for those at the bottom of the pecking order, and adjust what I provide to suit their changing needs and wants. These adjustments are made at flock and if seems appropriate at individual level. I am retired and have the time and inclination to do this.

This is the result of experience; I did measure initially, and I am aware that you are as yet inexperienced. But with hindsight, I really think the best advice is to offer a changing variety of good, fresh, real foods, to pay attention to what your flock likes and dislikes, and to trust their instincts and appetites, rather than to trust and copy a formula. The nearest I get to measuring now is to use different sized scoops; the biggest scoop for the whole wheat, and a medium scoop for the pea/pseudo-cereal mix when those are mixed and set to ferment, aiming for a rough 75:25 split; handfuls for mealworms, sardines come in small tins, and just eyeballing it for dairy products when I'm topdressing the fermented feed base just before serving. The chickens will make it obvious if there's too much of anything by leaving it, till last or completely, so you then know to use less of it going forward. Really, it's that simple.

 

[U_Stormcrow]

https://silverhomestead.com/homemade-chicken-feed-recipe-for-laying-hens/

This is a homemade chicken feed recipe article and I wanted some BYC experts to tell me if this is okay. @Perris I wanted to ask you as well since you seem to be an expert on this kinda stuff.

Depends on how you mean "legit". Depending on where you get your nutritional averages from, yes, this is potentially a 16% CP feed. (Assuming you use hard wheat). Potentially, probabably not, but close The fat content, based on my sources for average feed values - feedipedia.org (I really need to convert over to feedtables.com) put it around 5.5% fat, and the protein at 15.4%. 14.5% w/ wheat berries from a soft wheat variety.

As that author admits, the trace minerals just aren't there. (also, non-Phytate phosphorus)

But more importantly, that Crude Protein isn't a good crude protein.

Because corn is so low in protein, its not a good source of Methionine, Lysine, Threonine, or Tryptophan. That means the ingredients after it need to comensate for it's weaknesses. Whole Oats aren't a good source for them either. Neither are wheat berries. So your amino acid balance in 2/3 of your mix is across the board deficient. Lentils aren't a good soure of Met, either. Fantastic source of Lysine. Good source of Threonine (but not good enough to compensate for 5x their weith in grains. Adequate souce of Tryp. In terms of Amino Acids, your split peas average almost the same as the lentils. Congratulations, she's fixed the Lysine problem, but not the Met, the Thre, or the Tryp. That leaves just 1# of mealworms to do the rest. Mealworms simply aren't that good - though they get close to fixing the Threonine problem, the Met level is only 3/4 what it needs to be, Tryp about the same.

and that's just to meet recommended minimums.

As @Perris observes, sourcing is an issue too - I'm in an Ag area and can't readily lay hands on most of those ingredients, except in the supermarket - not a recipe for cost effectiveness. Speaking of cost, I'm not seeing mealworms at less than $5-6/lb. At one pound dried per 23# of feed, that means between $10 and $13 in mealworms per 50# of feed. Since I can buy a nutritionally superior feed for just a little more than that price from my local feed store, and can buy off the shelf Purina/Nutrina for about $10 more, you would have to get the other almost 48# of ingredients under $0.20 a pound to compete on price, and you are already accepting inferior nutrition.

Look, @Perris and I approach things in opposite ways - but the end goals are very similar, and so is the method. The big difference is that I pick for my birds, and @Perris allows them to pick for themselves. Both systems work IF the variety is there. Its not present in that author's recipe. You can't make a complete protein and a balanced chicken feed with, in essence, a whole grain and a pulse. That's like trying to make an alphabet from the letters contained in two short words.