Is this diet OK for Chickens?

[GrammasGarden]

Do you put anything liquid in the treats to make them stick together ? Would love recipe instructions

 

[Almosta Farm]

Thank you. There is nothing confusing in your description of the butter making process, so there is no reason for you to needlessly apologize. I am well versed in the first person singular on the process of making butter or yogurt from raw milk, milk that I extracted or helped extract with my own hands and then set aside for the cream to rise to the top and sour. After churning the liquid left behind is known as butter milk, or more precisely butter-less milk. Sour cream butter or real butter is impossible to buy in American Grocery stores today. The only thing available is sweet creamery butter. If you want to enjoy the good life you must go to Canada to get a taste of real butter.

In a 1922 issue of the magazine Leghorn World there are adds advertising the benefits of powdered buttermilk sold in 50# sacks for baby chick feed. I can not recommend buttermilk enough for feeding and watering baby chickens. Google these adds, you will find them at the University of Wisconsin at Madison poultry science web sight. I know that the dehydrated milk had been churned because if it had not been churned the butter fat in the chick food would go rancid.

In the Roaring 1920s Calvin Coolidge won election to the presidentcy on the slogan, "A car in every garage, and two chickens in every pot." I guess what we as a nation must decide now is do we wish to continue to feed Americans, and make everyone's life better by feeding them, or do we want to create a society like the one that exists say in Somalia, a society based on want, violence, death, and Persecution?

You mentioned a 1922 issue of Leghorn World magazine ... is this magazine still being published? I'm new to the chicken world and have brown leghors. I'd love to know more about them.

 

[chickengeorgeto]

You mentioned a 1922 issue of Leghorn World magazine ... is this magazine still being published? I'm new to the chicken world and have brown leghors. I'd love to know more about them.

I don't think that it is. But I do believe that his magazine is still on line at the University of Wisconsin at Madison or through Google Books.

You can also go to Harvard University's Gutenberg Project web sight and see if there are any old books on it about chickens or leghorns. It seems to me that I saw some books there about chickens. All the Gutenberg project's books are free for the reading.

http://books.google.com/books?id=_M...go#v=onepage&q=baby chicken toe punch&f=false

The above link is the only way that my PC will allow me to display the web address for Leghorn World.

Good luck with your leghorns.

 

[Almosta Farm]

Thanks!

 

[BrookeHutton]

Your chickens eat better than ME!!! lol! Do you find it expensive to feed chia etc? Id love to get away from GMOs (corn, soy and wheat) as in my own diet... but the organic feed is 3X the price AND I fear a large expense if I was to mix my own quality feed as you do! Im my efforts of self-sustainability, Im trying to cut costs as much as possible. My girls get lots of treats from the kitchen counter, so their diet is rich... but yes, Im interested in getting away from those other grains. How do you do it? (or do you simply have very pampered poultry? ?)
WAITNG FOR SPRING,
Broody Brooke

 

[DorothyH]

Great thread! Where would we look for animal grade whey? Thank you.

Hi Cedar. I don't feed my chickens anything that is lesser of a quality than I would eat myself because I eat their eggs. Even the grass-fed ground up raw "pet food" I get them is better meat than most Americans eat. I actually know someone who has cured themselves of diseases eating just the raw petfood I feed my chickens. If you were to buy whey that is only "pet grade" - I can just imagine what might be in that because whey is a pretty simple by-product of the cheese for humans industry. If you can't get raw grass-fed whey, then I'd use regular grass-fed and if you couldn't get that then just then plain whey from any normal source. Whey is the only thing I would feed that isn't raw and grass-fed, wild or organic because of the extreme need for the metionine. Everything else you can get from other sources but if you gotta do whey then ya just gotta - but make it decent quality or you might not get the same results I do anyway. Just one item in the diet that isn't perfect isn't going to make the difference but if you are feeding all sorts of cooked scraps with pesticides, AGEs and enzyme inhibitors and other toxins or feeding them chicken food that by my definition must be rancid no matter how "fresh" or the chickens don't get enough concentrated protein - even if you feed the whey and cayenne and tumeric I can't even guess if you will get the same results - but it's certainly better than not doing it in terms of health for the chickens. I kind of figured out lots of different pieces that when put together get me the results I want. If you pick one part here and there you might improve things or not, I don't really know. Part of it also might depend on genetics and other factors. I found that for my chickens the minimum that I had to do to keep them laying even when old and in all weather was the whey, my "treats" and enough concentrated protein - even if not "perfect" - but then the eggs did not taste nearly as good as the "ideal" that I think I've come to now. I realize that my chickens eat better than all but just a few hard-core humans eat - but their eggs are at the core of my diet and to me they are priceless - so only the best for my little egg machines.

That's a long answer - hope I didn't go off on a tangent too much.

 

[DorothyH]

Do you put anything liquid in the treats to make them stick together ? Would love recipe instructions

I soak the flax and they get goopy (for the lack of a better word) and that holds everything together. You want them to be able to break apart when you step on them or crush them somehow so you don't want there to be too much moisture, you want them to get to the point where they just hold together before putting them in the dehydrator.

I don't do recipes and I actually don't do concrete directions and I will never write a book (someone asked if there was a book). Someone pm'ed me and asked for a synopsis and recipes - so this will be my response to them too. Recipes and absolutes make little sense to me in terms of human or animal diets which will by necessity have to be different for different animals and locals and genetics. Also, variety is usually a good thing. I don't eat the same thing every day and neither do my chickens or dogs or cats. There are core foods - but always with at least some variety included. I have discovered in my experience that the key ingredients are:
1. Raw
2. Species specific
3. Free of chemicals, preservatives and additives
4. As close to natural state as possible which then includes eating/feeding animals that are raised by the same standards as this list. So, the cows, fish etc also must be from animals that ate raw species specific diets that where fresh and free of chemicals preservatives etc.
5. Include all known necessary nutrients from best sources possible.
6. Adapt diet to take into account specifics to changes due to breeding and genetic considerations.
7. Supplement to take into account any environmental negatives or disease states or individual peculiarities or life stages or stresses.

I have discovered that generally - feeding ANY raw species specific diet even ignoring any of the other considerations will almost always be better than processed foods. I've seen this with every animal including humans. This gives me faith that if I experiment - no matter how badly I do it will still be better than going to the feed store. I have found that feeding NOTHING but sprouted seeds my hens do better than on the best possible chicken feed. I will even once in a while feed a tiny bit of cooked foods if it has some rare ingredient that might perhaps have some trace element that might be good for them in it - but that is rare. I do however go out of my way to BUY them a variety of raw foods (last week it was persimmons for instance). Each batch of seeds is a different and each batch of treats is different. I will add whatever dried powders I have from my seasoning drawer that is older (I make these) or whatever leftovers from my garden that I dried and ground up to feed them (last week were kale green leaf stalks). Giving a recipe would only put you in a box that's in my opinion bad for you and your chickens. The principle is to make flax treats that have enough cayenne and tumeric to make the yolks very orange and then add anything else in there that you think would be good for your chickens or they would like. This next time I'm going to soak a bunch of tiny seeds and put them in there because my chickens don't like eating the tiny ones any more this season and I have a bunch of seeds laying around. During the cold front we've been having sometimes the chickens would even leave the sprouts and follow me around demanding more meat and fat so tiny seeds were the lowest thing on their list so got left behind. Things that they won't eat on their own I will throw into the treats so they don't go to waste. Sometimes it's about size and texture. I can use many things that would go to waste because of their texture by putting them into their treats. It's always changing - and I think that's best.

You can't do it wrong. Anything you make is 100 times (imho) better than doing nothing or feeding crushed up rancid superheated fats and proteins. Your chickens have a different home, eat different bugs and amounts of bugs and won't have all the same foods as mine do and will have different needs. If you just start playing around and trying things while watching and listening to your chickens as well as what you have available it becomes a really fun exploration. Don't worry. You don't need a recipe.

I realize this goes against almost everyone has learned for both themselves and for their animals, but really, I've found that it's more natural and better for them if you don't always follow a recipe. I believe if you follow the principles above you can do better than the "experts". Remember, the experts don't necessarily have the same goals you do. We aren't machines and neither are our chickens. Variety and interest within the bounds of natural and raw - it's all good. That's my little rant.

 

[canSttent]

So I slaughtered a 21 week old rooster, he weighs in just under 3lbs... What can I feed other than corn and soy, so they fatten up?? This small weight makes their diet seem incredibly expensive.

 

[pdirt]

Have you tried boosting their digestion with probiotics? Fermented feed will do this, in addition to the fermentation process will improve general nutrient quality of the feed.

 

[Rainey]

Found this thread searching for info on giving whey to chickens and read through it. Found it very helpful. We have goats for our own milk and cheese--give the whey to pigs May to October but wondered if we could give it to chickens the rest of the year--that was answered. Wasn't clear if it made a difference which kind of cheese the whey was left from. Year round we make a quick soft cheese with just vinegar to make it curdle. In late fall we have more time and make several kinds of hard cheese using cultures and rennet. Whey from those cheeses is used to make ricotta but then there is still whey left. Are all these types of whey equally good?

We also raise rabbits--fed forage through the growing season--grasses, weeds, brambles, willow and other woody things, clover etc. This winter we grew fodder out from wheat to feed along with hay, roots, and dried summer forage. Have just begun feeding offal from rabbit butchering to the hens which have been fed commercial feed as well as being in a coop built on a wagon frame with a yard underneath so they're on fresh greens spring through fall. Getting new chicks (from hatchery) this spring and want to raise them without the commercial ground up feed.

So what about feeding chicks naturally from the start? Can they manage the whole grains (wheat and/or oats) from the start if they are sprouted? or soaked in whey or milk? How big do they need to get before they can handle bugs and worms? What does one give them for protein at the start? I already know all the reasons why people recommend a "balanced chick starter feed". My goal is to start a flock fed a different way and hope to propagate our future chickens and that future generations will be better adapted to the more natural feed. Just trying to get started.