My opinion on Flock Raiser is this- no single food can optimally meet the needs of all types of birds. They may do adequately or even good, but that does not equal optimal. If a person has a mixed flock that is housed together or can't find other feeds, Flock Raiser is probably great. I think a lot of people, especially with large numbers of more than one species, can do better though. I have used it continuously since last Spring, but will probably phase out using it even though my birds did good on it.
There is nothing new under the sun. These "triple duty" type feeds have been done off and on for many years. If a person has to add other things to it to keep their different types of birds in their best condition, then it sort of defeats the whole purpose in my mind. In my opinion, Flock Raiser has excess protein for waterfowl and possibly inadequate niacin (the niacin is admittedly conjecture on my part so take it for what it is worth). If you peruse the waterfowl forums, most people are adding a grain (I use oats) and often something like Brewer's yeast to it.
It probably also has too little calcium to be optimal for laying hens, hence people are supplementing it in that regards. It also has less protein than most of the feeds formulated as turkey/gamebird, but I don't raise either so I am not sure what difference that makes. It basically attempts to be adequate for several species by sort of being in a middle ground between all the other more species specific feeds. Again, for a lot of people- that might be just fine or even good. For me personally, I think it defeats the whole purpose if I have to tweak it to make it work for different types of birds. Why not just buy different feeds? It seems just as easy to do that if you have access to different types of feeds and enough birds to mess with it.
