Kind of a newbie/looking to make my own chicken food

[sourland]

Good morning, and welcome to BYC.

 

[Rose Quartz]

The recipe my friend uses is

Fill 2 gallon bucket to top with strained fermented wheat grain. Dump into a larger bin to mix.

Add 8 handfuls dry ground hemp. Take out the pellets and put them in the cold room for later use. If using wet hemp 2 - 3 scoops about a handful size.

Crab meal 1 mug

Seaweed 1 or 2 handfuls.

Mix well.

She was feeding about 7lbs every day to her 3 geese, 13 ducks, and 8 chickens. What was mixed lasted about 3 days.

 

[Winter Creek Coop]

I mix my own scratch and then ferment it with kefir as my starter. I feed this as the primary ration to my flock. They free range all day and that foraging seems to cover any deficiencies in my ration if there are any. My chickens do really well this way and it is cheaper. I buy a totes of wheat cleanings(mostly wheat with some weed seeds and chaff) as the base and add other bulk and bagged grains such as milo, oats, corn, sunflowers. This year my friend grew some organic non-gmo soybeans. So I bought a tote of those. You have to roast them first but thats not hard. I do a barrell worth at a time. My orchard pigs get the same fermented scratch mix to supplement the grass in the orchard.

Works well for me and saves money. More importantly my animals thrive on it. The foraging is an important aspect of my way though. That covers the micronutrients and such.