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There are many benefits to feeding your poultry some source of animal proteins. The biggest one is the various amino acids. Poultry are omnivores, that means, they eat pretty much everything, meat, vegetables, all sorts of things. And there are some amino acids that are only available in natural sources from actual animal proteins: lysine and methionine are the two most important to poultry (for humans, I will not that we are unable to synthesize carnatine without sources of animal protein, so vegetarians are encouraged to take a carnatine suppliment.) But I digress.
Most "vegetarian" poultry feeds suppliment with synthetic forms of lysine and methionine. This has been the subject of threads here before, and some people have posted links to studies which "prove" that there is no difference between the natural sources and the synthetic sources. All I can go by is my own personal experience. And in my experience, when I feed my chickens feed with no animal proteins, I see a negative affect, primarily in the feather quality, but also in overall health and in the amount of feather picking.
When I first started out here in KY with poultry, I was buying Southern States feed. It had no animal proteins. My birds picked at each other a lot, some to the point where I had to cull a couple (they had more than adequate space, so that wasn't it.) Based on some research, and after a very long phone call with a feed expert at the Southern States headquarters, I changed their feed and added in animal proteins. Nothing else changed, yet the feather picking went away and hasn't come back. So despite the "expert studies" saying that synthetic sources of amino acids are sufficient for poultry health, I will never feed my birds a vegetarian-only diet. Of course, everyone's situation is different, and should anyone else choose to do so, I would not say they were doing something wrong, I just know what I do is right for me and my birds.
Some feeds that contain animal protein include: Tiz Wiz, Kent (my personal favorite, but no longer carried locally), and Buckley. Dumor used to, but I don't think it does any more, and several years ago they changed the Dumor formulation, putting something into it (molasses?) that made it much darker, smellier, and made my chickens feces smell horrible. So I don't use it except as a last resort.
I am currently using Purina mixed with Buckley, am waiting for the Buckley rep in OH to send me a shipment of their "show bird" feed for me to try. I love my
TSC store, but I won't use Purina exclusively, as it is vegetarian only (and I am pretty sure it has soy in it, don't know how they'd get the protein levels right without it.)
You can add animal protein into your feed in any number of ways. Some people use fish or fish meal, but do so with care, as the taste of the eggs can be impacted if you use too much (been there, done that!)
You can buy cheap ground beef, fry it, and feed it to your birds. You can hard boil any extra eggs you have, mash them up and feed them to the birds with the shells included (they love hard boiled eggs!), or you can do what I and others do, and feed dry cat food in small amounts to your birds. I know there are some people who really hate that last option, and there are some issues with it that I will not argue. But it's cheap, it's easy, and it works really well. My birds thrive with it, and I find it works for us.
Hope that answers your questions.
Thank you for your reply.
Yes fowl are ominvores.
Never had the pecking problem you mentioned. We expand each flocks area exponentially from what is recomended here as a per sq ft area per bird as they grow. As well, they pasture over several fenced electrified acres. Could they not get "lysine and methionine are the two most important to poultry" naturally? Ours seem to.
We feed in this manner:
Layena in exclusive feeders.
Whole corn in exclusive feeders
Scratch mixed with black oil sunflower at 60-40 mix about 1.5 hrs before roost
Ground eggs with shell ( if we have any)
Layena is the last feeder(s) refilled. Whole corn is the first. We use the scratch mix to call every one home so to speak.
Our pastures have been grown organically/naturally since 1990. Several varieties of local to our area grasses grown year round and allowed to seed out. Fertilized with 4 applications of humates (applied in liquid form). Every large rain we get you can see the below ground earthworms rise to the surface and create their mounds. As well there are several varieties of ants along with all the insects.
Did the Dumor thing and won't again.
Our coops are ventilated 24/7 no matter the weather. No artificial light.
This is our flock(s) raising formula. All are healthy and thrive.
To answer the list of ingerdients for Layena:
Crude Protein (MIN): 16.0000%
Lysine (MIN): .5500%
Methioine (MIN): .2500%
Crude Fat MIN): 2.500%
Crude Fiber (MAX): 7.000%
Calcium (MIN): 3.2500%
Calcium (MAX): 4.2500%
Phosphorus (MIN): .5000%
Salt (MIN): .3000%
Salt (MAX): .8000%
Manganese (MIN): 175.0000 PPM
Vitamin A (MIN): 3000,00 IU/LB
Vitamin E (MIN): 10.00 IU/LB
Minimum
Maximum
Would be the percentage of error per bag in processing
PPM= parts per million
IU/LB International units per pound
Ruminant meat and bone meal free
Ingredients from:
Grain products, processed grain products, plant protein products, calcium carbonate, molasses products, monocalcium phosphate, dicalcium phosphate, salt, tagetes extract, choline chloride, vitamine e supplement, riboflavin supplement, calcium pantohenate, manganous oxide, vitamin d3 supplement, vitamin b-12 supplement, vitamin a supplement, niacin supplement, dl-methionine, menadione dimethylpyimidinol bisulfite (source of vitamin k), folic acid, zinc oxide, copper sulfate, calcium iodate, sodium selenite.
As omnivores, chickens will eat what they lack in their diet no matter the source.
