Making Feed at Home

[RoosterBird]

Somwone please guide me how to make a good feed at home as it is difficult to find good feed for my chickens
I want to use
Wheat, maize, rice, corn, millet or any other grain mixture which is better
Tell me quantity ratio please

 

[U_Stormcrow]

Beyond my skills, no knowing what you have available, or pricing/budget. There may be a language issue, as well - here "corn" and "maize" are the same thing.

Superficially, you can't make a complete feed with any combination of the things listed. Protein levels are too low, even before considering essential amino acid profile of the protein, mineral content, and trace nutrients.

Here in the US, the generally accepted targets for adult layers is 16% protein (18-20% is prefered), 3-4% fat, fiber recommendations vary considerably, but 3-4% is again a good target. If you can offer supplimental calcium (crushed oyster shell, calcium diphosphate, dicalcium phoshate) you don't need to concern yourself with that in the feed. Our freinds across the pond make due with lower protein % (13-15%) by adding synthetic amino acids - not available for home use.

So, accepting that there is variation between crops, and sources of nutrition data vary, we can still offer a general gloss of what you have to work with there.

Wheat grains are around 12.5% protein, 2.6% fiber, 2% fat.

If you can get durum wheat, its about 16.5% protein, 3% fiber, 2% fat

Maize/Corn is 8.5-9.5% protein, 2.5% fiber, 4.5% fat

(Finger) Millet is around 9% protein, 5.5-6% fiber, 1.5% fat

(Brown) Rice is around 10.5% protein, 2.0% fiber, 2.0-2.5% fat

I understand Pakistan grows a decent amount of rape for making oil, and also barley. Rapeseed forage is high protein, 19-20%, high fiber 16% +/-, low fat 2%. Barley grains are about 12% protein, 5% fiber, 2% fat. Also something called "gram" seeds? My source indicates that's around 24% protein, 6.5% fiber, 1.5% fat. If you can get spent brewers grains, dried, that's another high protein source with most of the sugars removed.

Essentially, you are looking to balance some combination of the above, targeting the numbers I offered, an amino acid profile I've not yet offered, and a total daily caloric intake as well.

Making feed at home is hard - we can't do it here efficiently, effectively, or at reasonable cost. For you, I don't see how you get close to targets without mixing some combination of hard wheat, maize/corn, dried rapeseed forage, and black gram seeds. While I could play with the ratios, and hit theinitial targets, without kjnowing cost per pound, no way to guess if its economical - no point in continuing to make up an amino acid profile to see if it checks those boxes, too. Chances are, it would not. Likely not on trace minerals either.

 

[saysfaa]

From poultry management textbook published in 1952. The book has much, much, more information on nutrition and feeding than just these few pages. Even the whole book is NOT better than poultry feeds currently available in the US.

Partly because more is known about nutrition (notice quote from page 341, "Animal proteins. These products serve as a source of protein, minerals, vitamin B12, and at least one other still-unidentified nutrient."

Partly because chickens have changed. This book says published records of egg-laying tests "reveals the tremendous progress"... 1919 1,000 birds entered into one of the leading contests laid an average of 145.5. Same test is 1947, the average was 228.2. Today, most backyard hens will lay an egg almost every day.

And partly it is because the nutrient value of many plants had decreased due to selecting for other characteristics - like flavor, size, and production.

This is almost certainly better than the vast majority of rations you will find online. If I did not have access to chicken feed, I would choose a breed that was not a top producer and then select for the ability to forage and the ability to adjust production in response to diet. And do a lot of research.

 

[RoosterBird]

I am located in Pakistan
Till now I am using feed for chickens, but I don't think so its good quality
I want to make some good feed with better quality
As many of the feeds are given to broiler chicken

 

[U_Stormcrow]

@U_Stormcrow this looks like a very useful spreadsheet! I am feeding my chicken with Cockspur grass and I have tested the gluten and protein levels of it in a lab - 11.13% protein. Same as wheat here.
I am also feeding my chicken with eggs and meaworms, but I think the spreadsheet is only for grains, right?
I recently discovered chickpeas are the same price as wheat here, but have not tested in a lab the protein levels, as there were only two bags in the shop anyway and they didn't expect a new batch soon

Chickpeas are good for protein as a raw number, they are high in fiber and fat (though not as high as a seed of course). In spite of the high protein top line number, they are very low in methionine - you will need to compensate elsewhere, and its one of the hardest nutritional elements to compensate for. They are, on the other hand, good source of Lysine, and an average or better source of Threonine.

Raw chickpeas, like every other similar field pea or bean (grams, generally) have some trypsin inhibtors and tannin concerns which have anti-nutritive properties. Recommend cooking to minimize those, and not to exceed 20% of the total diet, not exceeding 10% would be better (according to studies linked on Feedipedia.org - egg layers are less affected by higher chickpea inclusion than meaties, because weight gain is of lesser concern in layers...)

 

[Ascholten]

Mine fly into the 5 gallon bucket while I'm carrying it, and dive head first. If I set it down to fill it, some will STILL try to goble it up, the fall of water on their bodies notwithstanding! and once its mash, of course they will try and stand int he bucket, as I am caqrrying it to feed locations, then happily pick mash from between their toes

You know, I read these replies about how our girls act and all I can say is thank GOD that there are not often strangers around when we feed them. With these antics they'd swear these birds are starving and we haven't fed them in a week!

HONEST Officer !! She ALWAYS chews through the barbed wire fence to get breakfast... Ummm Hmmm... step this way please...

Aaron

 

[Ascholten]

That's the worst thing about the metal cans. You might as well ring a bell.

But it's Plastic !!
So ... YES. that little soft tick !! when the lid unsnaps. They got bionic ears Im tellin ya!

 

[saysfaa]

I found a 1982 Feeds and Feeding college textbook this morning. I wish it had turned up sooner, it is late to contribute here but for anyone interested...

It has a table for "composition of feeds" too. That table covers both as-fed and dry on a % basis for: dry matter, ash, crude fiber, estee extract, n-free extract, and crude protein; and various other basises for several kinds of energy, N, Ca, P, and carotene for various classes of cattle and swine. Not poultry, though, and it is a lot of pages.
There are also more pages for the table of mineral composition.

I know we had a huge feeds book back when we were balancing rations for the dairy. It was a good two inches thick at least, of thin paper. It was oversize by a good bit and fine print with few pictures. That was fascinating for the extent of feeds in it and detail of composition and quirks of using it for each feed and the extent of the the variety of animal types it covered. It is gone now, though.
This one barely covers the basics. It is better than nothing.

 

[Kiki]

Here is a book to read:

https://www.nap.edu/catalog/2114/nutrient-requirements-of-poultry-ninth-revised-edition-1994

 

[U_Stormcrow]

Forgot the link.....

https://www.gardenbetty.com/homemade-whole-grain-chicken-feed-updated-and-now-corn-free/

Please don't send traffic to Garden Betty, her feed recipes are terrible for your birds, and her feed calculator is populated with data which can't be validated - I have no idea where she sourced it from, but in the main, I've found it to overstate the nutritional quality of many ingredients.

Use Feedipedia.org instead* - not because its definitively the best, but because I has a lot of data - so you can can't be accused of cherry picking, and because if you know how to read the data, they show the range of nutritional variation and the number of samples used to arrive at their data. *Unless you have a guaranteed nutrition label on your package, such as with Fertrell's products.

Finally, don't use "1/2 Parts". Yes, i can do the math, but the whole point of a "part" recipe is that it works for whatever measure you have handy - a cup, a bucket, a barrel, a bag, a coffee can... A half measure isn't always available.