Making Feed at Home

[saysfaa]

"It is desirable to know the B12 content of the particular fish and meat products used, and this may be determined by laboratory assay. When such values are not available, an approximation of the B12 content can be calculated by assigning values of 40 micrograms of B12 per pound of fish meal, 70 per pound of fish soluables, and 15 per pound of meat scrap."

 

[U_Stormcrow]

i need to read all those page. and should have pit more data in my speadsheet

 

[saysfaa]

I think I have duplicates and missed pages. Give me a little while.

ok, they are all there once. Sorry 191 and 197 are out of order.

I think the pages in the two posts are all the book has on formulating rations. There is more sample rations for different ages/purposes and info related to feeding vs feeds (benefits of grinding some ingredients, why not too finely ground, and such). I'll try to look through it again in the morning, for anything I missed. I think much better in the morning. But can't promise, real life is really crazy here just now.

 

[Perris]

For those who want to give this a go, there is a relatively simple version in Ussery Small scale poultry flock 2011 appendix e (pp 350-2), which provides a feed formulation spreadsheet to show readers how to set one up for themselves, and talks the reader through it (inc the formulae) so they can adapt it to suit themselves.

 

[RoosterBird]

Wow great work
@U_Stormcrow I have 70 percent of these ingredients readily available
But don't know if we have durum wheat
I think we have Spring Wheat
You are doing great work

 

[U_Stormcrow]

I think I have duplicates and missed pages. Give me a little while.

ok, they are all there once. Sorry 191 and 197 are out of order.

I think the pages in the two posts are all the book has on formulating rations. There is more sample rations for different ages/purposes and info related to feeding vs feeds (benefits of grinding some ingredients, why not too finely ground, and such). I'll try to look through it again in the morning, for anything I missed. I think much better in the morning. But can't promise, real life is really crazy here just now.

you've been a huge help. i should have added tracking for a handful of vitamins in my spreadsheet too. will add them later. Just waking up, i am so sore this AM.

 

[U_Stormcrow]

I've now gone thru a ton of those old recipes. They (almost) all work because of a significant portion of meat scrap. Take it away, and the feed becomes grossly inadequate. The exceptions? No water is offered the chickens, only skim milk!

OK, some of the recipes call for dried whey, or buttermilk. But you get the point. They are also vastly superior (and far closer to what you would expect to find in a modern bag of All Flock/Flock Raiser than the couple "Make at Home" recipes I've now plugged in) to any all vegetable recipe.

@Perris care to share any of the recipes from that book? I don't have ready access to it.

@RoosterBird do you have any (loosely) "animal" sources of potential feed for your birds, like fish meal, blood meal, poultry by-product meal, etc? Also, do you have a source of either soybean meal, alfalfa meal, or peanut meal? The availability of any of those ingredieants at reasonable price will make it *much* easier to come up with something that works for you (or at least gets close, I'll leave it to you to calculate B vitains, niacin, manganese, etc - I'm not adding all that data to the spreadsheet today).

 

[RoosterBird]

I can have peanuts and Almonds and soybeans
But Alfalfa is expensive its like I can buy 4 fully grown hens for that cost of per kg alfalfa

 

[U_Stormcrow]

I can have peanuts and Almonds and soybeans
But Alfalfa is expensive its like I can buy 4 fully grown hens for that cost of per kg alfalfa

How about Soybean Meal? or Peanut Meal?

(basically, those are the dried, crushed up solids once most of the oils have been extracted) They are high protein, moderately low fat - raw nuts and beans generally need to be heat treated in some fashion to be safe for birds, that's already been done with the meals.

 

[RoosterBird]

Almonds are like Rs. 1000+ per kg
Dry fruits are expensive
But if we have to use like 100g then I can afford it