Mixing in Supplements

[pennydog]

After reading Joel Salatin's book I bought everything in his recipe for chicken feed but end up with a question. The recipe calls for corn, roasted soybeans, oats and a few other ingredients including Fertrell Nutri-Balancer and Thorvin kelp. The Nutri-Balancer is small granules and the kelp is fine and dried.

The kelp has some ability to latch onto other food items but Nutri-Balancer just ends up in the bottom of their feed trough. Joel mentions to have your mill mix all of your fine ingredients before adding to to the rest but he is dealing with tons of food.

I've thought about adding a mist of veg oil but it just seems like I'm missing something?

 

[ChickensAreSweet]

I wouldn't worry too much- I'd just pour the dust from the bottom of the feeder on top of the feed and not add any more vitamins for that day if there was a lot left. Alternatively, you can moisten the feed for the day and toss it daily if they don't eat it all so it doesn't mold.

Churning the feed a lot inside the coop, by pouring it daily into another container, may be helpful, so as to keep it stirred and perhaps that would increase consumption.

I mix my feed too and have to mix in oyster shell and redmond mineral conditioner (sometimes I just offer the conditioner free choice though).

 

[pennydog]

ChickenAreSweet, thank you for the advice. I like the idea of re-adding the supplements back to the fresh food.

 

[pdirt]

Our feed has Nutribalancer and kelp granules in it as well. At first I just scooped the fines (probably mostly Nutribalancer and kelp) from their feeder and mixed with water or kefir and they gobbled it up, though it would take me a few weeks to go through the fines this way. Now I just ferment their feed and this solves the problem more easily.

You could also consider mixing in a bit of molasses to help coat the fines to the feed, but that might be a bit of a messy job!

 

[showinbirds]

I like to add a little oil, Olive oil is good for a chicken and makes a good binder.