Newbie - Whole Grains

[paullad]

We are new chicken tenders and have a flock of 14 - 2 laying hens, 10 - 3 mo. olds and 2 month and a half olds. Can whole grains, nuts, seeds & beans be fed to all of them or do they need to be ground, cracked or otherwise processed first? Thanks!

 

[U_Stormcrow]

Beans need to be heat treated. Essentially all legumes and pulses do. Maybe that was done if they are dried, maybe it wasn't. Fresh beans shouldn't be fed at all. The heat treatment breaks down certain anti-nutritive properties.

Whole Grain feeds are all the rage with some (I am not among them). On the positives, being whole, they don't spoil nearly as quickly as processed feed. On the negative, birds tend to select favorites based on dominance in the flock pecking order, which usually results in very expensive feed producing nutritionally poorly fed birds, even if the mix itself is well designed. BYC has dozens, if not hundreds, of related posts. Homemade mixes from youtube videos and websites with those ingredients almost always have too much fat, and almost always are deficient in one or more amino acids, as well as several vitamins.

Assuming you are using a whole grain commercial feed, most of those problems are largely mitigated by serving as a sprouted or fermented feed - meaning soak them in water for a few days before serving (basically). and the fine powder at the bottom of the bag is likely the vitamin mix added to make a whole grain feed into a complete diet.

 

[Folly's place]

Right on all counts!
We have always fed either pelleted or crumbled feed from the store, checking mill dates to be sure it's fresh. After having poultry science and livestock nutrition classes in college, there's no way I'm going to make a complete feed at home!!! It would be more expensive and much more difficult to balance correctly.
Modern chickens are not wild jungle fowl, and we don't live in SE Asia.
Mary

 

[paullad]

After having poultry science and livestock nutrition classes in college

Considering that colleges still teach the food pyramid for human nutrition, I have almost no faith in what they teach.

 

[raingarden]

With the exception of baby formula, poultry nutrition may be better understood than human nutrition. It is difficult to do good controlled nutrition studies with humans because they won't stick to the plan and you cannot dissect them afterwards.

 

[U_Stormcrow]

With the exception of baby formula, poultry nutrition may be better understood than human nutrition. It is difficult to do good controlled nutrition studies with humans because they won't stick to the plan and you cannot dissect them afterwards.

Since poultry are being used as human analogues to study certain nutritionally-based pathologies, i would have to agree. Better understood than human at the moment.