Pellet Feed

[StevenW.]

I've been reading my duck books again and trying to find one breed of duck to keep.
And it said pellet feed is better than crumbled feed.
But one problem how much would this cost and where could I find it at, since our feed store doesnt sell it.
Do you think I should look at the other feed stores in town?

Thanks



P.S. You can make suggestions on which breed of duck I should get

 

[gofasterstripe]

To me crumble makes a darn mess everywhere and I think it smells too. I use Pellet feed from TSC and a 50# bag costs probably the same as a bag of crumble. If you are getting ducklings then their feed only comes in crumbles, thats what im feeding now but as they get older I turned mine onto pellets. I cant wait untill they are old enough to get away from crumbles.

 

[StevenW.]

Quote:
I agree with you the crumbles smell aweful and when its wet makes me wanna

We dont have TSC here but I wish we did

 

[pascopol]

Quote:
I agree with you the crumbles smell aweful and when its wet makes me wanna

We dont have TSC here but I wish we did

Crumbles smell aweful?

Then you should question quality and freshness od your feed.

I used to feed my birds crumble or pellets mostly Dumor brand (TSC) but that was junk.

Now I feed fresh custom ground bulk mash from local mill. It smells great it is superfresh and my birds love it.

When you buy bagged feed you never know how it was stored or how old it is. I had cases of moldy or spoiled bagged feed in the past.

If you do not have enough birds to justify buying fresh bulk feed from your local mill, try to share with other bird keepers in your area.

The only regret I have switching from bags to fresh bulk feed is that I did not try to do that years ago.

I also found that the crumbles takes much more volume (50lb bag is l much larger than 50lb of mash, meaning the crumble contains fillers and some compound (glue) to hold it together. Another word lots of garbage and junk you are feeding to your birds.

Sure there is some waste feeding mash since very small particles remain mostly uneated, but since it is much cheaper than bagged feed I do not complain since 30% gamebird crumbles are $18.00 for 50Lb bag, and I am paying $11.00 for 50lb of fresh made tasty mash, or $10.00 for 16% layer mash. Thats more than 40% savings!!!

My birds are happier, healtier and looking much beeter now than where they were fed bagged crumbles.

As long as I am able to buy fresh milled mash from local mill I will NEVER go back to bagged crumble again.

 

[gofasterstripe]

no not awful like it is off, out of date or anything. I found it to have a smell when it comes out the other end of the duck...quite a sickly sweet, god darn nasty smell. Its hard to explain

 

[StevenW.]

No its fresh and smells good when you open the bag and the feed is stored in a air tight container.

The ducks like to go to the water pan then to the feeder and they repeat that process a lot with 6 of them doing that at once makes the feed

 

[StevenW.]

Anyone else?

 

[treldib]

As ducklings I would go with Crumbles or mash as pellets are way too big. But once they are past the "teenage phase" I would put them on Layer Pellets.

I feed Purina Layena Pellets

 

[gofasterstripe]

I had my baby runners on crumble but had my big ducks on layer. When I started to intermingle them the runners would gobble up the layer pellets and they were only 6 weeks old. I used to run back outside if I forgot to lift the pellets and when id get there they would of eaten it all. It did them no hard at all, if anyhting it probably made them more bonkers than they already were.

 

[waterdog]

Any feed formula can be made as a mash crumble or pellet, as it all is ground into a mash then pelleted and lastly crumbled. It is just a matter of personal preference as how to feed it. With ducks it will be less "messy" feeding a pellet because they tend to carry it to the water and more of the crumbles will be spilt into the water than the pellets. We have also found with pheasants they don't waste as much as any dropped pellets will be picked up by them as the crumbles seem to just get scattered and not eaten. If you shop around you should be able to find a pelleted feed without to much trouble.