Pellet vs Free Range/Foraging

[Shadrach]

How many of you actually came from a farming background?

When I’m talking about farming, I mean having a patch of green earth and livestock that lives off the green earth. There is no major harvesting of grains and this or that being left or any sort of complicated operation. You stake off a defined area and turn the animals out and check on them once or twice a day. They do the rest. That’s how livestock farming has been for the average dirt farmer in history.

Every animal I have, except my dogs, lives off what the land provides. Grass, bugs, weeds, small animals. The land provides those things and that’s what my livestock eats. I throw the free range chickens a few handfulls of crumbles a day. Such a small amount that a single 50lb bag could last me months over 50+ birds. My cows get a mineral block once every month or two depending on how fast they eat and lick it down.

My land is not magic. Its some of the harshest farmland in the eastern US. The only benefit I have is that it doesn’t snow here, but we do have multiple freezes that kill back the succulent greenery and insects.

The reason my animals can live here is I picked tough animals that were historically raised like this.

The only animals I have that take a lot of money and time each day are my coop chickens that I raise as a hobby to breed to show standards. I’m about to go tend them. It will take all of 5 minutes to check the free range flock and the cows and 30 minutes or more to feed and water all the coops. If the feed stores ever dried up, I’d be turning out the coop birds to fold in with the free rangers and they’d either sink or swim. And my feed bill would drop to virtually nothing.

I have a farming background.

 

[saysfaa]

Some posters have placed great importance on the idea of a balanced feed.
Obviously the term balanced implies some ratio between componants that must be kept to ensure this balance.
The main arguement in these debates is commercial feed will provide this balance while forage/treats may not.
So which of these feeds is balanced?
There is a large difference in the composition of commercial feeds with no apparent ratio maintained between the componants.

Where is the large differences?
The grower feeds have less calcium than the layer feeds. Otherwise: they have nearly the same amounts of all the nutrients listed: protein (each amino acid), fiber, lipids, sodium, and phosphorus.

Some nutrients have very narrow windows where they are neither deficient nor toxic. Most have windows that are pretty wide, though.

If you mean differences in the amounts of each additive, that is because the main ingredients were tested. The amounts of each nutrient vary, even in the same species, because of the ground it was grown in, the weather while it grew, whether it was under ripe or over rip, how it was stored after harvest, and so on.

 

[U_Stormcrow]

Where is the large differences?
The grower feeds have less calcium than the layer feeds. Otherwise: they have nearly the same amounts of all the nutrients listed: protein (each amino acid), fiber, lipids, sodium, and phosphorus.

Some nutrients have very narrow windows where they are neither deficient nor toxic. Most have windows that are pretty wide, though.

Yes, poster offered a number of labels, for a number of different purposes, then posits that the differences suggests they are somehow inferior or "unbalanced", and offers up as superior the nutritional value of any pasture, of any size, for any amount of time free ranging, in any climate and any location. Guaranteed nutritional analysis: UNKNOWN.

That's (part of) why I stepped of this thread.

...and Bullfrog's land in FL, in many ways, is better than my own. Though small differences in average temps make mine suited for some crops his is not, just as Bullfrog can [edit] likely [/edit] raise some things I can't (citrus as one example). Similarly, my (likely) greater elevation makes my property more suited to certain moisture sensative crops than his own, while his is likely better suited to shallow rooting vegetable crops. Though that's speculation on my part, based on my knowledge of the state in which I've lived more than 40 years, and the ways in which my acreage differ from most of the state.

 

[Shadrach]

Where is the large differences?
The grower feeds have less calcium than the layer feeds. Otherwise: they have nearly the same amounts of all the nutrients listed: protein (each amino acid), fiber, lipids, sodium, and phosphorus.

Some nutrients have very narrow windows where they are neither deficient nor toxic. Most have windows that are pretty wide, though.

I won't go through them all.
0.29% compared to 0.37% is a large difference.
To make this clearer remove the zero and decimal point you get 29% and 37%.
If ones pay packet increased by 8% most would consider this as a substantial pay rise.

 

[Geena]

Climate matters. You don't have a long snowy winter. It makes an enormous difference to your animals, and also to your knowledge and assumptions about how animals can be and should be raised.

Yep, it's a huge difference that perhaps a Floridian cannot appreciate. I'm not even that far north and there are at least four months of the year where chickens would have little to nothing to eat. That's why so many birds migrate south for the winter.

 

[NatJ]

0.29% compared to 0.37% is a large difference.

Yes, but:

Some nutrients have very narrow windows where they are neither deficient nor toxic. Most have windows that are pretty wide, though.

This would be one of those nutrients with a wide window. Both amounts are less than toxic, but high enough to avoid deficiencies.

 

[U_Stormcrow]

Yes, but:


This would be one of those nutrients with a wide window. Both of amounts are less than toxic, but high enough to avoid deficiencies.

and the poster is comparing Met levels, the amino acid hardest to obtain in quantity from green matter sources - with the highest Met level feed being formulated for ducks, geese, and chickens (it likely also has a higher niacin level - or should) with a pair of "layer" formulations, intended for a different purpose, a broiler formulation, and what looks like a grower or flock raiser (based on calcium levels).

 

[Shadrach]

Yes, but:


This would be one of those nutrients with a wide window. Both of amounts are less than toxic, but high enough to avoid deficiencies.

Okay. So we can agree that there is some latitude in these componants.
How about Protein. There are feeds containing 12% to 28% that I've seen, Calcium from less than 1% tp 6% etc etc.
All I'm trying to point out is there is a large variation in what gets described as balanced feeds.
Some feeds are more suitable for some keeping circumstances and breeds than others.
To take an extreme example there is no way that an all flock feed with 1% calcium can be considered a balanced feed for laying hens.
Commercial feeds here in the UK range from 14% protein to over 20%.
I don't see many posters suggesting feeding chickens the 14% feed I assume because it's not thought that 14% is enough protein. The often recommended percentage protein is 18%.
Is the 14% feed balanced?

 

[Geena]

Okay. So we can agree that there is some latitude in these componants.
How about Protein. There are feeds containing 12% to 28% that I've seen, Calcium from less than 1% tp 6% etc etc.
All I'm trying to point out is there is a large variation in what gets described as balanced feeds.
Some feeds are more suitable for some keeping circumstances and breeds than others.
To take an extreme example there is no way that an all flock feed with 1% calcium can be considered a balanced feed for laying hens.
Commercial feeds here in the UK range from 14% protein to over 20%.
I don't see many posters suggesting feeding chickens the 14% feed I assume because it's not thought that 14% is enough protein. The often recommended percentage protein is 18%.
Is the 14% feed balanced?

You are confusing balanced with optimal.

 

[Shadrach]

You are confusing balanced with optimal.

Okay, want to have a go at defining either with respect to this topic?