BlacksheepCardigans
Songster
I have now used just about all the brands available to me (Blue Seal, DuMor, Purina, and Poulin) and keep coming back to the Poulin. It's by far the most appetizing to the chicks and it's a much better and more uniform crumble than any of the others. Blue Seal is a true mash - everything comes the way it's ground, so it varies from a powder to a cracked-corn size. Purina is a crumble (a pelleted food that's then ground again) but there's no uniformity of grind. I'm always fighting the powder (which the chicks don't like as much) or finding whole or half pellets still left in there. And I got runny poops and pasty bottoms on Purina. Poulin is a nice uniform size and the chicks spend more time eating it and less time scratching through it looking for the tasty bits. And in half a day, no more dirty bottoms. Poulin is also the only one that's not medicated; they put prebiotics in it that encourage good gut bacteria so cocci have a much harder time taking hold. I don't mind medicated feed but I'm happy to avoid it when there's something that works just as well and is not controversial.
