Producing your own chicken feed. Is it really that complicated?

[Penny Hen]

We all talk of protein. This nutrient is critical.

You can find almost any product, plant or grain used as feed ingredients at http://www.feedipedia.org/

My recipe is based on ingredient availability and cost. I blend to get not only protein butthe amino acid lysiene in ideal proportions

Adult chickens should have 15% protein and 6.2g/Kg Lyseine

My recipe is

100lb Rice Bran
1lb Tuna Fish Meal
1lb Soy
1/2 cup Bayer Vitamin and Mineral Supplement
2lbs Oyster Shell
1/2 cup salt

I save 40% over premade feed with this formula

Do you mix it yourself or have a feedmill mix it up for you and bag it?

 

[ozexpat]

Do you mix it yourself or have a feedmill mix it up for you and bag it?

we mix on farm.

The same recipe works for sows

I mix on a piece of plywood or tarp

 

[MacCana]

And your birds lay really well on this? Your ingredients are far simpler than some would make it out to be. That would be nice to be able to make my own
I'm just kinda jumping on board here to see what all comes up. I'm not satisfied feeding my flock layer pellets.

 

[ozexpat]

The feed that I give contains all the nutrients needed. I have been feeding my chickens and pigs the feed for over a year. My sows are pregnant, chickens are laying and eggs are hatching.

Now if you are "anti-soy" or "anti-gmo" then you may have to spend some effort replacing the soy meal.

It's not that hard one you understand the science of nutrition. Three are oodles of publications on Google that describe requirements

 

[Chris09]

The feed that I give contains all the nutrients needed. I have been feeding my chickens and pigs the feed for over a year. My sows are pregnant, chickens are laying and eggs are hatching.

Now if you are "anti-soy" or "anti-gmo" then you may have to spend some effort replacing the soy meal.

It's not that hard one you understand the science of nutrition. Three are oodles of publications on Google that describe requirements

What the kcal ME/kg of your mix?

 

[ozexpat]

You can convert to kcal but in MegaJoules/kg dry matter its 20.1 without incorporating oyster shell in computation and 19.8 with it.

Rice bran is 20.2
Soy 19.7
Fish meal is 20.4
Maize is 18.7

When copra meal is cheap then I will relace 10% of the rice bran with copra meal (coconut meat that had the oil expressed from it.)

With pigs you can replaced 30% and ruminants up to 50% but chicken can't handle more than 10%.

 

[pdirt]

I would suggest adding another higher-protein grain or seed (or pseudograin) such as quinoa, amaranth, or split peas. I'm definitely not a chicken expert, but I do understand nutrition, so these are what I'd suggest in terms of human foods. I also give my girls scraps from the table, which includes things such as leftover bits of (cooked) fish or beef from dinner and throw the shells of any eggs I cook in the oven whenever I roast something and then crush it and put it in a separate container for them so they can get calcium. Also, soaking, sprouting, and fermenting helps to break down the enzyme inhibitors that protect the seed and grain, which makes the nutrients a lot more available for absorption for your chickens. It's an easy way to reduce the amount of feed you need to give them (they get fuller more quickly) and a cheap way to increase the quality of their food. Once you get a batch fermented, it's really as simple as replacing whatever feed you scoop out of the current batch with some fresh feed, topping off with filtered water if necessary, so the helpful bacteria is still going at all times.

With soaking or fermenting, what about the added water soluble vitamins in chicken feed? Aren't these broken down by the soaking/fermenting process? Ideal would be to mix your own feed and add a premix after soaking/fermenting, but what about folks who use formulated feed? I've been wondering about this one...so many benefits to the fermenting process, but how much is lost because the premix is already mixed in?

I'm asking theophila because she's specifically mentioned fermenting, but I'd be interested in hearing from anyone else as well who has experience with fermenting feeds.

 

[Chris09]

With soaking or fermenting, what about the added water soluble vitamins in chicken feed? Aren't these broken down by the soaking/fermenting process? Ideal would be to mix your own feed and add a premix after soaking/fermenting, but what about folks who use formulated feed? I've been wondering about this one...so many benefits to the fermenting process, but how much is lost because the premix is already mixed in?

I'm asking theophila because she's specifically mentioned fermenting, but I'd be interested in hearing from anyone else as well who has experience with fermenting feeds.

There are a number of vitamin and minerals that are water soluble and proteins can start to become less useful if left in water very long also.

I myself soak hard to digest fibrous grains like Oats and Boss.
Soaking allows the harder to digest fibrous grains to be easer digest and does not take as long as fermenting so there is less nutrient breakdown/ loss.

 

[theophila]

With soaking or fermenting, what about the added water soluble vitamins in chicken feed? Aren't these broken down by the soaking/fermenting process? Ideal would be to mix your own feed and add a premix after soaking/fermenting, but what about folks who use formulated feed? I've been wondering about this one...so many benefits to the fermenting process, but how much is lost because the premix is already mixed in?

I'm asking theophila because she's specifically mentioned fermenting, but I'd be interested in hearing from anyone else as well who has experience with fermenting feeds.

Vitamins are just a name for groupings of organic compounds (organic as related to life, not in the hippy sense) and are different for every animal. When I ferment, I am fermenting whole foods, not crumble, and I still provide dry feed free choice, garden vegetables, and table scraps, and let them roam and scratch about. A lot of the vitamins in feed are produced either synthetically or released via fermentation. "Water-soluble" just means what it dissolves in and how the body absorbs it, not how it breaks down (as a REALLY basic example, table salt is water-soluble, but it doesn't get destroyed by sitting in liquid). For human nutrition, for example, fermentation actually helps release vitamin C and B-complex vitamins (both water soluble). Some compounds are obviously more volatile than others, but it depends on the conditions.

The bigger worry about overdoing it is with fats and proteins. Among other things, fermentation helps with breaking down proteins, carbs, and fats into their components (e.g., amino acids) for absorption by the body, but eventually you can completely denature the protein, as pointed out above by @Chris09. Don't do it for too long, and feed a variety. Think kimchi or pickles, not vinegar.

 

[theophila]

Oh, and before he gets on my arse about it because of selective reading, I'm not saying that amino acids are a component of fats or carbs, just using them as an example of the products of fermentation.