Purina Start & Grow vs The Brown Bag Chick Starter

[Eggcessive]

I have been collecting the white tags off feed that I have tried or just looked at (the clerks would give them to me) and I think some of the protein percentages in above posts may be wrong. Dumor is 20 %, Purina Start and Grow is 18%, Nutrena 18%, Southern States 19%, and Purina Flockraiser is 20%. Anything over 20% and you are probably buying gamebird feed. I personally like the Purina products because there is less powder and the chickens eat it better. I take any powder remaining, put a little water in it, and it is gone quickly. They like it better than crumbles, but I only mix enough for that day to prevent mold.

 

[onthespot]

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I have to disagree with the Nutrina, and maybe I just got a bad batch, but mine was over half a bag of powder and none of the chickens liked the food. I normally feed Dumore- the 24% grower, or Purina flock raiser, but I saw Nutrina on sale for almost $2.00 a bag cheeper, so like a dummy I bought 200# of both the chick grower and layer. The hens wouldn't hardly eat the layer, and the chick grower as I said was almost all powder, I ended up mixing it with some water and giving it to my 3 month od pullets as a mush mixed with some scratch. I was not happy, and will not buy it again I don't care how cheep it is.

Whew! Sounds like your feed store had old feed that had been hit by bugs and gone through until even the bugs were done with it! Sorry to hear of your experience with Nutrena. Maybe you should talk to your feed store about it, and/or let Nutrena know, because that is not their normal feed quality. Maybe the store knew it was old and crummy is why they knocked the price down.

 

[OvertheHenHouse]

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I checked the Purina label and it's 18%. My chicks seem to like the texture better - it's a little chunkier and what they had before was very powdery. You should have seen their gullets after they discovered the Purina in their feeder! Thanks for the idea about mixing powder and water - I bet my kids will really like that.

 

[Azriel]

The 24% Dumore that I use is for Turkeys, Quail, Pheasant exct. but my chicks do very well on it and really like it, i also mix it with Flock raiser for the adult birds and have free chioce oyster shell on the side. I have found they grow very well on it, and don't have to hang arround the feeder all the time. My pullets started laying at about 16 weeks, and the extra roos that went to the freezer dressed out at 5.5-6# at the same age.