Scratch and Peck Feed

[OC Chick]

I'm on my second 40 lb bag of Scratch and Peck grower feed for my 4 14 week old pullets. I too like that the grains are in a less processed state, but I've been struggling with what to do with the powder because they don't eat it and that is where the protein they need is. I've tried fermenting, mixing it with yogurt, and mixing it with oatmeal but my picky chickies wouldn't eat it. This morning I decided to make "protein bars" with the leftover powder to see if my girls would eat it. I took the powder in the bottom of their trough feeder and put int into a mixing bowl. I added 1 egg & it's shell, 1/4 cup of dried meal worms, 2 tablespoons of coconut oil & enough water to make it all stick together & baked it at 400* for 30 minutes. I was a little worried as this was my last ditch effort before having to switch feed brands and I really like S&P, but thankfully the girls were literally gobbling it out of my hands. They pecked the large chunks I set out for them, but next time I may crumble it up for them. It literally took 3 minutes to make. I"m thinking I feed them dry Scratch & Peck for three days & then take the leftovers & make these protein bars to serve for the next couple of days and see how they do. No eggs yet so I don't have anything to judge by with how well this works, but I'm grateful that they are finally eating the protein.

 

[OC Chick]

Ok. I am a Newby, where do I find scratch n peck? How do I ferment the feed I am using. I am using Nutra layer pellets, they love it wet. It's like after it rains they attach the feeder. They do not have a covered area. Only their coop.

I'm in Southern California and most of the feed stores around here carry it. I would google search feed stores in your surrounding areas and call and see if they carry it. You can also try the Scratch and Peck website scratchandpeck.com to see if you can order directly from them. Not sure how much shipping is. . .

 

[karlamaria]

Im sad to say scratch and peck is no longer worth the price. I have noticed more and more powder in there feed , and today i literally sifter over 19 pounds of powder out of a 40 pound bag . I filled two ten pound feeders and what was left over was powder, nothing more then a bin full of powder ! When you spend over 27.00 and get only two ten pound feeders from a 40 lb bag its clearly a waste of money. I noticed more and more powder in the feed over the last year, and today when i opened up a new bag i was shocked at how much powder was in it. Sorry azure Standard, you get an F on quality for price paid. I buy 5 bags a month, what im getting for my buck is not much ! , !

 

[karlamaria]

I was wondering why my chickens were loosing weight! The powder clogged everything and with the price the waste is way to much. I will never buy this food again because of the price and the fact my birds were actually starving ! I used a colander , when i screened the holes were very small. The powder is ridiculous and when i talked to many folks on facebook they saw this as a reason they stopped buying it also. I will seek else where to buy a better product.. My girls deserve a real food with out trying to get past the dust, the powder , and work through all that to find the grains.

 

[karlamaria]

I began fermenting it, they like it ,so all is well. Im in the learning process so we shall see. Im not used to having to wet feed etc, but if thats what it takes ok.

 

[pdirt]

It's been a while since I used S&P feed, but I never noticed much of a powder issue. After 2-3 bags of it, there would be several cups of the powder in the bottom of the treadle feeder, which I would mix with water or kefir and feed back to them which they gobbled down. But nothing like 1/2 of the bag like someone here mentioned.

As for fermenting it, S&P uses Fertrell Nutri-Balancer as the vitamin/mineral pre-mix. I wrote to one of the Fertrell Nutritionists and asked him about fermenting feed with Fertrell Nutribalancer in it. He said he would not recommend putting the Nutribalancer through the fermentation process. He did not say why. I do know that especially B vitamins will break down when they get wet, though I don't know how quickly. Fermentation can also create some B vitamins, but I don't know enough about all this to know if there is a loss or gain of vitamins via fermentation. Mind you, I love fermenting things generally.

Mind you, this would apply to any feed with a pre-mix, not just Fertrell's. I mentioned Fertrell only because I had communicated with the company about fermenting their product.

But yes, S&P if very good feed. It's been minimally processed, so the nutrients will be fresher. as soon as you start grinding up grains, they will start to degrade. I think generally most feeds (cracked/ground/pelleted/etc) should be used within 3 months of processing. Not sure on the shelf life of S&P, but I never had a bag of it that older than 6 weeks anyways.

 

[squib2000]

Just got my first shipment of Scratch and Peck Layer feed today, I put it in the feeder and my hens went nuts for it. As to how it will affect egg production, i will add to this over the next few weeks and give updates.

my first thoughts:

- The feed looks amazing, whole grain, looks like scratch, which they love
- there is a a bit of power, but i am told it is crucial and by design, i only noticed it because someone mentioned it
- it is a bit pricey,i got it for $30 a 40 lb bag (75¢ a pound) , or I could get a 50 lb (50¢ a pound) bag non-organic pellets at my local feed store for around $25. so its about a quarter more a day for me.
- i bought it in bulk, 240 lbs, i hope they like it, because its what they are going to eat for the foreseeable future.
- it is organic and non-gmo plus corn and soy free, is that important, that is up to you.

if you live in the midwest azurestandard.com is a good place to get it

also, slightly off subject, i got a little giant gravity feeder, and i love it, it was around $40, it seems to keep them from tossing feed everywhere like crazy chickens.

 

[pdirt]

We finally went back to Scratch n Peck feed after nearly a year on a different feed. The other feed we used was cheaper and supposed to be "not sprayed with chemicals and pesticides". I finally called the company and asked the owner and his answer was "the farmers don't use any unnecessary chemicals". Well "unecessary" is WAY open to interpretation, which was not good enough for me and he was rather defensive about it, so I lost trust in the company. Otherwise, it was a good feed, but not as good as S&P. S&P is largely superior (in addition to being organic) due to the fact they use Fertrell fish meal, a high quality protein source.

Anyways, after having been off S&P for a while, I now notice (we get their grower) the feed is less powdery than it used to be. The powder was never much of an issue for us, as we wouldn't add more feed to their feeder until they cleaned all the powder up (hunger is a powerful motivator). But now, the powder is even less. My guess is they are now using an oil or some other type of binder to make the powdery stuff stick together better, because a see little clumps of stuff in the feed whereas there never was clumps before. I do notice that there seems to be more oil stains in the innermost paper bag layer than there has been in the past, adding to my hunches of additional vegetable oil. While this is a convenience for chicken owners, it does reduce the shelf life of the feed. Vegetable oils (unless preserved with toxic chemicals, which S&P doesn't use) go rancid very quickly in the presence of oxygen and heat. Well, there is plenty of oxygen in that paper bag and the heat of summer is here. Rancid oils are not good and can produce toxic byproducts. In all reality, the amount of rancid oil in any given bag of feed (S&P or otherwise) is probably pretty small and I trust their little livers can do the job of cleaning out the toxins of the rancid oils.

If you have several bags of that feed (or any feed), I would consider storing it in the coolest and driest location you can. At a minimum in the shade, out of direct sun and stored in a dry container. I know one farmer who stores their chicken feed in big chest freezers, with the freezers plugged in and nice a frosty inside. I think she stores over 1000lbs of feed this way. That would be ideal, but not practical for many folks.

 

[squib2000]

So i am at about 5 weeks of using S&P now. I have 5 Rhode Island Reds (actually some kind of RIR hybrid i think) and they go through about 1 - 40lb bag a month. Which seems fine.

About the eggs:

I have been getting 1 egg a day from each chicken now, i used to get 4-5 a day, now its almost always 5 a day. The eggs are very consistent in shape and size now, and have strong shells. On my old feed i would get some weird shaped eggs and some times brittle shells. As far as taste goes, i can't tell any difference.

I really like the feed, but part of it is it looks very natural, not pellets. Also, it is organic and corn and soy free, I figure if i am going to spend the time and money raising my own chickens for eggs, its worth spending the extra money on organic. I am very happy with it and the ladies seem to enjoy it.

Hope this helps

 

[pdirt]

I just re-calculated our chicken feed costs and it came out to just under $4/dozen eggs, averaged over the last 6 months. We feed scratch n peck as well. Our eggs are vastly superior to the $4+/dozen organic eggs from the store.