Scratch vs Feed vs Homemade Feed

[Tamara119]

While I suspect I'm about to get some wildly differing opinions about this, I'd like to clarify something. Everyone is always saying that scratch is just a treat and raises the chicken's body temp. Now, I live in a region where most corn and soy is GMO, and organic poultry feed doesn't exist. My options are standard layer feed, scratch, or homemade. Looking at what people say about scratch, e.g.: "When purchased commercially, it usually consists of wheat, corn, oats, sunflower seeds, millet and various other seeds. It is NOT complete nutrition." and then recipes for homemade feed, e.g.: this thread, isn't homemade feed just basically scratch?
I'd like to make my own feed and use organic grains where possible, but if I follow the recipe above is it still not complete nutrition?
My chickens forage and I give them heaps of vegetable trimmings from the corner vegetable market.

Opinions?

 

[Spangled]

Looking at what people say about scratch, e.g.: "When purchased commercially, it usually consists of wheat, corn, oats, sunflower seeds, millet and various other seeds. It is NOT complete nutrition." and then recipes for homemade feed, e.g.: this thread, isn't homemade feed just basically scratch?
I'd like to make my own feed and use organic grains where possible, but if I follow the recipe above is it still not complete nutrition?
My chickens forage and I give them heaps of vegetable trimmings from the corner vegetable market.

Opinions?

Well, here's one wildly differing opinion. And yes, I aware it's just an opinion.

The Greener Pastures recipe is what I would consider scratch. I would not ever feed it to my chickens as "feed." Not even if we were desperately broke ... because it's too expensive for broke people. If I were broke, I have no idea how we'd do chickens. Can't bear the thought. I am not about to feed my chickens quinoa. I don't eat it, so they'll never get the leftovers. Yes, I do feed the chickens organic corn when we can find it. No soy. They also get organic oats and kelp. They get a special mineral mix. And other "special" stuff. It's not like they're deprived by not getting quinoa.

Our homemade feed is not "just scratch." We use the Nutrient Requirements of Poultry publication, 1994, 9th edition, as our quideline. We just use what we can find locally and grind and mix up batches of feed. Yep, we include the extra vitamins ... all the nutrients that are listed on a regular bag of feed from the feed store is in our homemade feed. Plus other stuff. We don't put in the feather meal, but "nutrient-wise" our chickens get the nutrients listed in the NRC 1994 9th ed. (above) It's not perfect, but it is the "standard."

Phosphorus. Magnesium. Calcium. You may want to look those up and then decide how you want to supplement those if you're going to go the scratch and vegetable trimmings route. They work in conjunction with each other. I know people do skip the phosphorus and magnesium. That's fine by me. I just know what I've read about poultry nutrition and I prefer to make sure they get some phosphorus and magnesium along with the calcium.

You may want to look into or study up on animal vs. vegetable proteins. I want my chickens to get animal protein since a number of sources claim that a chicken's physiology requires it for robust health. And robust health is what we're looking for around here.

There's more, but I can't put it all in a message here. Whole books have been written on chicken nutrition and feeding methods. Just figuring out how much alfalfa meal to include based on about 80 years of studies by universities and agricultural stations becomes a week-long project pretty quickly.

Your local feed mill may be able to provide a few ingredients. For example: Millet from them will be cheaper than millet from the bulk area of your grocery store. But millet by the 50 pound bag is still expensive compared to what it was 2, 3, 4, 5 years ago. Example 2: Your local feed mill may have vitamin and mineral premix that you can add to your feed once you figure out a recipe (if you go that route). However if you want to go "no soy," the premix often has soybean oil in it to keep the dust down.

Short of formulating, grinding, and mixing your own feed, scratch *Plus Supplementing* is about the best you can do for the chickens if you want to stay GMO free. You just have to find out what chickens need nutritionally and then figure out a way to get them "some of that" in a way that doesn't make your eggs cost you a $1 a pop. Organic, grass fed eggs around here cost 50 cents each these days in the store. Amazing.

I wish you success.

 

[Tamara119]

Thanks for such a comprehensive response. I too, am looking for robust health in my chickens. We are vegetarians, so there are no meat scraps to give them, but they do get plenty of slugs and bugs and I've seen them get frogs. I'm lucky enough to not have to worry about the cost of buying the grains here; I can get regular and organic grains at the local mills for pretty cheap. I'm in southern Argentina (but I'm Canadian), and there's no such thing as vitamin mixes or nutrient supplements for chickens. I suppose I can use regular vitamin and mineral pills. I'm back in Canada quite a lot, so maybe I'll buy an all-purpose nutrient supplement when I'm there.

Currently my chickens get free choice layer pellets, some flock raiser crumble and scratch, treats like sunflower seeds and leftovers, vegetable trimmings galore, slugs, bugs and other things they catch. Ultimately I'd like to cut out the commercial pellets, crumble and scratch and make my own mix, but I guess I will wait until I can get a nutrient supplement. Or, is their own foraging going to be enough to fill in the nutrients?

Thanks!

 

[ChickensRDinos]

I don't think there is anything wrong with corn in a diet. The reasons that I do not feed corn are mostly political and have to do with my overall feelings about GMOs and about corn subsidies and the amount of corn in commercial food products in the US -- I don't actually think that it harms my chickens or is a bad thing to incorporate in other ways.

The whole thing about corn making chickens warm -- I personally think it is a wives tale based somewhat, sort-of on science. I have not been able to find any real science that is able to support this. I guess the idea is that the energy it takes to digest creates heat and makes the bird "too hot" in warm weather. The only real information I have found on this is about cows -- who are HUGE animals with much more complex digestive systems who eat massive, massive amounts of corn, which isn't even part of their natural diet so they don't digest it well. I have not been able to find any actual facts that this effect birds who eat a relatively very small amount of food and are omnivores, able to digest a much wider variety of things. I still see it repeated a lot but from a chemistry stand point it just does not seem possible to create enough heat from those reactions to effect the body temp of the birds.

I can understand that something that takes longer or slowly to digest could be helpful in different season/situations but actual physical heat that can overheat the bird? I have yet to find anything that explains it in a logical way -- If you find something I would love to read it.

Scratch really is not complete nutrition for a bird. It is way too low in protein and amnio acids and all that good stuff and it not created with the intention that it will be a birds only diet. If your hens are completely free range and have access to an amazing pastured diet then you might get away with it but I think it would be hard. It may list all of those ingredients but what matters more is the balance of them. They are mostly corn generally with a little of the other stuff.

It is completely possible to make your own feed but you have to be very very careful about the overall balance of nutrition. It is not just about picking from a list of good ingredients but also about getting the right about of each so that the overall numbers add up right in the end. Chickens have complex dietary needs and corn alone or a mostly corn diet is not going to do it. You may not even need a commercially made supplement. I think a lot of research on the nutritional content of varies grains, plants, herbs, and proteins etc and you could make a really healthy mix. It may not be easier or cheaper. It really depends on a lot of factors. You could also sprout your grains or ferment them to increase the nutrition.

Edited: If you are going to take someone's recipe for homemade feed I would make sure to do the math and make sure it works out to what you want nutritionally. I am sure some of them are amazing and made with great care, but you never know.

 

[Tamara119]

I completely agree about the "heat" of scratch. As a biologist I've been pondering this for a while, but I didn't want to speak up! I'm not worried about corn, directly, just the GMO and pesticide residues. I'm fairly certain that the poorest quality grains here in Argentina end up in the animal feeds, so if I can I want to move away from the commercial stuff. I keep asking my feed store for organic feed, so eventually the word might spread and an organic feed will show up. That would be ideal!

 

[ChickensRDinos]

Yeah. I see it a lot and it has never made sense to me.

Where are you located? I have not been able to find a feed that I am very happy with at any of the actual feed stores around me so I started ordering from Azure Standard. I get my feed and my bulk grains for fodder from them. Corn-free, soy-free, organic. I found a woman locally who does bulk orders and I meet up with her every 2 months or so. But, I think they might be mostly west coast. Not sure.

http://www.azurestandard.com/

 

[Tamara119]

Much too far away to order that! But thank you. I'm Canadian and I live in Argentina, basically near the bottom of South America. It's frustrating how few alternatives I have around here for chicken feed and care, and from what I've learned here on BYC about chicken health, emergencies, general care, etc., I can guarantee I'm the local expert! I once went to a vet for help with a lame hen, and the vet could barely disguise the amusement in her eyes that I was attempting to heal my chicken. I'm certain she wanted to give me a recipe for roasted chicken and baked potatoes! As they say around here, "Al horno con papas!". Needless to say, with the help of BYC the hen is 100%, raised a brood of chicks and is now the dominant girl in the flock.

 

[ChickensRDinos]

Ah! That does make things a bit more complicated. Good luck!