Shelf Life of Chick Feed

[TheUrbanUndertaking]

Hello! I just purchased some chick feed (Mana Pro Chick Starter Feed Crumbles), but it looks like the manufacture date is already over a year ago. The food itself looks fine, but seeing a lot of threads that mention feed only stays good for around 6-8 months.

Does anyone else have experience or advice? Should that feed still be good to use since it hasn't been opened, or should I get another bag?

Thanks so much!

 

[BlindLemonChicken]

I wouldn’t use it. Can you return it? I could always smell when the feed went stale and the chickens seemed to waste a lot of it.

 

[Chicken Heel]

The nutritional value starts going south after about 90 days. I recommend buying some newer feed and mixing it together to use it up. There is a a lot of older feed in circulation.

 

[TheUrbanUndertaking]

Unfortunately, I won't be able to return it, but it would have been just short of a year past the manufacture date when I bought it. Wild!

I've been skulking around other threads and this seems to be a pretty common problem. Glad I have an answer on my first bag rather than feeding them something stale when they come home.

Thank you both for the advice!

 

[Al Gerhart]

The seed oils in the feed will go rancid. Old seeds, scratch, whole corn, other whole grains, they will be fine for a long time. Commercial feed with lots of soybean content, the critters will notice the rancidity and eat only enough to survive in my experience.

 

[TheUrbanUndertaking]

This really helps! I took a trip to the nearby big box store to see what I could find, and if I was reading the manufacturing dates right, even the bags of feed on shelf were close to or beyond the freshness date.

Ended up finding some at a local store, so the chicks can start off well and hopefully have a steady supply of fresh feed. Thank you for the advice!

 

[RubelliteRose]

Our local(45 min away) feed store recently sold my husband 2 bags of Purina Flockraiser that was 8 months old. I emailed Purina asking about the age and they responded that the shelf life is one year. That being said, one bag smelled bad so I threw it out. The other bag smelled "dusty"- it was from a lot that I had used the previous fall(when it was fresh) and contained much more dust mixed with the crumbles. We have only shopped at the feed store a few times, but I am convinced that they only order food once a year as their food is always much older than our local (10 min away) Tractor Supply. The last batch of food from TS was only 2 weeks old.

 

[CabritaChicks]

Here, they either slap a sticker over the original date or portion the feed into smaller clear bags with no date at all. I specialize in Avian Nutrition, so thankfully I can fill in the gaps with homemade food—just like I do for my clients (which is not cheap). But honestly, who knows how old that feed is, or when the next sea shipment will even show up- the feed store at the horse track (which is only 1,500 sq feet) sure as hell wont tell me.

There is another smaller feed store, that is run by a frenchy- but shipments are sporadic and it is on the boardwalk (which people avoid due to the cruise ship tourists).

I just do the smell test- as that is the best I can do.
I would love to know the rate of decomposition of vitamins and minerals - just out of curiosity. I'm going to see if I can find something in NCBI.

 

[Al Gerhart]

I can tell you from experience that anything with a soybean oil or any type of oil content will begin going rancid in three months exposed to air like a pelleted feed. I had the bright idea to order the entire amount of feed needed to feed out 1,000 catfish only to see the feed consumption drop like a rock three months later when it should have been rising. New feed brought the feed consumption way up over what it had been before.

 

[TheUrbanUndertaking]

All of this is still wild to me! Who would have thought it would be such a challenge to source fresh food!

I brought the chicks home yesterday and they seem to be doing great! Tons of energy and they have been absolutely devouring the feed. Thank you all for the wonderful advice and suggestions so they can get a healthy start!