Sodium Bentonite Clay in homemade chicken feed

[countrygoddess]

I don't think the OP's intent is to use the bentonite as a binder to create pellets. If correct then amount involved would be much less and serve a similar purpose as something like wheat mids, fishmeal or calcium carbonate with respect to simply helping with getting vitamins and minerals more uniformly dispersed through feed.


I have played around with larger amounts of clay in feeds and monitored feed intake. Within limits the animals will simply ingest more feed as the proportion of clay increases to conserve the amount of nutrients ingested. For folks doing the back yard / small scale thing feed conversion may not be as critical as with more intensive operations, especially if forages are available as supplement.

Yes, to help keep the premix more uniformly dispersed, but also to make it more difficult for the birds to neglect the premix because it will be stuck to the grains/seeds. With lard, they're able to scrape the premix off the grains/seeds with their picking. Will bentonite adhere the premix to the larger bits so they CAN'T scrape it off? Think of wasabi peas, where the wasabi is the premix and the dried pea is the... well, the dried pea. =)

I became concerned with their premix intake when I bred them for the first time this past spring and had some deformities in dead chicks. They could have been due to the eggs becoming too chilled during storage, but I also worry that it was a nutritional deficiency. Although when I put mongrel eggs (from my 3 strictly-for-eggs Marans who were fertilized by one of my Dorking males) in the incubator, those chicks were hale and hearty and all hatched, so maybe nutrition isn't the problem. Maybe it's inbreeding in the stock I purchased 2* to the breed being rare.

Anyway... I've got my work cut out for me and I thank you all for your very helpful input!