Special made feed

[SuseyQ]

Here is some more information on the feed I've found.

Hi folks just an update on the feed. It's going to cost around $40 per 50# bag plus shipping. Shipping will run around $16.50 for 5 bags down to less then $10/bag for a ton. It's a good deal if you ask me. I'm keeping the salt content low, from 7-10% of fish meal, 0.5 of the Methionine and about 0.6 of Phosphorus. I think this should work pretty well. I'm getting a 28% and 26% (for nonlayers/males). Any other suggestions? This is from Blue Stem. You can talk to Cindy at 515832-2992. I'm having mine shipped to a feed store so it will cost a lot less for shipping. Shipping to your home is more expensive. H & H which is corn and soy free and organic is running $37.50 for a 20# bag. I hope this helps some of you folks out there.

SuseyQ

 

[Em Ty]

Susey, I think you're better off with the feed you've ordered. Start with that and then see if you want to try to formulate your own feed. I find that chickens will eat any food scraps, though I won't use anyone else's unless I know they're as particular about what they eat as I am. Quail don't eat the scraps anywhere near as well for me and their housing type generally precludes me from feeding scraps to them.

We all have different opinions on how to raise and how to feed our animals, but there isn't any one right answer. Just by raising your own quail you're going to be far better off with the end product, even if they ate the same feed as commercial birds do, and yours certainly won't.

I've been looking for some anti-tank missiles but didn't think to check facebook. Thanks for the tip!

 

[SuseyQ]

EmTy,
I know whatever I get will be better for my birds than traditional commercial feed. I'm not worried about that at all. My son ate a quail egg for the first time and he said that's the best fried egg he'd eaten in years. That was a tremendous blessing since the last time he ate a chicken or duck egg he had anaphylactic reaction and we almost lost him. So to me this venture is about my family and ensuring they can enjoy eating foods that have been omitted from their diet. I did some research and I was only attempting to share what I found for those who were interested. If people aren't interested in the post I have no idea why they waste their time looking at it. But no matter, I'm doing what is right for my family. I just had an allergic reaction to something the other day. In this case I only got a rash, but who wants an itchy rash for 2 weeks when they can avoid it? Years gone by I would have accepted the commercial feed because way back when my family raised animals we didn't have to be concerned regarding what is put into it. I'm not an extremist, just someone doing what they can to keep their family healthy.

SuseyQ

 

[GodofPecking]

great if you love dioxins and heavy metals. Why not just buy from the farmer ? Any farmer knows what price he gets per ton for wheat, which, where I am at the moment is 240$ per ton or 24c per kilogram or $5 for 20kg. Just offer any farmer double what they are getting and see if their eyes don't light up. You can sell it to the neighbors who have chooks too, or just give it away to barter and make friends. You can afford to if you buy it from a farmer. I can.

Fish meal ? Zomg. http://ecowatch.com/2013/01/10/mercury-exceeds-health-levels/

http://www.aquafeed.com/read-article.php?id=4704

Mercury is just one of many poisons, just pick one like lead or cadmium and google that, it'll be in their too. According to the links above, it's in both fish AND humans at unsafe levels, so next time you think about nibbling on someone's ear, think again !

Buy from a farmer. The savings alone pay for the drive out to the country on a nice weekend (where you may also buy more chickens too ).

 

[GodofPecking]

forgot to mention that you should supplement any chooks diet with the scraps from your kitchen, AND the scraps from your neighbors kitchen ( I do ) and scraps from the local shops too. It's all free for the asking, and as it was all food to eat, it's probably the safest thing to do.

 

[SuseyQ]

GodofPecking,
Wouldn't it be nice to buy from a farmer, but we don't all have the luxury. I might be able to get some alfalfa, but grain isn't grown in my part of the country. I'm just trying to do the best with the options I have available to me. I'm sure many folks have better ideas than mine and some are worse. I will of course supplement. I've already asked around and haven't had a whole bunch of luck. I have a compost bin and I'm raising worms so they have to get their share. There isn't a whole lot of poultry in my neck of the world either. We have pecans, cotton, onions, lettuce, chili and that sort of thing. Glad your birds get the best of everything they must be something to marvel at.

SuseyQ

 

[GodofPecking]

Well we both know you're already winning the race because you have chickens. And worms. There are actually no worms where I live, it's too hot and dry, termites fill that niche in the local ecology. I don't think that my birds usually get the best of everything, but you may well be right on the day months ago that my neighbor dropped off lobster scraps !!! That was hilarious. I often think they have a better diet than I do. Their eggs are a welcome addition to my diet.

Possibly you can build a general purpose network, I know that there are problems in the USA with trying to start things like magazines, so distributing a few printed sheets of for sale ads fortnightly / monthly may be hard I don't know. It is the kind of simple thing that starts working fast. Eventually I think it's an interesting idea to get together with people in your social network or newly improved and artificially expanded social network and split up the shipping cost of a single truck delivering to one of you from where everyone picks up. There are many kinds of co-ops like for buying better food than you can afford otherwise and there is no rule that says a co-op can't help with chicken food as well. A co-op starts with you and just one neighbor and the question "I'm going to town, want anything ?" and before you know it, you're living better.

 

[SuseyQ]

Godof Pecking,
I don't have chickens. I'm preparing for quail. The worms are indoors right now as it is likely too hot and dry here as well. I'm in NM. We also have our fair share of termites. Where do you live? AZ?

I'm networking the best I can through the Facebook pages available for breeding and raising poultry. I know there are m/b two other quail breeders in the state. We on rare occasions get quail eggs at our local co-op, we had a lot the other day and I bought about 60. Wish I had my quail and they were producing. Eggs are really expensive here, but at least I can eat quail eggs. One of our markets carries quail meat at $3.99/bird.

Our co-op doesn't carry any poultry feed, just dog and cat. There is very little poultry in our state. There are 5 mills in the entire state, but none sell organic feed. We mostly have cows here, the beef cattle graze in the desert. We have one hatchery in our entire state and they don't carry quail so I had to order eggs. I don't know of anyone in my state that raises quail except someone in the northern part of the state. We have just begun networking. Of course I will put postings at all the local feed stores. Who knows what will turn up. In the meantime I'll get shipments at the local feed store. I will make connections if they are out there for sure.

SuseyQ

 

[GodofPecking]

Quote:
I'd get one or two friends and then you have a co-op which buys and sells whatever you find yourself.
Quote:
Oh I live SP that's just ATM

I just ran a search for " wheat for sale in NM " and there are plenty of places there where it is grown. Most of the search results were for farms for sale, farms with wheat growing there. I guess that is a very good way to slant a search, like if you need to find farmers who grow wheat, they might not advertise, but their real estate agents will advertise it for them, so that makes them once again easy to find.

Want cheap chook food ? call the local real estate and ask " any farms for sale with proven results in wheat ? where ? " heheehe. It would work 100% of the time. You could drive out and offer the farmer twice as much per ton as they get now, and you'd STILL pay less and get more with better quality.
Quote: I never used facebook, I hear every day how ISIL is using it more and more. Did you know they were selling TOW anti-tank missles on facebook ? and then there are the DARPA experiments on millions of facebook users without their knowledge. you can look it up. I leave it alone.

I find it is a matter of food and possibly warmth that keep the birds laying. When they have something like an old fridge in winter to keep warm in, and too much food for them to eat, their bodies just say ' time to turn the excess food into chicks " Mine lay all winter when everyone else in town says theirs have stopped.

Quote:
Sounds like you'll have perfect success as the one and only. Cannot fail when there is no competition. Are there humans in your state? then there is a market for chickens, quail and eggs, plus no competition. Recipe for success. You are so lucky.

 

[GodofPecking]

We all have different opinions on how to raise and how to feed our animals, but there isn't any one right answer. Just by raising your own quail you're going to be far better off with the end product, even if they ate the same feed as commercial birds do, and yours certainly won't.

Too true. By the time you make any of your own food you're way out ahead of the pack.

I've been looking for some anti-tank missiles but didn't think to check facebook. Thanks for the tip!

EmTy,
I know whatever I get will be better for my birds than traditional commercial feed. [...] That was a tremendous blessing since the last time he ate a chicken or duck egg he had anaphylactic reaction and we almost lost him. [..] I just had an allergic reaction to something the other day. [..] Years gone by I would have accepted the commercial feed because way back when my family raised animals we didn't have to be concerned regarding what is put into it.

I just watched an awesome documentary aired via rt.com , it had all about that roundup which causes cancer and birth defects. The monsanto guy says this :

but in Europe, there are germans who have done their own studies, pig farmers who have no choice but to study their animals carefully because it is so important to their business that they have always studied, and one has like a freezer full of baby pigs that are deformed because of the soy in the feed (soy is always GM and full of roundup and mostly from brazil)