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[Our Roost]

Since I didn't find a direct link to pose a question to the experts, I guess I will pose it here.
Every manufacturer offers different types of feed based on purpose and uses for all types of agricultural animals. I will speak directly about chickens. I primarily use 2 types and blend them. These would be scratch and crumbles. I have to assume crumbles has all the natural grains and additives that scratch does plus the protein level is higher unlike pure scratch blend. I have some chicken breeds that will consume crumbles more so than scratch. But I also have breeds that prefer scratch and leave the crumbles.
The protein level of scratch grain products is no higher than 8% and insufficient feed for them but they love it! Why oh why hasn't Purina incorporated a product that leaves grain products in there true form that chickens like with sufficient protein levels? Please dont suggest a product manufactured into a crumble or pellet form.

 

[DrPatrickBiggs]

Grains by themselves are deficient in every nutrient except energy. And so producing a Scratch feed that is nutritionally balanced is impossible, regardless of the grain. In the past we manufactured feeds with grains that were not pelleted, but the chickens sort out what they like. Just like a child who is given a choice between high starch/sugar foods or vegetables, they will select the high starch/sugar foods. Secondly the vitamins and essential minerals tend to sort out of a meal type of feed. As a result hens fed meal types of diets, do not lay as well as hens fed pelleted or crumble type of diets nor are they shells as strong. Most flock owners prefer a simple prepared feed to feed their layers and that is why we provide a layer pellet and crumble. We purchase whole grains and grind them immediately before they are made into a pellet or crumble. So you are getting the benefit of freshly ground grains in Purina Feeds.

Having said all this, if you want to provide a balanced diets using scratch grains, you will need to provide a variety of different food types and supplements to provide the extra vitamins, minerals, calcium, amino acids etc. to meet the birds requirements and ensure the birds eat this in the correct amounts. Hope this is helpful.

 

[Our Roost]

Fair enough. You stated - We purchase whole grains and grind them immediately before they are made into a pellet or crumble. So you are getting the benefit of freshly ground grains in Purina Feeds. I stated that - I have to assume crumbles has all the natural grains and additives that scratch does plus the protein level is higher unlike pure scratch blend.
I feel very comfortable knowing your product contains the best of both worlds from grains and added nutrients. I only wish I could convince my chickens of that fact! Trying to minimize feed waste is a real problem and although feed costs are reasonable in price, it is costly if the birds are not consuming all of it. I wish you had an additive that would entice them to eat more of the product. Do chickens have taste buds? There must be an additive you could crush along with everything else healthy enough to get them to eat every crumble!

 

[enola]

If you want to watch hens eat feed with gusto, start fermenting your feed. When you ferment feed, all of the fine stuff stays suspended and doesn't get left laying in the bottom of the feeder.

 

[Our Roost]

Well I thank you for that tid bit but I dont buy into fermentation. Not opposed to it by any means but just not for me.

 

[shortgrass]

Well, I don't want to discount what the Purina guy said up there... No offense Purina guy, but I dint buy your product and never will lol


I use whole fresh grains. Grains sitting in a granary for a year before being milled into the crumbles and pellets have lost over 50% of their value. Then being blended and mixed and formed and bagged with an expiration date, almost 2 years AFTER harvest. No thanks.

If course, I grow almost 100% of my feed, so that's not fair.

protein, fat, digestible fiber, crude energy... It's a lot if math, but not impossible to mix your own feed, and make it BETTER than commercial feed.

But alas, most don't have the time or energy to go hunting for things and educating themselves, so its easier to buy a bag of "stuff" and on we go.... So then its up to Mr. Purina to come to the rescue.

It's cheap. That's why they don't mix in whole grains. It's cheaper to toss it all in one big vat and bag it up as dust or formed dust, IE, crumbles.

You could, in actuality, take your crumbles, mix them with scratch, and add in some alfalfa pellets to make up the difference in protein, and add in some essential nutrients as well


Edit* molasses.... Palatability... They LOVE anything with molasses

 

[Our Roost]

Sometimes you wonder if the expert advice is more centered on product marketability and profitability. Remember I said wonder. The goal in which you are trying to achieve or end result is what causes us to look elsewhere for answers when the experts fail or should I say provide what we are really requesting from them. Although it is simple enough to say that grains are incorporated into crumbles when they manufacture it, the appetite of your chickens is the true test. Crumbles do not appeal to chickens in the manufactured form the same as when grains are in their natural form. As the expert said, its like feeding them sugar and they will eat it every time over what they really need to eat.
So the bottom line is that the manufacturers still haven't answered our wants on our terms. The product they supply us with is marketed in such a way that it meets what's needed but doesn't really give us what we are requesting.

 

[shortgrass]

Kind of feel like getting a run around answer right back to the original question, eh?

I don't think *most wouldxwantbto even answer that, based on how they are"trained" to respond to certain questions as vaguely as possible, as not to give away their secret formula or patent...

I'm becoming inclined to start up my own feed company lol, but the first thing a production analysis would give me is the fact that there are SO MANY different options and combinations, and there is always going to be that one person who won't buyvit because of the corn, or GMO wheat, or toouch oats etc etc etc...

Too hard to please everyone. Easyvto please the 50% that don't care but will pay $20 for grain dust

 

[Egghead_Jr]

If one wants their birds to eat more crumbles (due to knowledge of it's superior nutritional balance) then stop mixing scratch grains in with them. It's that simple. Scratch grains are just that, grain meant as a treat or training device for birds that is tossed on the ground for them to scratch up. My boy likes hot coco. I let him have some everyday but given his wants that is all he'd drink.

The nutritional value of of feed is on the label. The feed will not loose those values if stored properly and used by expiration date. If one wants to get the full potential of their laying birds they should give them the feed to achieve it not mix in inferior products. Scratch grain is an inferior feed that has uses but not meant as a large portion of diet.

 

[shortgrass]

If one wants their birds to eat more crumbles (due to knowledge of it's superior nutritional balance) then stop mixing scratch grains in with them. It's that simple. Scratch grains are just that, grain meant as a treat or training device for birds that is tossed on the ground for them to scratch up. My boy likes hot coco. I let him have some everyday but given his wants that is all he'd drink.

The nutritional value of of feed is on the label. The feed will not loose those values if stored properly and used by expiration date. If one wants to get the full potential of their laying birds they should give them the feed to achieve it not mix in inferior products. Scratch grain is an inferior feed that has uses but not meant as a large portion of diet.

Well yeah, they're obviously going to eat the grains first and not the crumbles... It's more than just taste though, IMO... I don't feed crumbles, theirs is all grain. First they pick out the wheat, then the BOSS, then the millet, then the corn. .etc etc... But a drop left but a bit if oyster shell... If I mix in crumbles, they would ignore it and I would dumpbit on the ground. Lol they don't want it. It's gross. Molasses has to be dumped in there to mask the taste and get them to eat it... That and they get all excited over the fact that they're birds and they actually get to eat seeds lol

I add molasses for vitamins, not taste. They eat it with just as much gusto without it as they do with...

Give my chooks a pan if fresh grains, and a pan of "meal" and they won't touch the meal; the grain will be gone. And I trust my ratio; its actually better than the general factoid label mass produced for all the bags of (insert brand name here) that somehow miraculously have the exact same ratios, even though I know that the grain did not

I laugh at my kids and their cereal in the morning; I ask them "what kind if scratch, whole grain or commercial?"... That means, in our language lol, " do you want oatmeal or cereal?"