LOL. Auto correct. Ejection being should be electro netting.
I got mine hammer mill from Premier One Sheep supply. I don't actually grind, I crack. My corn and field peas are whole and especially the peas are very hard. It ferments much quicker and easier if those two grains are cracked. So to make a balanced ration during confinement I use corn, peas, and oats. Those get fermented and then I add a mixture of powdery ingredients each feeding consisting of fish meal, limestone, alfalfa meal, and nutri-balancer. To balance that out further For chicks I add more fish meal and for adults I feed BSF (they are raised in the summer and frozen and fed over the winter - they are two high in calcium to feed to chicks). Keep in mind when balancing your ration that chickens need animal protein, not just any protein. Fish meal can be used for chicks because you don't have to worry about then having fishy eggs, but with laying hens you need to either cut back on it or eliminate it... This means you need another source of animal protein. We chose to raise BSF because it's ready and free.
So not using soy is very possible and so is avoiding gmo's... You just need to know where to look and get your ration balanced.
Yeeeeeesh! This is a LOOOOOOOOONG post.
You've been warned.
It sounds like you've worked out a great solution for your situation. How many pounds of feed are you going through per day? You feel okay with the corn? SO many people object to that, though it seems perfectly wholesome for the birds (it's a shame they say there really is no genuinely GMO-free corn any more, though).
I've been reading the classic
Feeding Poultry by Heuser, so am becoming more versed in poultry nutrition. Of course I read other stuff, too, but that book is a treasure trove of great poultry nutrition information.
We really value
simplicity here ... if the system is too demanding then compliance will drop and the birds will suffer. Same goes for economy up to a point ... if it gets too expensive then we start instinctively looking for shortcuts. It needs to be available enough that if there is a surge in eating we aren't caught short. We go through a fair amount of feed, but not enough to buy in "commercial" bulk volumes. We need an "elegant" solution.
What we're aiming for is a very flexible, complete (with the exception of calcium),
high-protein, "all purpose" base poultry feed that can be fed straight or "cut" with grains for each individual flock including: the breeders; the laying flock (with chicks); the duck flock; the turkeys (from start to finish); the Cockerel Colony (dual purpose males processed for meat); and POSSIBLY the chicks (I'd really rather have naturally raised chicks, so am hoping it never comes down to this). The Dual Purpose birds are part of a heritage breed restoration project, which supposedly need a very high protein percentage feed ... as do poults. So I really do feel I need something where the
protein level of the base feed is quite high ... field peas just don't cut it, though they can certainly be included and I believe some are grown locally, which is a huge bonus. This means fish meal can't be included in very high concentrations (don't want fishy poultry products on our table), but it can be a small part of the feed. I'm looking into the practicalities of other forms of animal proteins, including meat scraps from grass-fed animals ... but the simplicity of a prepared feed supplement has obvious appeal when dealing with a lot of birds.
I do currently
ferment a small portion of the commercial base feed we've temporarily settled on and have been feeding that (with some key supplements) as a daily "treat" since fall. The General Population has a good appetite for this "treat," so we will be increasing their daily dose of that soon.
For
concentrated insect production I'm going to convert a portion of the pasture to a ginormous manure pile -- we have a really great spot for this -- and then the "compost" the birds help make can be rested and used to some advantage in our landscaping business, so we are really excited about this. We also use deep litter in the coops, which provides a lot of good stuff for the birds.
I did a
fodder experiment ... it took more water than I was hoping ... required plenty of bleach to control the mold (this invites a lot of debate I'd rather avoid), resulted in pasty butts on the birds, and was more work than was ideal (this part could have been tweaked if the rest of the results had proved to be "worth it). Full disclosure, I was sprouting rye, which is not ideal for the birds in any case, but is what we had available (for free) for purposes of experimentation ... I believe it was a satisfactory for the experiment and does not influence my conclusions overly muchly. IF I was going to grow special green feeds for the birds to be used during confinement or to take the stress of the pastures I think I'd rather grow White Dutch Clover in flats of soil ...
White Dutch Clover is very palatable to chickens, grows in an advantageous way so little bits are "plucked" from the plant which helps reduce problems in the crop, has a fabulous level of digestible/available protein for the birds, survives well during weather extremes, stays in that "tender green" stage that is desired, and stays low to the ground so it can be a replacement for lawns and doesn't swallow the birds. The main drawback for WDC is that it is not self-seeding, so needs to be maintained through re-seeding. WDC is going to feature prominently in my pasture restoration project.
I am also going to do some companion plantings of the biggest variety of
fruiting trees & evergreens I can manage to get my hands on. We are in the nursery industry, so have access to a lot of great options. At the moment I'm most excited about adding some
chestnuts (attracts awesome insects which the chickens help control),
pawpaws (very high protein levels) and
mulberries (drops a small amount of fruit for a long period during the summer, attracts insects) to the orchard (part of our pasture are is the family orchard, mostly apples and some plums). The bigger trees will provide shade and cover, and bushes and shrubs will provide additional entertainment and protection.
Even with the manure pile, the White Dutch Clover, the deep litter, and the trees I'm not fooling myself that I can get away without feeding the birds and still have a healthy birds. But I'd be delighted if the birds proved me wrong.
