The Natural Chicken Keeping thread - OTs welcome!

[Leahs Mom]

RR -
Where do you get the meat meal? I've never had any luck finding any.

All -
My feed is about the same as RR's. Very basic. I figure that when they get out in the summer they can glean the variety they need and I always end up giving other items like liver, ground meat, greens/veggies from the garden or during the winter purposely, BOSS, mealworms, etc. I also agree that the more basic the feed the easier it is to do it and the more realistic that I'll be able to continue to get the items.

So, really, the very basic feed is a base to all the other variety they get but it is there and "good enough" if I don't have the other items.

Nutribalancer is from Fertrel. There are other companies that make a similar mineral mix as well.

http://www.fertrell.com/poutrynurtibalancer.htm

 

[RedRidge]

LM answered the question about the nutribalancer. There is a guy who orders every 4-6 months about an hour from me who is a distributer, so I order from him.

For meat meal... The guy at the local feed mill orders it for me. Or I simply grind my own and freeze it.

 

[Leahs Mom]

I had asked my feed mill guy about getting meat meal and they looked for a source and couldn't come up with one. (I do get fish meal from them.)

Do you think your feed mill guy would be willing to tell you where he gets it so I could see if my mill would get it?

When you say you grind your own and freeze, are you just saying you feed ground meat? (Or do you dehydrate it?)

 

[ki4got]

Thank you teachick, lazy gardener, Karen, and delisha!

I feel a lot better now about cancelling those vaccinations and putting sod from the yard in the brooder.

I have already decided on FF, although the DH is not to thrilled about that I read I should start it (maybe on here) on the day of scheduled hatch, but I am having most shipped, so maybe a few days earlier?

Also, any suggestions on a good, but easy to obtain chick starter? I really don't want to use medicated feed...

Thank you all again for my online chicken education!!

with my FF I don't use a chick starter, I get the "rockin rooster growth booster" from southern states. it's a pelleted feed rather than a crumble, suitable for all ages (as FF) and then I just provide oyster shell for the girls when they are near POL (and beyond). but I do have a small bag of chick feed also, (Dumor 24% protein crumbles) to provide them for the first day or so since they seem to like sampling anything they can find on the floor. I scatter it around the heat lamp on the floor of the brooder, then also on the surface of the FF once they start becoming a bit more mobile. then once they're on the FF I leave off the crumbles all together.

then as adults if I need to give just pellets (frozen weather...) they're already pretty used to it.

 

[ki4got]

LM answered the question about the nutribalancer. There is a guy who orders every 4-6 months about an hour from me who is a distributer, so I order from him.

For meat meal... The guy at the local feed mill orders it for me. Or I simply grind my own and freeze it.

so if I have some ground venison/chicken/pork/beef/whatever, can that be added to the FF? I'd be afraid of it going rancid or something.

the flies volunteer on their own. LOL

 

[RedRidge]

I just do meat. I dehydrate to many other things for human use so don't bother to for this, I just freeze it. I will ask him. I have found that they are a little weird about meat meal because technically you can't tell them it's for animal food. You could feed fish meal but that's a lot of fish meal since chicks need so much more protein. And of courses you need to limit fish meal for laying hens or you'll get fishy eggs. I don't feed meat meal or fish meal at all to the laying hens since I have BSF. Although I am going for an early spring because I am running low.

So I do a combination of both fish meal and meat meal depending on what I have. The meat meal is about half the price of fish meal so that's why I checked into it to begin with. This is for chicks only.

 

[RedRidge]

LM answered the question about the nutribalancer. There is a guy who orders every 4-6 months about an hour from me who is a distributer, so I order from him.


For meat meal... The guy at the local feed mill orders it for me. Or I simply grind my own and freeze it.

so if I have some ground venison/chicken/pork/beef/whatever, can that be added to the FF?  I'd be afraid of it going rancid or something.

the flies volunteer on their own. LOL

No no no... I only ferment grains. . I add other ingredients fresh each day.

 

[RedRidge]

Oh and for newly hatched chicksi simply grind my grains finer... I only crack the grains for adults. My hammer mill has several different size screens.
I have never fermented a bagged pelleted feed but I would think that would be a sticky stinky mess. But I won't feed soy so that a mute point.

 

[Leahs Mom]

Mine all get ground meat or chopped liver at least weekly. No, I don't put it in the feed. I just throw it for them and be sure everyone has access.

I'm also a "little" leary about the meat meat meal as I don't have any control over where it's from. Did they feed antibiotics and hormones? Were the cattle fed grain or allowed a natural grass diet?

I guess it's just as easy to do the meat that I know where it's coming from.

All my feed has a base of organic corn, field peas, fish meal, nutribalancer.


RR - I think you're right on the meat meal. The feed mill folks are afraid they'll get sued if they offer it and it's safer not to for them. But, of course, they could offer it for chickens. Another thing is that organic standards have banned animal protein for chickens since the droppings are fed to cattle and they don't want any meat to possibly get into that source of "feed". What a "messed up" idea.

 

[armorfirelady]

I find it amazing how something so simple as feeding chickens good, chemical free food had made the big producers of eggs and chicken meat have made it so complicated.

People wonder why I want to live away from everyone & enjoy shows like little house & the Walton's. It was a much simpler times then & you didn't have to read the ingredients of everything to see how many chemicals were added.

All I need to do is win the lottery lol