Using whole grains to avoid commercial feed?

[S0rcy]

I was considering a raw diet for my beagle, but I could not be sure that the meat I can get would be safe enough, so I went for a cooked diet for him instead. I do the same thing for the chickens. All meat is cooked before it is given to them. The veggies come from home

 

[Wolf-Kim]

No, I had never heard of the BARF diet. I will have to do some research on it before changing my pooches diet. They come in at night, so everytime their stomache is upset, I know. I'll have to do some reading and research on BARF, it sounds very interesting. Has quite the name. LOL

I agree that we put too much emphasis on vitamins and minerals. What did the world do before multi-vitamins? LOL But really, I try to let my flock forage for the last part of the day giving them access to greens and bugs and whatever else they can get their greedy lil' beaks on. After all, meat and greens is what they were designed to eat in the first place.

I try to let the chooks out after I feed my horses. My horses get whole oats, and the flock loves to clean up after them. Many times they will not wait until the horse is done, but play games of chicken with the feedbowl, trying to steal as much of the horse's food as they can. It is quite comical to watch a 1200 pound animal get upset with a chicken because they do not want to share their food.

I guess I will have to do some experimenting.

-Kim

 

[AGinPA]

I've found this site to be useful.

http://organicchickens.homestead.com/ChickenFeedRecipes.html

There are links to lots of recipes for making your own feed. Our chicks are 2 months old and so far they're thriving on whole grains (I soak them overnight and grind the larger grains), a mix of seeds, field peas and yogurt, plus kelp. They're in a chicken tractor plus we let them free range for a little while every day.

 

[dacjohns]

Quote:
Quote:
I feel like I have given my opinion based on incomplete information. There is a difference between feeding only a homemade feed and giving a homemade feed as a supplement to freeranging. If your birds are getting everything they need then you have answered your own question.

Vitamins and minerals are essential to good nutrition and proper functioning of the body. If they are lacking there will be problems. We got by without multivitamins and minerals by eating properly.

Now this is anecdotal evidence on my part. Before mass produced preserved foods there were a lot of deaths and illness in the winter. Fresh fruits and vegetables were not available so the people suffered from a lack of vitamins and minerals. This is not anecdotal. Scurvy is from a lack of vitamin C. A primary source of vitamin C is citrus. British sailors suffered from scurvy so they started eating limes on their voyages.

So to answer your original post. Yes. You can make a feed out of the available grains and soybeans. Check on the soybeans, there is something in the back of my head saying raw soybeans are harmful to something but I don't remember what.

 

[SusanJoM]

Quote:
I have moved all four of my dogs to a raw diet, but I was uneasy about the same issue.
After I had cooked for them for a while, however, I discovered this raw frozen diet from Nature's Variety
http://tinyurl.com/5t6bo9

and it made life a whole lot easier.....not cheaper, mind you, but at least it never occurs to me to worry about what they are eating.

Susan

 

[digitS']

Quote:
Good show, AGinPA

!! Two months is really young, tho'.

Have you thought about just going ahead and sprouting the grain?

I've only sprouted alfalfa & mung beans before but I see on the charts that wheat, barley, and peas all sprout in 1 to 2 days. So, they could be mixed, soaked, and sprouted together.

Just a thought . . .

Steve

 

[Wolf-Kim]

dacjohns, sorry I wasn't more thorough in my initial post. I understand that we need vitamins and minerals. My thought behind my "minerals and vitamins" comment was "What did they do in the homesteading days?".. I didn't think that homesteaders would have worried about vitamins and minerals and they certainly didn't make a weekly trip to TSC to pick up pellets or crumbles. LOL Can you picture that?

You have been very helpful and I don't want you to think I was criticizing your input or anything. I honestly really appreciate everyone's advice and would never criticize someone trying to help. My birds do not always get to free-range. I try to let them out routinely, but recently I had all but 3 half-grown EEs go missing. So their free-range time has been severely limited.

Would you happen to know what vitamins or minerals may be missing from a mix of those grains? I wonder if I were to get an All Stock mineral powder if the chooks would dose themselves like horses or cattle. I'll have to research and see if the powder contain anything that wouldn't go well with the chooks first of course.

Thanks everyone. I am really enjoying this thread. Everytime I get on and read someone elses input, I change and adjust my plan.

The whole thing came to a head when I visited my grandpa up in MI who is a farmer of grains, beef cattle, and chickens(non-commercial). When we went to gather eggs, all he fed his chickens was corn and oyster shell, but I know that corn alone cannot provide maximum nutrition. It did provide sufficient nutrition for his flock, for they were all alive and well (seemingly) even though they spent their lives inside the coop(no run or free-ranging unfortunately).

-Kim

 

[dacjohns]

No problem Kim. Threads get off on tangents. Also as things are added more questions come up and things that weren't originally thought of.

Now days were are probably more concerned with maximizing production than in our forefathers days. Somewhere in BYC is a link or quote about how chickens were raised on the typical family farm, eating spilled grain, etc.

Dang just got a virus detcction from a chicken site I had bookmarked. It happened coming back to here.

I couldn't find what I was looking for. Greyfields probably has it at his finger tips.

Going off to run a virus check.

 

[Wolf-Kim]

Thanks for understanding dacjohns. Yes, go take care of your computer! It is your lifeline to BYC. LOL

I had left my computer at Adam's house and didn't realize it until I got home. I told myself I could wait until he came by much later, I realized I was kidding myself and immediately found my keys again and returned to claim my laptop. Came home and jumped on. It's official, I'm addicted. I even get irritated when I can't get my "fix".

-Kim

 

[Davaroo]

According to Weeks (and others) back in the 20's grain should not be ground fine. Chickens, it seems, prefer it roughly the size of a matchhead or rock salt.

Mr Weeks recipe from the day went like this:

Four parts medium cracked wheat.

One part medium cracked corn (Indian corn or maize.)

One part good quality dried beef scrap.

One-fourth part soy bean meal (coarse ground).

One-fourth part oil cake meal (linseed).

One-fourth part charcoal.

He makes the claim that chickens relish this blend and that it took him 14 years to develop. He ground it fresh with is own mill, an important point.

The beef scrap, once commonly available, would be the hardest part to come by, today. However, there are animal protein blends, made from processing by-products (dont ask) that would suffice. Ditto the fish meals used in other feeds.

Do not turn your nose up at the animal protein part of the feed, either. It's an essential part of the chickens diet. Along with vitamin/mineral fortifiers, it's likely the one part you will find in commercial feed missing from home brew feed.

But in the end what have you done? You could very well have monkeyed with your flocks nutrition. I dunno you will, I'm only suggesting. You could make the altruistic claim that your chickens are fed with "home made feed." That counts for something, to be sure.
You may have even gotten out for less money, but to tell the truth - I rather doubt it. I can buy mill ground feed locally for$7-8/50 lb bag. It is complete and ready to feed. My current batch of chicks is thriving on it, if that is any indication. I doubt I could piece together a comparable feed for less cost. I'm certain to do so would be more trouble.

The poultry world we now embrace came up, in large part, because commercial feed was readily available to everyone, at reasonable cost. Without that, much of what we know today would not exist. I say, "Support Your Nearby Feed Mill, the Chickenkeepers Friend!"