U_Stormcrow
Crossing the Road
It is sadly true, here in the US, that much purchasing is done based on labels, and not a combination of research and review of the ingredients lists and guaranteed nutrition labels. A few of us have done the research, but as this thread demonstrates, there are a lot of strongly held opinions with very little support for them, merely people repeating what they'd heard.Ok. I do agree that according to you guy's resource All flock food does cover everything pretty well with the exception of oyster shell. But it would seem a bit of a waste to give more protein than is needed. But one thing I noticed about the start/grow food you guys brought up is that for newly hatched chicks they should have at least 19% protein and preferably 21%. The all flock should work all right but the actually start/grow food is only 18% protein.
My birds, optimum feed, is 24% protein for the first 8 weeks of life +/-, then they join the adult flock at 18% or 20% protein (depends on what I'm mixing from the local mills), but neither my flock size, or my management methods are typical of the usual backyard owner (I hatch every three weeks, and I'm eating young males - so early weight gain is very important to me, and continued weight gain till culling is also a consideration. Hens must be early and productive layers thru their first year, then they either stock pot or must rapidly molt and resume production. No one's getting past year two.) The whole thing is supplimented by free rangng my biodiverse polyculture (my acres of weeds).