What is the best chicken feed?

[tiffinimarie]

I have 11 8 week old RIR's, and I am currently using Dumar (from TSC). Is there a better food I could be using? I want what is best for my babies!

Tiffini

 

[elmo]

I use Countryside Naturals because it's soy free, as well as organic, and contains Fertrell's nutritional supplements.

http://www.countrysidenatural.com/home.php

 

[Akane]

Of course there's better food but the question is whether you can afford or find it. Some people order organic feeds online and probably spend more feeding 2-3chickens a month than I do feeding my dogs and cats grain free every month. Some use custom blends of whole or cracked grains from a local mill. There are a few recipes online for different chicken feeds. Some avoid soy. Some avoid corn. Some avoid animal by products. Some avoid all by products. It depends what you can find and what you want to spend. If you don't care then any of your standard poultry feeds will keep them alive and laying just fine.

 

[speckledhen]

They can survive on many different brand feeds. The best feed is the feed made for their age group. I prefer it with animal protein in it since chickens are natural omnivores, not vegetarians, but they'll do fine on any fresh, good quality feed made for their age group.

 

[Laurie's Silkies]

I think Kent feeds are the best. They use animal protein in their feeds which I think is better for them than soy or plant protein. Smells wonderful too when you open a fresh new bag !!!

 

[Corporate Farmer]

I started feeding my baby chicks Sprout brand from Mills Fleet Farm, a WI, MN farm store. Sprout brand uses animal byproducts. I read some posts here suggesting that using a plant based feed makes poop stink less, so I switched to Purina flock raiser, which does not have animal byproducts. Frankly, I can't tell the difference in my chickens after the switch. They are doing fine on either brands. What's the complaint about soy based protein?

 

[Akane]

Aside from the whole "soy is bad" crowd chickens need animal protein. They are omnivores not vegetarians and require the amino acids found in animal protein so a feed relying on only soy protein with no animal proteins is not as good for them.

 

[Laurie's Silkies]

In addition to Kent feeds I will also use the Sprout meat maker 21% protein feed from Mills Fleet Farm here in Minnesota. Like Kent, it also has animal protein in it, which I discovered reading the ingredient list on the bag. I have had good results with it too. I feed it to chicks and pullets before they begin to lay. Also will mix it 50/50 with a layer feed to bring the protein up a bit. I find the extra protein gives them more zest and better overall health.

 

[Chickenmaven]

Quote:
I have a mature flock. We ran out of Dumor during a vacation. Our chick-sitter friend picked up a bag of Flock Raiser. The girls production crashed to 10%!!!! We put them back on Dumor & they are fine. I am not sure what this says about Flock Raiser, but it is definately a caution about making quick switches.

 

[A.T. Hagan]

Sudden feed changes can be bad, particularly if there is a radical difference in components. I use a great deal of Flock Raiser and it's always done well for me. If I were to change them all overnight to Layena I expect I'd see a crash too. Transition them over to it over the course of say a week and things would go a lot more smoothly.

Asking "what is the best feed for chickens" is no different than asking "what is the best food for people." You'll get a great deal of heat, precious little light. Refine your question a bit to and ask "what is the best organic feed" or "what is the best soy-free feed" or "what is the best feed with animal protein" or some other clarifying addition and you'll get a little further along though perhaps not as much as you would like.

Even if you could get more than a handful of people to agree on what is the 'best feed' you may find you cannot get it. Many, many feed brands are regional in nature and if you're not in that region it won't be available unless you can find someone to mail order if from. In less than truck load amounts the shipping will probably only cost you more than the feed!

I think your best bet will be to canvas your local area to see what feeds you have available to you then asking about those particular brands and types. You'll likely get more useful answers that way.

Of the nationally available brands I find Purina Flock Raiser to do well for me. It's not a layer ration though, but a general purpose poultry feed that you can use with any birds on the place that is over about eight weeks old. Some even use it with young chicks though for gamebirds and turkeys you'd want to boost the protein some. For birds in lay you'd want to offer free choice oyster shell on the side as the feed by itself does not contain sufficient calcium to meet the needs of a high-volume laying hen.

There are many very good feed to be found. See what is available in your area then you'll have some idea of what to do.