WHOLE grain organic commercial food? C'mon, someone must make it!

[arwmommy]

I am interested in getting my chickens away from soy, and am looking for a more natural for chickens, whole grain mix. There are tons of recipes for mixing up your own, I know, but I am unable to get all of the seeds/grains for the recipes without mixing up TONS AND TONS of it (and can't even find much of them organic around here)--- plus I only have a few bantams, it already takes me a few months to go through 50# of layer feed!

So, I am looking for something ORGANIC, WHOLE grain, NO soy. Anyone know a company that makes it? I could have a local feed store order it if I knew!

Thanks

 

[kstaven]

Here is a link for you. They helped me find a comparable source in canada and a good source for cocomeal.

http://www.grassfedtraditions.com/pastured_poultry.htm

 

[tuskajones]

Country Side Naturals in VA has a packaged, no-soy, organic feed. Might cost too much for shipping to CA but check it out. just google the name.

Kelly

 

[SeaChick]

This is the only source I have found. Shipping a 50# bag to me is $17, and I can't justify it. They said to try to convince your feed store to order a pallet, shipping is much less that way. www.countrysidenatural.com

 

[Winter]

This is interesting, I am also having a terrible time finding the feed source that I want so I will likely end up making my own. The only ingredient I can't find so far is fish meal.
I may eliminate it and use more veggie protein sources and supplement the chickens with meal worms and crickets or I may use the tiny dried fish you see in the asian markets....
Making my own feed will be interesting for sure....

kstave, I live in Canada, could you please let me know the feed source you were mentioning??

 

[greyfields]

People use fish meal becuase they feel the amino acids in animal protein are better than those in vegetable protein. If I was making food, I'd probably go the same route if I could. Otherwise, I don't have an issue using vegetable protein (seed meal). You can often find Linseed and Cottonseed meal which you could use instead of soybean meal.

Someone here on the islands grinds his own layer feed, which is soy free. He has customers with allergies and just decided it gave him an edge over anyone else. Now, he has no idea if a chicken eating soybean meal actually reacheds the egg, let alone the consumer, but it allows him to sell more eggs. And frankly, that's very important to small farmers.

 

[Ga Chicken Mom]

Countryside Natural makes organic, non soy layer feed but the shipping is pricey. I investigated making my own with organic grains but that was way $$$$$.

 

[hiddenmagnolia]

You could try hen scratch then just add alfa pellets, dried beet pulp and a small amount of BOSS. That is what I feed mine they where outside all day so had plenty of bugs and their choose of grass.

 

[arwmommy]

Well, I checked with Countryside Natural.........their stuff is AWESOME, but shipping *sucks* to say the least.

If I ordered 2 bags of grower and 2 bags of layer, the shipping alone was $107-- added to the cost of the feed and it was $198-- for 4 bags of feed (50# a bag).

I pay $28 a bag here, and buy the best Organic feed I can find--- but to pay $50 a bag is a jump, for sure.

Still investigating options.....

If anyone wants to do an order with me, the price per bag goes down SUBSTANTIALLY because shipping stays the same! I might post something on BST....