Why is scratch considered a treat only?

[007Sean]

I've been looking into feed recently and found a lot of information about feeding whole grains for better health. Feeding whole grains increases the size of the gizzard, making it more efficient and hostile to salmonella. Chickens are also very good at eating what they need.

http://www.lrrd.org/lrrd17/4/pous17045.htm
http://www.sterlingcenterfarm.com/Feeding/Wholegraindiet.htm
https://www.gardenbetty.com/garden-bettys-homemade-whole-grain-chicken-feed/
https://academic.oup.com/ps/article/87/3/405/1494457

I've been feeding whole grains to my birds for years. They get a 50/50 mix with a 24% protein crumble, that I have made at a local mill, inwhich, I also have them add essential vitamins and trace minerals and pulverized krill for Omega-3 amino acids. It ain't cheap but my birds are extremely healthy and produce strong chicks that hit the ground running.

 

[Lauravonsmurf]

Krill... cool idea

 

[Onslow's Hens]

Kusanar - My horse mix is: Whole Oats, Alfalfa Pellets, Timothy pellets, Black oil Sunflower seeds, Whole Flaxseeds and 1 cup oil. I rotate several vitamin/mineral supplements. I mix each meal according to what the particular horse needs. The alfalfa/timothy pellets make up the majority of the meal. My horses range from 10 years to 25 years and they all look terrific. I feed much much less per feeding (no fillers).

I would love to figure out how to do something like this for my hens. If you are feeding your own "MIX" of grains and vits/mins - tell me what and how you do it. What vitamin/mineral are you using? I see people using Alfalfa meal - how do you feed the meal - iit is so powdery. Do you add oil in to make the vit/min and alf meal stick to the whole grains??

 

[Mraya]

I mix my own chicken feed and use an all in one chicken premix from Advanced Biological Concepts (ABC) I also use Garden Betty,s Chicken feed calculator. Do your research you have to know how much of what ingredient can be add to your mix.

IE: Alfalfa should be no more then 5% of the total mix.
Oats and Barley no more then 15% of the total mix.

Making your own feed is more work but I enjoy doing it.

Edit: I ferment my feed or add a little coconut oil to make the premix stick to the grains.

 

[Onslow's Hens]

Thanks for the info Mraya. i will check out that Garden Betty website. Great idea to add a little oil to make the powdery stuff stick. Do you mix yours up each day or do you mix a large batch and store in a big trash can or something? I have a 20 pound capacity no waste bucket style feeder (with the PVC ports). Could I fill that up let it go until empty or would I have to start mixing each day? Not a big deal but it would influence my decision to make my own feed VS buying.

 

[Kusanar]

Thanks for the info Mraya. i will check out that Garden Betty website. Great idea to add a little oil to make the powdery stuff stick. Do you mix yours up each day or do you mix a large batch and store in a big trash can or something? I have a 20 pound capacity no waste bucket style feeder (with the PVC ports). Could I fill that up let it go until empty or would I have to start mixing each day? Not a big deal but it would influence my decision to make my own feed VS buying.

If I were to do that, I would mix about a week at a time, or, mix however much you want, but put a weeks worth in each container and then feed a container all the way out before starting the next. The reasoning for this is that the feed could settle over time and one ingredient all be at the top and another be all at the bottom, if you store in smaller quantities, then that is less likely and you know that they got the proper nutrition for the WEEK if not the DAY which is ok. Kind of like if you eat well most of the time you can have a cookies and ice cream day without throwing your body off TOO bad. The premix powder can also settle even with the oil added, so if you do smaller batches and it all (or most of it) ends up at the bottom of the bucket, they aren't getting a months worth of vitamins and minerals all in one day.

So, the short answer is, how long does it take for your birds to empty the feeder? If 2 weeks, I would fill it about half way and not re-fill until empty or very nearly so.

 

[Mraya]

Thanks for the info Mraya. i will check out that Garden Betty website. Great idea to add a little oil to make the powdery stuff stick. Do you mix yours up each day or do you mix a large batch and store in a big trash can or something? I have a 20 pound capacity no waste bucket style feeder (with the PVC ports). Could I fill that up let it go until empty or would I have to start mixing each day? Not a big deal but it would influence my decision to make my own feed VS buying.

I mix up about a 50 lb batch at a time and store it in a big plastic tote or garbage can. Your bucket style feeder is fine to use but I just put in what they would eat in a day.
I feed fermented in the morning and they get about 2 cups in each of their feeders (I have 3 feeders in the runs) in the afternoon. If they don't finish the dry I hang up my feeder and they will finish it off the next day. The fermented food is always gone.

And like Kusanar says the premix will still settle even with using the oil.
I use a empty Kitty Litter bucket it holds about 20 lbs of feed I mix this with oil to use in their feeders. I find fermenting works best for me.

 

[Onslow's Hens]

Great info - thanks!!!!!