Why won't my chickens grow??

[Lets Get Chicken With It]

.

 

[WingItRanch]

Can you upload photos of these chickens?

 

[nuthatched]

1. They could be bantam.
2. Do you add any vitamins/minerals to the feed you mix? Where did you get this "recipe".

 

[SourRoses]

Their feed is 20% protein. I buy Whole Corn, whole oats, black oil sunflower seeds, millet, wheat and Milo. I mix it myself.

How do you know the feed you mix yourself is 20% protein? Do you have nutritional assays on the ingredients?
How do you handle the mineral balance?
What kind of vitamin premix are you adding?

At this point, your best bet is to buy some feed and see if they improve. Beyond a certain age they may be permanently stunted by malnutrition.

 

[JacinLarkwell]

That is pretty okay weight wise for bantams and light breed females. What are they supposed to be?

 

[Sic]

As someone who also makes my own feed, I can tell you that 20% protein doesn't really mean it is adequate. You have to know whether you are meeting the amino acid requirements, which is far more important than your crude protein percentage. My only guess as to why your chickens aren't growing is nutritional needs are not being met, not very helpful, but you might have to consider buying commercial feed.

 

[SourRoses]

That is pretty okay weight wise for bantams and light breed females. What are they supposed to be?

I have Chocolate Orpington, Buff Orpington, Easter Egger, Black Copper Maran, Mystic Maran, Barred Rock, Sapphire Gem, and Light Brahma.

 

[JacinLarkwell]

Thanks, I must have missed that post

 

[U_Stormcrow]

Lets Get Chicken With It said:
Their feed is 20% protein. I buy Whole Corn, whole oats, black oil sunflower seeds, millet, wheat and Milo. I mix it myself.

No, their feed isn't 20% protein. I can tell by the ingredient list.

Corn isn't 20% protein, whole oats aren't 20% protein, there are four broad categories of millet, none are 20% protein, wheat isn't 20% protein (hard or "winter" wheat is better than soft - but you are lucky if its 16% protein), sorghum (milo) isn't 20% protien. No combination of ingredients which are individually less than 20% protein (some less than half that) can result in a feed which is 20% protein. BOSS, btw, is generally recognized as being approximately 15% protein. That won't save your recipe either.

Neither does it likely provide an amino acid profile optimized for their growth - too many grains. Unless your recipe is more than 1/3 sunflower seed, I can guarantee it has inadequate methionine levels to meet the recommendations for adult hens. Growing birds need higher levels still. Your vitamins and key minerals are off, you have no non-plant phosphorous source (needed for bone deevelopment) and the feed is almost certainly very high fat and carbs - neither of which help with bone development, feather production, or muscle mass.

Where did you get your feed recipe? Stop using that Source. Use the money you were investing in your homemade feed to either buy a premixed commercial feed designed for growing birds, or use one of the very few tested, well performing make at home recipes which is both good in theory (that is, you put the ingredients into a feed calculator, and it outputs results you would expect of a good quality feed) and good in practice (as in proven performance over decades by thousands of people, some at scale) - Justin Rhodes has a good one.

 

[U_Stormcrow]

...and I now suspect that OP showed up, made the one post, saw the initial responses, deleted the post and is never coming back to BYC.

They may find the approval they seek on Facebook - and their birds will continue to suffer for it.

Hopefully, others wandering across the above "recipe" will see the responses and not be tempted to try it for themselves.