- Jun 14, 2007
- 150
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I thought this was some great wisdom I found on lionsgrip.com and thought others could benefit:
1. Add dried wild fish meal to the feed mix. Or better yet, free-choice it along with the usual mix. Then, get a test done, and let your customers know how much omega-3 you have in your chickens and eggs, and what kinds of omega-3's you have. The fish meal produces much better omega-3's than flax seed does.
2. Reduce the amount of corn, and increase other grains such as wheat, oats, millet, and others.
3. Stop using pelletized grains and begin using only whole, living grains, tumbled together. The mill cost will be greatly reduced, since grinding and pelletizing will not need to be done at all. Or you can get an old cement mixer and mix your own. Include several kinds of grains, and let the chickens pick and choose.
4. Include dried legumes (beans, peas, lentils, etc.) with the grains, to balance out the B vitamins, proteins, and other profiles.
5. For salt, only use dried kelp, which you keep tacked up inside the coop in convenient places. At first, they'll eat a lot of it, because they've been missing all the minerals in the kelp. After a few days or weeks, they'll taper off.
6. Use alfalfa pellets for much of the vitamin A, potassium, and other requirements. Use Fertrell's Nutribalancer or other Fertrell products to keep the vitamin levels the way you want them. Vitamin A is the most important vitamin to watch out for. Never use synthetic vitamin A ("irradiated"). Vitamin A in your feed can come from green things (alfalfa), liver, insects, whole small fish, or fish liver oils.
7. Stop using anything with any added oils or fats, to eliminate the health-destroying trans-fats and re-processed oils that are often added to feeds. In 2006, all trans-fats will have to be identified on all U.S. food labels, so start getting good sources now, ones that have zero trans-fats and zero re-processed fats of any kind.
8. Use only 100% organic products, getting assurance that they are classified 100% organic, not certified by allowing a small percentage of non-organic stuff included (1% can be a LOT of toxic matter). There are many different "Organic" certification agencies, with differing criteria.
These steps may not give you an omega-3 chicken or egg, but they will give you a highly healthful product nonetheless. The consumer can get omega-3's from other sources besides chicken.
We're just beginning to be aware of our omega-3 problem. Looking at the omelettes in the menu at Denny's recently, I asked the waiter if they had Omega-3 eggs. He thought a moment and said, "Sure, we can make it three eggs."
2. Reduce the amount of corn, and increase other grains such as wheat, oats, millet, and others.
3. Stop using pelletized grains and begin using only whole, living grains, tumbled together. The mill cost will be greatly reduced, since grinding and pelletizing will not need to be done at all. Or you can get an old cement mixer and mix your own. Include several kinds of grains, and let the chickens pick and choose.
4. Include dried legumes (beans, peas, lentils, etc.) with the grains, to balance out the B vitamins, proteins, and other profiles.
5. For salt, only use dried kelp, which you keep tacked up inside the coop in convenient places. At first, they'll eat a lot of it, because they've been missing all the minerals in the kelp. After a few days or weeks, they'll taper off.
6. Use alfalfa pellets for much of the vitamin A, potassium, and other requirements. Use Fertrell's Nutribalancer or other Fertrell products to keep the vitamin levels the way you want them. Vitamin A is the most important vitamin to watch out for. Never use synthetic vitamin A ("irradiated"). Vitamin A in your feed can come from green things (alfalfa), liver, insects, whole small fish, or fish liver oils.
7. Stop using anything with any added oils or fats, to eliminate the health-destroying trans-fats and re-processed oils that are often added to feeds. In 2006, all trans-fats will have to be identified on all U.S. food labels, so start getting good sources now, ones that have zero trans-fats and zero re-processed fats of any kind.
8. Use only 100% organic products, getting assurance that they are classified 100% organic, not certified by allowing a small percentage of non-organic stuff included (1% can be a LOT of toxic matter). There are many different "Organic" certification agencies, with differing criteria.
These steps may not give you an omega-3 chicken or egg, but they will give you a highly healthful product nonetheless. The consumer can get omega-3's from other sources besides chicken.
We're just beginning to be aware of our omega-3 problem. Looking at the omelettes in the menu at Denny's recently, I asked the waiter if they had Omega-3 eggs. He thought a moment and said, "Sure, we can make it three eggs."
