YO GEORGIANS! :)

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livhatcher said:
I called the mill today and talked to a really nice girl there. When I explained how the picture on the website didn't match up with the text she laughed out loud and said it was totally her fault---she had put a rabbit feed's nutritional information on the new Nature Crest branding for the chick starter and grower. I really liked that she totally owned the error and said that she would take steps to have the correct one uploaded by tomorrow. Anyway, I think their intentions are good and I respect that she didn't try to pass the buck or make an excuse. We need more of that in this world, IMO. There's too much ratcheting up of rhetoric and slamming people/companies without giving them a chance to make a correction. I'm still really happy with the Purina non-medicated starter grower I've been using (family friends produce grain for our closest operation so I feel some allegiance), but I am going to give TM a try. The local feed store could use the business and it will cut my bill substantially if it works out.

Locking down today on my Isabels and BBS batch, and pleased to report that my WCB Polish fertility test is going well into day 7.

If anyone is interested in attending a Macon area candling course, please PM me to let me know. I have a friend who is trying to get a list going to convince the GDA to hold a certification class in the mid-state.
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I thought that might be the issue since it had feeding directions for rabbits.
I've been using the chick starter and the layer for 2 years now. Haven't noticed any more dust and fines than what I was getting at TSC. But as a result of all of this, I now know they have a non-gmo rabbit feed. I'll probably switch over to that soon.
 
Picked up the ingredients from the local feed store to make my own feed blends. What I picked up was premix, cracked corn, milo (sorghum), soybean meal, feed wheat, and oats. With these ingredients I can make better feeds than the processed stuff that I was buying at the feed store.
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What I noticed when I took a closer look at the poultry feeds of several local brands is that they use a lot of inexpensive types of grain and grain byproducts to keep costs down. The amino-acid ratios of essential amino acids were woefully out of balance, so what the feed companies tout as protein content is in reality incomplete protein for the most part.

I went ahead and put together a couple of feed formulas and cost analyses using the ingredients that Lisa and I purchased. I'll probably put the formula calculations into a spreadsheet in the future, but for now I worked them out by hand.

For the first feed, I wanted to make a generic layer feed with a target protein percentage of 16% in a 50# quantity. To begin, I had to determine the protein (I use that term loosely.) percentage of each ingredient: Premix 0%, Soybean Meal 46%, Oats 16%, Wheat 14%, Corn 8%, and Milo 8%. Once that was done, I needed to calculate how much of which ingredient was needed meet the target. Since the premix has 0% protein, I was able to subtract that 8 lbs right off the top. That left me with 42 lbs to make up by adding different quantities of the remaining ingredients together. What I did was break up the 42 lbs. into seven 6-pound blocks (6 x 7 = 42), and then I plugged in the protein percentages of the different ingredient combinations into the blocks. If you look below at the first feed formula that I put together, you can see just below the table where I used the soybean meal percentage (46%) for the first block. Then I had one block for oats, two blocks for wheat, and so on. I added the blocks together and divided by seven to determine the overall protein percentage:
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What I liked about creating this first formula is that I was able to hit my target percentage of 16% rather closely using all of the ingredients I purchased, and when I ran a cost analysis, the price of my fresh, blended feed was comparable to what I pay at the feed store for the highly-processed stuff.

What I didn't like about my blended feed was the dicot:monocot ratio of 1:6. That's not a good balance of essential amino acids, so much of the protein is actually still incomplete. That being said, the packaged feed people buy at the feed store has the same imbalance. That's because grains (monocots) are relatively cheap when compared to legumes (dicots), so that is what feed companies use to keep the price of feed down. This deficiency can be made up by feed companies adding animal protein such as fish meal and/or porcine meal, but at added expense. Free-ranging birds can make up the deficiency by eating weeds (dicot varieties), worms, and insects; but poultry that depend solely on feed cannot make up the deficiency.

What I decided to do next was attempt to formulate a feed that would be more balanced with regard to amino acids and hit the same target of 16%. With the ingredients I have on hand, that wasn't possible.

As you can see just below the table below, by using two blocks of Soybean meal (46%) and the remaining five blocks of Corn (8%) and Milo (8%), I could not get the target percentage any lower than just under 19%. The good news is that I was able to blend a starter/grower that had a closer amino-acid balance (2:5 ratio), and thus, a higher usable protein profile at a price that was comparable to my layer starter formula.

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Although I could supplement my blends with fish meal or some other animal-based protein source, what I really want to do here is find a way to inexpensively add more dried legumes (dicots) into the feed, legumes such as field peas, peanuts, and or various beans. Many legumes have to be toasted for poultry to be able to digest them, but that's a minor issue.

Anyway, for now I'm going to work with what ingredients we have, and we're going to search for an additional legume source. For those of you who read this far, thanks!
 
SeramaSweetie said:
Anybody on BYC live in Georgia?
I'm gonna make a list of Georgians below! Let's get the LONGEST list possible! Each name counts one point, and mods or staff are worth 5 points!

Georgians' names collected so far:
1. SeramaSweetie
2. Pumpkinpup
3. porteryork
4. rooster-red
5. jonbanks
6. Chix-in-GA
7. mazdacrzy
8. Missouri chick
9. bantyman
10. 1acrefarm
11. EggCentric
12. poohevans
13. mattmatt's-momma
14. newnanchic
15. soonerdog
16. bargain
17. asa
18. key west chick
19. rays123
20. Granolamom
21. Lupa
22. PunkërTeçhñöRøø§ter
23. AnnMarie12
24. GaDawg
25. 2chickenrich
26. embkm
27. Los Pollitos
29. katrek
30. oegblady
31. spotnapp
32. teresac
33. Lmarie
34. speckledhen (MOD= 5 pts!)
35. dawg53
36. featherfooted
37. Hellvagirl



POINTS COLLECTED:
41. Wow!
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So Many!
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brucifer said:
I know a lot of folks like Tucker feeds, but I'm not a big fan. Our preferred feed store carries their line. However, Tucker's crumbles are super dusty compared to Faithway which is milled in the same town. The only Tucker feed that I would consider is their Super Lay 22.

Resaca Sun seems to make some nice feeds. They're not far from @katsdar . I wonder if she has tried them?

I may be wrong, but I think I can formulate a fresh, cost-effective feed with a high-protein content without the added binders. Lisa's picking up the grains and soybean meal tomorrow, and I'll post my first feed formula, a cost analysis, and possibly some photos. This feed will be for all the adult birds, and I'll supplement the girls' feed with additional oystershell and grit. My target protein percentage is 20%. We still have just under 200 lbs of starter/grower on hand for the young birds, so they can wait for their new feed for now.
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Let us know when we can purchase from you. Check out if estrogen effects birds soy has lots in it or something that mimics estrogen that is why boys during development develop breasts, if they drink soy milk tofu etc
 
@katsdar I've got no problem with soybeans for human or poultry consumption. The Chinese and Japanese have been eating soybeans for centuries, perhaps even millennia, and aside from some Sumo wrestlers, I don't think they have man-boob or boy-boob problems over there.

Some molecules in soybeans (isoflavones) that are very similar in structure to estrogen but are NOT estrogen have been at the center of some controversy, but studies have not supported that soy is a problem. In fact, soybeans are being used to treat many illnesses such as Type II diabetes, breast cancer, kidney disease, and high cholesterol:

http://www.webmd.com/vitamins-suppl...tiveIngredientId=975&activeIngredientName=SOY

The downside is that some folks are allergic to soy, peanuts, and other legumes. BTW, a great place to do searches for scientific-research articles is Google Scholar. Instead of being persuaded or confused by myths and marketing hype, you can take a look at research in which the scientific method was applied and find the real answers.

When it comes to poultry, soybean meal is widely used as a protein in feeds thanks to Big AG and Big Oil. However, its value for fast-growing poultry such as broilers is being challenged. A recent study showed that broilers grew best when animal protein such as poultry-meat meal was the main protein source. (I'm going to seek sources of animal protein for use in my feed blends.):

http://www.lrrd.org/lrrd27/5/roha27084.html

However, one of the problems I have with the above study is that soybean meal is being used as a complete protein when it is not complete because it lacks a few essential amino acids. Therefore, the broilers cannot metabolize the soybean meal amino acids as protein. I think a protein-balanced combination of soybean meal and grain(s) would have made for a better comparison in the study.

As I mentioned in an earlier post, my main objection with soybean meal is the hexane residue left over from the soybean-oil extraction process. I also don't like that a lot of soybean meal is made from GMO soybeans. Fortunately, unlike GMO maize (corn), GMO soy has not been directly attributed to health issues in humans or poultry. GMO Maize, OTOH, has contaminated much of the corn crop in the US through cross-pollination of wind-borne pollen. GMO-tainted Maize has been identified as a direct contributor to the increase of human allergies to corn.

As far as my feed blends, I'll keep everyone posted. I'm considering ordering a batch of Cornish X chicks next Spring, and testing some starter feed combinations.

BTW, I've been looking at the ingredient lists of poultry feeds from various feed companies. One that I found very impressive is Mid-South Feeds in Alma, GA. They don't formulate and offer a huge selection of poultry feeds, and their distribution isn't wide, but from perusing the list of ingredients for each respective feed, they actually use amino-acid-balanced plant proteins! That was a pleasant surprise to find. They also use animal protein in their feeds which assures protein availability. The closest feed stores near me that carry Mid-South Feeds are in Ranburne, AL and Newnan. I'm interested to see their price points on 50# bags of feed.
 
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Hey guys! Been a while! I have a baby chick, the only one who hatched . How long should I give her some heat in the brooder this time of year?
 

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