All commercially producedchicken feedsmeet strict nutritional road map . These provender are meant to provide the most specific rate of growth and production possible , to get a solid food manufacturer the best income tax return on the provender investment . to do that , they have to render the most nutrients and calories for the least amount of money .
Like all processed food — chicken feed , dog intellectual nourishment , and permit ’s just chunk in human breakfast cereals for comparison — their contents are a spot mysterious . Looking at the merchandise , one can not immediately see or even smell what they ’re made of . We need a list of factor to tell us what ’s in the product . Even then , we have to trust that the leaning is accurate . Unfortunately , these march foods are garish than more rude feeds that permit us to see and smell out exactly what our animals are eating .
The difference between caryopsis feed and process provender is like the difference between a bowl of oat and a pipe bowl of cold breakfast grain . They are food versus solid food mathematical product .
Let me preface the remainder of this post by take on that I do , on occasion , corrupt schematic chicken feed . It ’s never my first pick , but when my chickens can scrounge for the majority of their diet or when money is especially tight , I do grease one’s palms it on rarefied occasion . But , I do n’t prefer it , and neither do my chickens .
A couple months ago , I croak out of town and depart my husband at home base to care for the muckle . He does n’t drop as much prison term with the hen as I do , so when I told him he would run out of chicken provender and that he ’d have to buy more , I total home to find that he ’d corrupt chicken lettuce . Whoops ! . Because he knows I buy caryopsis provender , and the traveling bag said “ grains , ” he ’d assumed he was buying the ripe bag . So , I went to the store the following day and bought the process stuff and nonsense instead of our usual . Because my husband had already bought the scratch , I did n’t want to spend too much money . I repent my alternative .
Since my hens have had both sort of provender , they do n’t care the processed stuff . As we worked through that integral 50 - British pound bag , the girls foraged or begged at the back door before they became athirst enough to eat that provender . The only way I could get them near it was to mix the scratch with it , and of class , they hoodwink me , eating mostly the scratch that lay between those cylindrical pellets . They were drawn to that loot like it was candy , but only inadvertently to the provender .
It was a farseeing draw getting disembarrass of all that feed and excoriation . When I finally take home a bag of the grain feed I unremarkably corrupt , made by Nature ’s Grown Organics , the flock each fell honker - deep into the material . When chickens love their feed and it ’s unmanageable to keep raving mad creature from it , you know it ’s good — like when pests constellate to your tomato plant , they ’re tasty . When flies and starving chickens are the only subsist thing attracted to a feed , I think that ’s a problem ; and , that ’s on the button the problem with conventional , processed chicken feeds .
Louisville has an urban - land supply store owned by a rural farmer . The store source a variety of whole grains and seeds from across the neighborhood , and then cracks it on site , blending its own feed . It ’s not a Certified Organic feed , but it is non - GMO and organically originate , which is secure enough for me . My flock used to get laid this feed , but over meter I noticed they avoided eating the split pea plant in the provender , leaving it to go to waste . I switched when my locally owned dearie store start carry Nature ’s Grown Organics , from Wisconsin , at the same price as the locally formulated variety . It ’s a high - calibre feed that seem beautiful and smell like real solid food . My volaille thrive on it . ( Readers , note : I ’m not being paid for my hat backsheesh to Nature ’s Grown . )
If you ’re concerned in trying a grain provender that is n’t highly serve , but your memory does n’t carry one , inquiry alternative production names available in your region , and then require your feed shop to carry it by name , or look for a feed formulated topically . With the ever - increasing popularity in backyard chicken retention , higher - timbre feeds are becoming more available all the meter . Often , though , we have to ask for what we need .
The character of provender is directly related to chicken health , the caliber of their eggs , and to their seniority and years of egg laying . While a extremely process provender and minimally processed provender will contain the same ratios of alimentation , the products are far from equal .
If we are what we eat , we ’re also what weeateats . Feed accordingly .
