Selecting the proper chicken food can be daunting. There are numerous varieties to consider – from mash and crumble pellets to medicated or unmedicated starter/finisher feed – each offering different nutritional values for your flock. It may take time and patience before finding what works best.
Quality poultry feed will supply your flock with essential nutrients to promote health and productivity, including proteins for growth, various grains and vitamins (which may become depleted with daily egg laying), as well as essential drench treatments and Omega 3 fatty acids.
Contents
Shell Grit
Grind is essential to chickens. It provides insoluble calcium that aids them in grinding up their food in their gizzard and prevents them from tapping into reserves in their medullary bones, which could otherwise cause stress fractures.
Grit mixtures can be found at many stores. These typically consist of insoluble grit combined with red stone for additional minerals and vitamin pellets to support overall health.
Both coarse and fine grades of shell grit are suitable for chickens, and should be made available ad lib so the flock can enjoy picking at it at their leisure. Nesting boxes should also contain some for nestlings to use during breeding seasons. Other sources of calcium include leafy greens, black strap molasses and plain yoghurt; however a bit of shell grit adds an important supplement to their diet.
Grains
Grains are seeds from grass-like plants known as cereals and are considered an integral component of healthy nutrition. When consumed in their whole form, grains provide many essential vitamins and minerals; refined versions have had their germ and bran stripped away, rendering them less nutritious than whole grain versions.
Chickens are naturally driven to scratch at the ground and mix litter to search for seeds, greens, grit, or insects. Scratch grains (cracked, rolled or whole grains such as corn, barley, oats or wheat) may encourage this behavior; however, too much scratch feed dilutes the overall nutrition levels in their diet.
Chicken finisher feed typically comprises of a blend of grains and protein supplements such as soybean meal that are mixed to create an economical and cost-efficient ration for optimal performance. This approach produces high-quality feed while still remaining economically feasible.
Medicated Feeds
Many feed companies provide both medicated and non-medicated options for chicken feed, with medicated products typically including amprolium to help prevent coccidiosis in baby chicks with immature immune systems that are highly vulnerable to infections; unlike adult birds who receive protection from antibodies present in their mother’s colostrum and antibodies provided during infancy, baby chicks don’t.
Medicated chick starter feed works by interfering with thiamine uptake by the coccidia parasite and thus keeping levels of infection under control until chicks develop immunity against it. When they reach a certain age, broiler chicks or pullets being raised for laying may then switch over to grower/finisher diets or layer feed for best results and active immunity development, faster weight gain rates and enhanced efficiency of feeding systems.
Dry Mash
Navigating the vast array of chicken feed options available to backyard poultry owners can be overwhelming for beginners. Words like mash, crumble and pellets abound on poultry menus – something even experienced avianists find daunting at first.
Dry mash is an easy-to-digest variety of chicken feed typically reserved for chicks. However, fully grown birds may also benefit from being fed this diet. Making your own mash requires just three steps: grind ingredients to powder before mixing with nutrients in a container to form the mash; then fermentation occurs, gathering wild yeasts from the air that trigger chemical changes that make digestion simpler for chickens while simultaneously being cost-efficient.
Dry Granules
Dry granulation provides a cost-effective and time-efficient method of producing premium chicken feed ingredients without adding water and other liquids. This process uses heat and mechanical devices to bind powders together into chunks that chickens can more easily digest while helping prevent bacteria growth in their feed.
This method is often employed when processing chemical raw materials that are sensitive to moisture and heat, and cost-effective and scalable in terms of production costs and scaleability. Furthermore, basic flow energy (BFE), which measures dynamic properties of powders such as particle shape and dynamics properties (e.g. density of powder particles), can help identify whether or not powder is ready for granulation.
We compared DDGS, CGM and SFM as partial replacements of SBM in a finisher diet to assess its effect on broiler performance, litter quality and economics. Results demonstrated that using alternative protein sources improves finisher feed formulations while providing sustainability benefits for the poultry industry.
