Good chicken feed is essential to keeping healthy flocks. A high quality feed should contain an optimal balance of proteins, calcium, phosphorous, vitamins and minerals without pesticides or other chemicals being added as filler material.
Homesteaders may employ crumble as an intermediate feed between mash and pellets for their flock. It resembles oatmeal in texture.
Contents
Cost
Chickens need a diet rich in essential nutrients in order to produce eggs successfully. Commercial poultry feed offers complete nutrition for chickens, and is readily available from stores; alternatively, homemade feed can also be created from scratch.
Homesteaders often face one of their largest expenses: feeding their flock. Some opt to purchase pre-mixed organic poultry rations from online suppliers, however this can be pricey and require shipping over long distances. Another alternative would be creating homemade feed from local sources such as hay or straw that could reduce feeding costs significantly.
One way to reduce costs on chicken feed is to supplement it with kitchen scraps and fresh green plants such as peas and beans from your garden, which may be less expensive than store-bought feed. Doing this allows your birds to exercise their natural instincts to forage and graze freely.
Organic
Organic chicken feed is an excellent choice for backyard poultry. This diet consists of natural ingredients rich in nutrients and vitamins that your chickens will love while not including any hormones or genetically modified organisms – perfect for backyard flocks! However, organic feed may be more expensive than conventional options.
Organic feed contains ingredients such as sorghum, millet, lime, premixed minerals, seed cakes and salt. Available either pelleted or crumble form for your flock to ferment themselves – saving money.
Organic chicken meat and eggs are highly nutritive and immensely popular with consumers, making them easy to rear and resilient against disease and natural hazards – this is one reason many prefer local breeds over imported varieties; thus this script features interviews with indigenous poultry farmers from Dodoma Region.
Vegetarian
Vegetarian chicken feed contains only high-grade ingredients, such as organic grains, garlic powder, kelp and diatomacious earth – free from antibiotics or hormones – making it perfect for farmers to purchase from Winco stores locally or online. All these components are then ground together before being mixed with water into a mash-like consistency for convenient feeding.
The mash is then given to chickens, who in turn eat it along with table scraps and leafy greens from our gardens. Our birds spend much time outside foraging for bugs, worms, or any other potential food sources that might come their way.
The Food and Drug Administration does not mandate verification or on-farm inspection for egg or dairy producers who claim they feed vegetarian-fed hens, although it should be remembered that their protein needs will require supplementation from insect larvae or mealworms. Furthermore, calling chickens “vegetarian” may be misleading as they are naturally omnivorous creatures who may consume animal byproducts when given the chance.
Brands
Chickens require a healthy and productive diet in order to thrive and produce at their full potential. While you could make their feed from scratch, many owners opt for premade commercially-produced products which contain essential nutrients at lower costs and come in various forms like crumble, pellets and mash – sometimes medicated too in case of diseases!
Most chicken feeds consist of proteins from soybean, canola or sunflower meal (a byproduct of oil processing industry). Some feeds also use animal byproducts like bone meal and feather meal as ingredients. Some brands even specialize in feed for different age ranges of chickens – like Prairie’s Hen and Layer Food which features natural plant protein sources that contain calcium, amino acids and Omega 3 fatty acids – making this perfect for all stages of layer chickens!
Some poultry feeds come in pellet form that’s easier for chicks to digest, making them ideal for newcomers or people wanting to keep their flock small. Some varieties also contain grit for digestive system support.
