Quality chicken feed should meet all of your flock’s nutritional requirements, including proteins, carbohydrates and fats.
Commercial chicken food typically begins with a combination of cereal grains such as wheat, corn, barley, rye or kamut; additional cereal byproducts like bran and wheat middlings also form part of its ingredients list.
Contents
Protein
Since chickens are omnivorous creatures, protein is vitally important to their wellbeing. A mainstay in their feed, this source can include meat scraps, poultry meal and fishmeal as well as beans such as soybean, canola sunflower or lupins. Additional protein sources exist such as earthworms which provide high amounts of this essential nutrient; additionally grit helps the birds digest and probiotics can aid their health as well.
Most feed starts out as mash, which is then turned into pellets or crumbles for chickens. Hens have differing needs throughout their lives and require different amounts of nutrition; consequently, its composition may change over time. A quality diet can greatly influence both health and flavor of chickens, so the crafting of feed should not be taken lightly.
Carbohydrates
Carbohydrates provide the primary energy source in poultry feed. After being broken down by digestion into glucose fuel for use by the body, carbohydrates can also be stored as glycogen in liver and muscle for later use as needed.
Most chicken feeds start out as mash, which contains all essential vitamins and nutrients in every bite of food consumed by chicks under 8 weeks old. Mash should continue being provided until these development processes are complete and beaks and digestive systems fully matured.
At the next stage, most feeds are turned into pellets or crumble, similar to granola in texture and composition. Most feed producers also employ sprouted and fermented grains as additional sources of nutrition and make digestibility easier.
Fat
Chickens are omnivorous animals, eating insects, grubs, seeds, berries and vegetation in their natural state. Commercially-produced poultry feed strives to recreate these same nutritional sources; complete feed contains proteins, fats, carbohydrates as well as essential vitamins and minerals for optimal growth and development.
Complete chicken feed contains proteins from various sources, such as soybeans, sunflower or canola meal (byproducts from processing these plants for oil) as well as animal byproducts such as poultry meat and feather meal, fishmeal and lupins. Lysine and methionine supplements may also be included to prevent deficiencies that would inhibit egg production.
Most ingredients found in complete chicken feeds are pelleted – a process which compacts them into solid form for easier consumption by birds. Prior to pelletization, however, the feed is usually mixed with water before being divided up and divided up according to species of bird.
Fiber
Feeding chickens a diet rich in different kinds and quantities of foods plays an integral part in their health, growth and nutrition. Furthermore, its influence extends to their taste in eggs and meat products. Furthermore, its composition changes during different phases of their lives.
Feed manufacturers take several factors into account when formulating chicken feed. These include ingredients’ availability and cost, nutritional needs of their target breed of birds and potential market needs.
Feed can take the form of mash, pellets or crumbles. Pellets are the most frequently consumed type, comprising small cylinder-shaped balls baked to harden before being distributed among chickens as feed. Many times these pellets contain fermented or sprouted grains to aid digestion and make feeding simpler for our feathered friends.
Minerals
Minerals have unique chemical composition and crystal structures. Gold (Au), native copper (Cu), diamond and graphite are examples of minerals. Although minerals do not grow like plants with an external metabolic process like photosynthesis or respiration, they instead form through natural processes such as volcanic eruptions or weathering of already-existing deposits of minerals.
Fats such as rendered beef tallow, pork lard and linseed oil are added to chicken feed to supplement its nutritional value and provide essential fatty acids and energy sources.
Grains tend to be deficient in minerals, so commercial poultry diets typically include mineral supplements in the form of limestone or oyster shell meal, dicalcium phosphate and/or calcium carbonate. Lysine, methionine and vitamins may also be added; vitamins are organic compounds which aid normal body functions such as growth and reproduction.
