Author: Anna & Mark

Here
are several different recipes for homemade chicken starter and grower
feeds.  The numbers indicate a percent of the recipe by weight —
to make a hundred pounds of feed, just pretend those numbers are in
pounds.

I know this chart may seem a little daunting,
but I thought it would be
useful to take a look at a bunch of different feed formulas reported on
the internet.  First of all, notice that many of the recipes don’t
actually fit into the protein recommendations for starting chicks —
18 to 20%.  The lower protein feeds should be considered grower
rations.

Next, notice that the
components can be broken down into grains for
carbohydrates; fish meal, wheat meal, alfalfa meal, or soybeans for
protein; and
alfalfa meal, aragonite, ground limestone, oyster shells, poultry
nutri-balancer, yeast, milk powder, salt, bone meal, dicalcium
phosphate, and whey for vitamins and minerals.

Of course, we all know
that we’re healthier if we eat a lot of
different types of foods, so it’s easy to draw the same conclusions
about chickens.  Feeding them a constant mixture based primarily
on soybeans and corn (like the commercial feeds) isn’t going to be as
good for them as mixing it up and tossing in different grains and
ingredients in different batches.  If you live on a farm, chances
are that some ingredients are easier to come by than others at
different times of the year — be willing to change your formula over
time!  In a later post, I’ll list the percent protein of each
ingredient so that you’ll know how to keep your percent protein steady
while changing ingredients.

Stay tuned for homemade chicken layer recipes.

The first thing to understand when you begin
to formulate your own chicken feed is that there are different types of
feed out there.  Basically, chickens of different ages or types
need a different ratio of protein and calcium in their diets.
Here are the top three types of chicken feed:

• Starter.  The
  starter ration you buy in the store is a high protein diet (usually 18
  – 20%) that gives your chicks a jump start on life.  Feed this to
  young chicks for their first six weeks.
• Grower.  When
  raising chickens for meat, you should feed slightly different amounts
  of protein as the chickens age.  After six weeks, lower the
  protein to 17%, and then lower it again at 15 weeks to 14%.  Of
  course, you can keep feeding the starter ration to your birds, but it
  costs more to feed the high protein diet, and your chickens may get fat.
• Layer.  The layer
  ration is for adult, egg-laying hens.  These girls can get
  slightly lower proportions of protein than chicks (usually 16 or 17%)
  but will need calcium added to their diets to replace the nutrients
  used up while making egg shells.

Of course, different breeds of chickens also need slightly different formulas.  In addition, time of year can make a big difference — many sources recommend feeding more carbohydrates (mostly corn) in the winter to give your chickens the energy to stay warm.

Stay tuned for homemade chicken feed recipes.