First time raising chickens. What can i do about feed?

[MyChickens14]

Hello! Im Morgan and its my first time raising chickens. I tried incubating eggs but no chicks hatched so i ordered 6 day olds. I have chick starter but i want to make a homemade version for when theyre older. Any recipies?
Thanks,
MyChickens14

 

[chickengeorgeto]

I could post about making a bootleg version of mash and/or laying pellets or even some other type of chicken feed but I seriously doubt that you would want to go to the trouble and the expense to make it yourself.

There is this thing in business called "The Economic Benefits of Large Scale Production." It boils down to this. If you are not turning out several 100 tons of chicken feed each and every day then you can buy a better and a lower cost chicken food at the feed store.

 

[lazy gardener]

It would be cost prohibitive to make your own feed and do it adequately. Simply buy prepared feed, and make sure that it is not over 6 weeks old. Look at the mill date on the bottom of your feed bag. I want to see to it that any bag of feed I purchase is used up before it is 6 weeks old.

 

[MyChickens14]

Wow. I didn't know that I'd save by buying feed at the feed store! Thanks.

 

[MyChickens14]

What type of feed do you recommend?

 

[purslanegarden]

Wow. I didn't know that I'd save by buying feed at the feed store! Thanks.

You save it because you didn't have a large stock of chickens. Once you reach a certain population though, you may be able to find that mixing your own comes out cheaper. However, it still depends on what you use and what you paid for that quantity.

A 50-lb bag of feed might be $15, which is hard to beat for a person who just has a small number of chickens. That size may last for months, and you might even run the risk of having it go bad before they finish it if they are also foraging, etc.

 

[MyChickens14]

Ok thanks guys! I really appreciate the feedback! Thx sooo much❤

 

[ChickenCanoe]

The afore offered advice is spot on in their points they make. To the uninitiated, it may seem like you could do better making feed at home. You can't.
There are 2 primary reasons for that - cost and nutrition.
For 6 chickens, you would be buying grains and legumes in 50 lb. bags or even smaller quantities. Feed mills buy by the trainload.
You would be buying vitamin, mineral, amino acid and fat supplements by the pound (and you couldn't use them before they go bad). Feed mills buy those ingredients by the ton.
The economy of scale means it would be prohibitively expensive.
The other side is nutrition. When grains and legumes come into the mill, they are tested for nutrient concentration, moisture and the potential for fungus.
After the feed is ground, has all the supplements added, mixed and heat treated, the feed is then assayed to assure they have all the nutrients the chickens are known to need for their age in the correct ratios. You can't do that at home.
There is no way to provide that precise nutrition, based on well over a century of exhaustive research, with a home mix or for anywhere near the cost of a bag of feed.
Chickens' ancestors, the red jungle fowl, could glean all their nutrition from foraging in the wild.
But, for several thousand years, we have been selecting for greater production.
Jungle fowl produced perhaps 5 to 40 eggs a year. Modern chickens are expected to produce (depending on breed) between 100 and 300+ eggs a year that are twice the size of jungle fowl eggs. It takes optimal nutrition to achieve those numbers.
IMHO, the brand of feed doesn't matter a lot. As was said, buy fresh feed - especially since you are only feeding 6 birds. Less expensive feeds usually list terms like grain products or grain by-products as the primary ingredients while more expensive feeds will have things like corn, wheat, soybeans, etc. listed. Both still have the nutrition in the bag, the latter is using more expensive ingredients.
Just make sure you read the feeding instructions on the bag so you are buying the appropriate feed for the age and production level of your birds.

 

[MyChickens14]

ok thanks! i really really appreciate it all!

 

[PatchtoTable]

Really good advice from everyone.

To add to ChickenCanoe - I recommend grain feed is supplemented with a diverse range of "foraged food", with the diet of the Junglefowl as a guide.

Here is an article I wrote on the topic (It covers a lot of detail) "Primal Chickens - 6 chicken keeping secrets from the evolution of chickens."

https://www.backyardchickens.com/ar...secrets-from-the-evolution-of-chickens.73654/

- Hope it helps