Homemade feed recipe for bantam and/or standard chickens?

[NinjaGamer2022]

What do bantam chickens and North Korean children have in common?

Some bantams are naturally bantams, like Silkies. Old English Game, are not.

 

[raingarden]

Old English Game, are not.

How so? C'mon. Spill the beans.

 

[NinjaGamer2022]

How so? C'mon. Spill the beans.

I read they were bred down to size. There are full sized and bantam versions of Old English Game chickens. I own 3 bantams versions and love them.

 

[raingarden]

Oh, OK. It's just selective breeding.

There's this thing called epigenetics too. Simplified, it just means that morphological changes caused by environmental conditions can be inherited by the offspring. The environmentally-induced changes are somehow incorporated into the DNA. So, the grandchildren of that starving North Korean chilld are smaller.

 

[Avian Egg Farms]

I understand that it is harder to make feed yourself for most standard breed chickens due to there high egg production and nutritional needs, but has anyone on here made feed for bantam chickens?
I understand that much research needs to be done to make your own feed. Any recipes that people on here have done for over a year are accepted (for both bantam and standard chicken breeds).
I don't want people on this post commenting angry comments about it not being possible to make feed yourself anymore because chickens are different from then to now and that your abus!ng your birds if you do it. It is very true that when it was common to make chicken feed that chickens only layed about 90 eggs a year. But there are still farmers making feed for their chickens today, and the feed we buy in stores is made out of something. I may never make 100% of my birds feed but I love them very much as friends and if my store can't supply it, I want to be able to keep my birds alive. Positive and non-lecturing opinions and comments appreciated. Thank you.

I don't know much about chickens but you could partially make a DIY by mixing a seed blend which consists of grains and seeds that are nutritionally balanced for them and mix in some protein. (etc bugs, pea protein, soybean meal.) and give them veggies. I am also experimenting with making my own feed for quail, (although I am using commercial feed, its not the weird pellets.) I found it cheapest to find a seed blend for quail that consists of grains and seeds, so I'd reccomend finding something like that for your chickens if you wish to give them something other than pellets. Just make sure you can provide the correct nutrition for chickens, so you may want to do some research

 

[Amidv80]

Not a recipe as such, but you may find these from another thread useful @NinjaGamer2022



Update on that: 11 out of 12 are still with us; all 3 boys are crowing, 3 pullets are laying as of this month, and the other 5 pullets are coming on nicely. The experiment was to not use commercial chick feed. I have made my own feed for the adults for years.
The adults eat whole grains lightly fermented with peas, and other foods from the lists above added when served as appropriate. Fermenting whole grains and peas is beneficial; look in the journal Poultry Science for recent research papers on it. If you have any questions, feel free to ask. This was most of the flock this morning; most people who've expressed an opinion think they look well nourished and healthy.
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Thank you for coming back and updating. I would be interested n knowing what you feed adult egg laying hens? I would love to get away from commercial feed but the information out there can be overwhelming

 

[Perris]

Don't mention it; happy to help.

I recently wrote an article on what I feed my flock (and why): it's here
https://www.backyardchickens.com/ar...eat-tears-a-calculator-or-deep-pockets.78655/
I hope you find it useful.