I thought it might be useful to write up what’s changed and what’s stayed the same since I wrote the article on wholesome homemade feed for last year’s article writing competition https://www.backyardchickens.com/ar...eat-tears-a-calculator-or-deep-pockets.78655/
Since the health of home born and bred chicks is the real test of feed quality, I start with a summary of chick outcomes since I gave up commercial chick-feed. [I last bought chick feed in May 2020; adults were off commercial feed from 2018. So the adults who bred to produce these chicks had been on home-made feed for years before the home bred chicks were conceived.] I also report on chick predator losses, to reassure those worried about free-ranging dawn-to-dusk from hatch.
In 2023, there were 2 chick losses out of 11 hatched in 3 different broods. One disappeared without trace and may have been predated, or may simply have failed to stay in earshot of the broody and got lost; the other died by misadventure (drowning).
1 of the 11 was secretly incubated in a flowerpot, and lived out with her broody 24/7 for the first 6 weeks, so was a case of extreme free-ranging. She not only survived it, but lays in a nestbox, so she is not perpetuating her mum’s bad habit.
In 2022, of 12 chicks hatched in 3 different broods, and all but 1 survived to maturity. That 1 was a purchased hatching rare breed egg (a Braekel), and it died of (unknown) disease; since the other 3 Braekel eggs bought with it failed even to hatch, I suspect the problem here was the breeding (a common problem with small gene pool rare breeds).
There were no deformities among the chicks in either year. There were no losses from metabolic diseases in either year (unless one assumes the Braekel’s was such).
Over the 2 years, there was less than 5% loss to predation for chicks free ranging with their broodies from hatch – and even that one was an assumed, not a certain, case of predation. There was one loss by misadventure.
The class of 23 are now approaching their first birthdays: the oldest of the pullets will be 1 on 30th May, then two will be 1 in August and three will be 1 in September. All pullets are laying and 5 of them (i.e. all but 1) have gone broody this spring.
The pullets are marked P. The hens in the photo vary from nearly 2 to 7 years old. Meanwhile the cockerel class of 23 have lined up beside the dominant roo and support him in his duties. All seem to be pictures of health.
These boys, the dom’s wing men, hatched together and will be 1 in September (along with 3 of the pullets).
Let us turn to the rest of the flock. Since 4 June 2023, the flock size grew and shrank, and is now 23. 1 roo and 1 hen vanished, at different times; they were 1 and 2 years old respectively. I suspect a neighbour’s dog or predation for the roo and illness for the hen, but no trace of either of them remained and we can only guess the reasons for their disappearance. 1 old, infirm roo, and 1 old, bully hen were euthanized, and 1 9-month-old cockerel was given away to become the breeding dom in a flock about 20 miles away, where he now has a flock of 10 hens to himself and is apparently thriving. These culls were all done to make room for a broody here to hatch a few chicks this year, as I think we have reached the carrying capacity of the land we have. All the other birds are still with us; I have tried but failed to find suitable new homes for some of them. I am still trying, but they really don’t like confinement, so they’re difficult for a new keeper who needs to keep them penned at least for the first few days, when first impressions are made. They appear skittish with strangers.
Homemade feed has continued to deliver for me and for the flock. One 3-year-old has laid barely any eggs in her lifetime and has an idiopathic issue. All the rest, including 6- and 7-year-olds, are laying more or less frequently. Two hens laid throughout what was their second winter, which has not happened here before, and I have to note that they were both class of ‘22: the first generation here to eat no commercial feed at all.
So my home made feed and garden forage continues to deliver good health and better egg production than I got when I gave commercial feed. From 1- to 7-year-old rare and heritage breed chickens, between 1 Jan and 14 April, when I drafted this, I collected 654 eggs. By 28 May, when I am revising it, they had laid 1,049 (today’s not included). The sale of surplus eggs more than covers my costs in the same time. Since April, 4 pullets and 1 hen have gone broody (the hen twice), so the daily yield is sometimes lower than it was in late winter and early spring, but income still significantly exceeds costs, and I could have charged more or sold many more had I a bigger flock. Of course, I need to earn enough in these very productive months to cover the costs year round, but I am not in it to make money. The waiting list of would-be customers continues to grow.
The health of the flock has also been good generally, though obviously now and then one or another bird has been under the weather, or has faced a health challenge of one sort or another. None of them are or have been medicated. Lice and nits on one has been treated with liquid paraffin and lard. The homemade feed has been supplemented with foodstuffs that have been demonstrated to assist with various conditions, as and when seemed required by the occasion. As a general overview I have found this useful: K Glos, Remedies for Common Health Problems of the Organic Laying Flock SARE 2002. https://projects.sare.org/project-reports/fne02-415/ I research further any recommendations made there before I think about trying them myself, but it is a good starting point.
The feed I make has not stayed exactly the same as described in the article last year; I have learned from the comments and feedback what other people are doing, and have tried some of their foodstuffs, and I am continually discovering others, so I continue to tweak the base mix to try to improve it.
Most importantly, I have changed both of the principal feeds that I used for the base. The one consisting of 80% whole wheat + 20% cut maize, described in the article, has been replaced by a sack of 100% whole wheat. Plain whole feed wheat comes in sacks that are 20% larger and about 30% cheaper than the wheat/maize combo I was using, and since wheat is a more nutritious grain than maize [compare, e.g., tables 2 and 3 in https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7278379/ and table 1B in Nandan et.al. below], it makes no sense to spend more for less.
And the one consisting of mixed peas + vetch + whole maize, described in the article, has been replaced by a pea and seed mix that is sold for young racing pigeons. This new pea mix is a much more nutritious blend. It consists of (in alphabetical order; quantities of each may vary between batches) buckwheat, dari (aka sorghum, milo, red and white), groats, screened linseed, millet (white), mung beans, paddy rice, peas (blue, green, white and yellow), rape (black), safflower, soya, sunflower, tares and wheat. Thus, there is now almost no maize/corn (zea mays) and there is a significant inclusion of pseudocereals, that is, plants that are like cereals, but have less carbohydrate and more (and more complete) protein, vitamins, minerals, fibre, and other good things, and these pseudocereals supply them in a more bioavailable form than do cereals.
Those who want to know more about pseudocereals can find it here: Nandan et.al. Nutritional and functional perspectives of pseudocereals Food Chemistry 448 (2024) Open access. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.foodchem.2024.139072 . The flock seems to like all the constituents of this mix; if anything is left now, it tends to be the buckwheat, which may be bitter. The taste for peas has long since been acquired by all, and some birds pick them out to consume first, sometimes.
The proportion of wheat : peas+ : sunflower seeds set to ferment remains the same. The foods added when serving remain broadly the same, but I have found that gram flour mixed into a paste with a little milk can serve as an alternative to peanut butter to make a palatable sandwich.
I now also offer, as an occasional topping, a sprinkle of nutritional yeast flakes, to supply additional complete protein (in a bioavailable form) and B vitamins. This addition was prompted by reading Jach et.al. Yeast Protein as an Easily Accessible Food Source Metabolites 2022, 12, 63 Open access. https://doi.org/10.3390/metabo12010063 . The one I am using is 47% protein, so a little goes a long way, and is available in supermarkets as well as health food shops, so is very accessible.
Finally, because the ex-dom lived in confinement for almost a year (and would still be there now had I not ended his life), I am confident that, in order to work, this feed does not need to be paired with diverse and extensive forage (though that is, I am equally sure, hugely beneficial). All he had access to was the grass and weeds that grew in the lawn in his pen. He had no signs of any nutrient deficiency, despite being almost completely reliant on the homemade feed I supplied.
Since the health of home born and bred chicks is the real test of feed quality, I start with a summary of chick outcomes since I gave up commercial chick-feed. [I last bought chick feed in May 2020; adults were off commercial feed from 2018. So the adults who bred to produce these chicks had been on home-made feed for years before the home bred chicks were conceived.] I also report on chick predator losses, to reassure those worried about free-ranging dawn-to-dusk from hatch.
In 2023, there were 2 chick losses out of 11 hatched in 3 different broods. One disappeared without trace and may have been predated, or may simply have failed to stay in earshot of the broody and got lost; the other died by misadventure (drowning).
1 of the 11 was secretly incubated in a flowerpot, and lived out with her broody 24/7 for the first 6 weeks, so was a case of extreme free-ranging. She not only survived it, but lays in a nestbox, so she is not perpetuating her mum’s bad habit.
In 2022, of 12 chicks hatched in 3 different broods, and all but 1 survived to maturity. That 1 was a purchased hatching rare breed egg (a Braekel), and it died of (unknown) disease; since the other 3 Braekel eggs bought with it failed even to hatch, I suspect the problem here was the breeding (a common problem with small gene pool rare breeds).
There were no deformities among the chicks in either year. There were no losses from metabolic diseases in either year (unless one assumes the Braekel’s was such).
Over the 2 years, there was less than 5% loss to predation for chicks free ranging with their broodies from hatch – and even that one was an assumed, not a certain, case of predation. There was one loss by misadventure.
The class of 23 are now approaching their first birthdays: the oldest of the pullets will be 1 on 30th May, then two will be 1 in August and three will be 1 in September. All pullets are laying and 5 of them (i.e. all but 1) have gone broody this spring.
The pullets are marked P. The hens in the photo vary from nearly 2 to 7 years old. Meanwhile the cockerel class of 23 have lined up beside the dominant roo and support him in his duties. All seem to be pictures of health.
These boys, the dom’s wing men, hatched together and will be 1 in September (along with 3 of the pullets).
Let us turn to the rest of the flock. Since 4 June 2023, the flock size grew and shrank, and is now 23. 1 roo and 1 hen vanished, at different times; they were 1 and 2 years old respectively. I suspect a neighbour’s dog or predation for the roo and illness for the hen, but no trace of either of them remained and we can only guess the reasons for their disappearance. 1 old, infirm roo, and 1 old, bully hen were euthanized, and 1 9-month-old cockerel was given away to become the breeding dom in a flock about 20 miles away, where he now has a flock of 10 hens to himself and is apparently thriving. These culls were all done to make room for a broody here to hatch a few chicks this year, as I think we have reached the carrying capacity of the land we have. All the other birds are still with us; I have tried but failed to find suitable new homes for some of them. I am still trying, but they really don’t like confinement, so they’re difficult for a new keeper who needs to keep them penned at least for the first few days, when first impressions are made. They appear skittish with strangers.
Homemade feed has continued to deliver for me and for the flock. One 3-year-old has laid barely any eggs in her lifetime and has an idiopathic issue. All the rest, including 6- and 7-year-olds, are laying more or less frequently. Two hens laid throughout what was their second winter, which has not happened here before, and I have to note that they were both class of ‘22: the first generation here to eat no commercial feed at all.
So my home made feed and garden forage continues to deliver good health and better egg production than I got when I gave commercial feed. From 1- to 7-year-old rare and heritage breed chickens, between 1 Jan and 14 April, when I drafted this, I collected 654 eggs. By 28 May, when I am revising it, they had laid 1,049 (today’s not included). The sale of surplus eggs more than covers my costs in the same time. Since April, 4 pullets and 1 hen have gone broody (the hen twice), so the daily yield is sometimes lower than it was in late winter and early spring, but income still significantly exceeds costs, and I could have charged more or sold many more had I a bigger flock. Of course, I need to earn enough in these very productive months to cover the costs year round, but I am not in it to make money. The waiting list of would-be customers continues to grow.
The health of the flock has also been good generally, though obviously now and then one or another bird has been under the weather, or has faced a health challenge of one sort or another. None of them are or have been medicated. Lice and nits on one has been treated with liquid paraffin and lard. The homemade feed has been supplemented with foodstuffs that have been demonstrated to assist with various conditions, as and when seemed required by the occasion. As a general overview I have found this useful: K Glos, Remedies for Common Health Problems of the Organic Laying Flock SARE 2002. https://projects.sare.org/project-reports/fne02-415/ I research further any recommendations made there before I think about trying them myself, but it is a good starting point.
The feed I make has not stayed exactly the same as described in the article last year; I have learned from the comments and feedback what other people are doing, and have tried some of their foodstuffs, and I am continually discovering others, so I continue to tweak the base mix to try to improve it.
Most importantly, I have changed both of the principal feeds that I used for the base. The one consisting of 80% whole wheat + 20% cut maize, described in the article, has been replaced by a sack of 100% whole wheat. Plain whole feed wheat comes in sacks that are 20% larger and about 30% cheaper than the wheat/maize combo I was using, and since wheat is a more nutritious grain than maize [compare, e.g., tables 2 and 3 in https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7278379/ and table 1B in Nandan et.al. below], it makes no sense to spend more for less.
And the one consisting of mixed peas + vetch + whole maize, described in the article, has been replaced by a pea and seed mix that is sold for young racing pigeons. This new pea mix is a much more nutritious blend. It consists of (in alphabetical order; quantities of each may vary between batches) buckwheat, dari (aka sorghum, milo, red and white), groats, screened linseed, millet (white), mung beans, paddy rice, peas (blue, green, white and yellow), rape (black), safflower, soya, sunflower, tares and wheat. Thus, there is now almost no maize/corn (zea mays) and there is a significant inclusion of pseudocereals, that is, plants that are like cereals, but have less carbohydrate and more (and more complete) protein, vitamins, minerals, fibre, and other good things, and these pseudocereals supply them in a more bioavailable form than do cereals.
Those who want to know more about pseudocereals can find it here: Nandan et.al. Nutritional and functional perspectives of pseudocereals Food Chemistry 448 (2024) Open access. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.foodchem.2024.139072 . The flock seems to like all the constituents of this mix; if anything is left now, it tends to be the buckwheat, which may be bitter. The taste for peas has long since been acquired by all, and some birds pick them out to consume first, sometimes.
The proportion of wheat : peas+ : sunflower seeds set to ferment remains the same. The foods added when serving remain broadly the same, but I have found that gram flour mixed into a paste with a little milk can serve as an alternative to peanut butter to make a palatable sandwich.
I now also offer, as an occasional topping, a sprinkle of nutritional yeast flakes, to supply additional complete protein (in a bioavailable form) and B vitamins. This addition was prompted by reading Jach et.al. Yeast Protein as an Easily Accessible Food Source Metabolites 2022, 12, 63 Open access. https://doi.org/10.3390/metabo12010063 . The one I am using is 47% protein, so a little goes a long way, and is available in supermarkets as well as health food shops, so is very accessible.
Finally, because the ex-dom lived in confinement for almost a year (and would still be there now had I not ended his life), I am confident that, in order to work, this feed does not need to be paired with diverse and extensive forage (though that is, I am equally sure, hugely beneficial). All he had access to was the grass and weeds that grew in the lawn in his pen. He had no signs of any nutrient deficiency, despite being almost completely reliant on the homemade feed I supplied.
