All I have to say about those is that the one boasting about its crumbles "crafted with high-quality natural ingredients" lists them as
"Ground Corn, Dehulled Soybean Meal, Corn Distillers Dried Grains with Solubles, Corn Gluten Feed, Corn Gluten Meal, Calcium Carbonate, Dicalcium Phosphate, Monocalcium Phosphate, Citric Acid (a preservative), Salt, Choline Chloride, Dried Trichoderma reesei Fermentation Product, Dried Bifidobacterium thermophilum Fermentation Product, Dried Enterococcus faecium Fermentation Product, Dried Lactobacillus acidophilus Fermentation Product, Dried Lactobacillus casei Fermentation Product, Yucca Schidigera Extract, Verxite Granules, Manganese Sulfate, DL-Methionine, Vitamin E Supplement, Yeast Culture, L-Lysine, Sodium Selenite, Vitamin A Supplement, Vitamin D3 Supplement, Silicon Dioxide, Oregano Essential Oil, Thyme Essential Oil, Rosemary Essential Oil, Star Anise Essential Oil, Dried Bacillus subtilis Fermentation Extract, Sodium Silico Aluminate, Dried Bacillus licheniformis Fermentation Product, Vitamin B12 Supplement, Riboflavin Supplement, Niacin Supplement, d-Calcium Pantothenate, Pyridoxine Hydrochloride, Folic Acid, Menadione Sodium Bisulfite Complex (source of Vitamin K activity), Thiamine Mononitrate, Biotin, Manganous Oxide, Ferrous Sulfate, Copper Sulfate, Zinc Oxide, Ethylenediamine Dihydroiodide, Feed Grade Hydrolyzed Vegetable Oil, Mixed Tocopherols (a preservative)."
OK, this one doesn't include poultry excreta, offal, feathers (at least in their natural state) but it's difficult to visualize the ingredients as anything other than powders and potions when they are atomized into constituent chemicals like this; what exactly are 'solubles' as item 3?
Anyway, it doesn't name them as such but it does include the growth promoters copper and zinc, the vast majority of which your birds won't absorb, so those metals will just pass through to contaminate the land where you put your coop litter (in addition to all that excess N and P of course).
And it is a perfect example of an ultra processed food, with the bonus of claiming to be natural and healthy.
The real question is, do you want to eat this? We are what we eat. Our bodies have no other source of nutrients than what we consume. Same goes for our chickens. Especially ones that live only a few weeks and for whom this is all they eat. And then we eat them.
