Cornish X on 18% feed from start to finish - the results

[Perris]

Dairy products and tinned sardines are cheap, widely available, complete, real protein options. For some bizarre reason they both seem to be overlooked regularly in these discussions. Dairy also has a long historical record as chick feed, if not chicken feed.

 

[Shadrach]

How do you go about your chickens without commercial feed? Have you been successful?

I feed a whole grain and seed mix with various extras, usually meat and fish.

No, not really by the usual interpretation of successful.
It's a lot more complicated than the advocates of the numerous feeding regimes would have one believe.

 

[U_Stormcrow]

Dairy products and tinned sardines are cheap, widely available, complete, real protein options. For some bizarre reason they both seem to be overlooked regularly in these discussions. Dairy also has a long historical record as chick feed, if not chicken feed.

Speaking only for myself, a tin (3.75 oz, just under 1/4#) of Sardines is $1 for the cheapest option available, on special. Normally $1.10 (DOES make good bait for my traps though!) Canned tuna about the same.

Price supports for milk ensure I can buy a bag of feed for less than 4 gallons of (mostly water) milk.

In an emergency? sure (though I would simply turn my birds out in the pasture in such a situation, most obviously can't). As an everyday solution? Its just not cost effectve.

And its the Casein in milk (up to 80% of the protein in cow's milk) that makes it so useful to chicks in old recipes. Its a good met source. Whey has more total SAAs however (Met + Cys + hCys + Taur), and was a useful byproduct w/o further separation, and appears in many old recipes.

(and for those wondering why total SAA matters, even though it seems like I'm only talking about Met most of the time... Met can be converted by the body into Cysteine, buut Cystiene can't be converted by a chicken back into Met. So an "excess" of Met ensures that not only are its Met needs met, but also that there is "spare" to cover any deficiencies in Cys (which doesn't appear on feed labels). When you look at Whey and Casein above, you see that Casein has better Met levels, but MUCH lower Casein levels - meaning that unless the diet is otherwised optimized some of the Met in the Casein is going to be "downgraded" to address the Cys deficiency. The typical Met/Cys ratio desired varies with age, but tends to be relatively close to 50/50 +/- about 8%

If I had to use a milk-product powder today to "fix" a recipe, I'd reach for the whey powder instead of the casein powder, for just that reason.)

 

[HenriettaPizzaNolan]

Dairy products and tinned sardines are cheap, widely available, complete, real protein options. For some bizarre reason they both seem to be overlooked regularly in these discussions. Dairy also has a long historical record as chick feed, if not chicken feed.

I used both of those when feeding my last batch of meat birds a non-commercial feed, thanks to your article. Canned fish can be on the pricier side at times, but you don't need much of it to give your chickens a lot of protein. I found that you can get it on the discount some places too. Buying the big can of mackerel at the dollar store was my go-to because it was a good amount for the price and contained nearly all parts of the fish.

Milk, yogurt, buttermilk, and liquid whey from yogurt and cheesemaking was a good supplement as well. Often I'd soak their grains, pasta, or beans in it.

 

[Perris]

Milk, yogurt, buttermilk, and liquid whey from yogurt and cheesemaking was a good supplement as well. Often I'd soak their grains, pasta, or beans in it.

Typically my flock gets the curds and whey of milk that we buy for ourselves but is beginning to separate when hot tea is poured on, or coagulates in the microwave when we heat it for coffee, so we don't pay anything extra for milk for the chickens. A spoonful of yogurt or buttermilk, or cheese rinds, similarly come at no extra cost when the consumers are a small backyard flock getting it as an occasional topping.

Canned fish can be on the pricier side at times, but you don't need much of it to give your chickens a lot of protein. I found that you can get it on the discount some places too. Buying the big can of mackerel at the dollar store was my go-to because it was a good amount for the price and contained nearly all parts of the fish.

Indeed, and the mackerel deal sounds good. They, like sardines, rank high on most metrics, including sustainability, and are the cheapest tinned fish here. I can buy a tin of sardines for less than 50p, but it's also on sale in some supermarkets for 5 times the price.

edited to add: as it happens, we have some semi-skimmed that turned into curds and whey today, and here are the latest chicks enjoying first dibs, followed by some of the grown ups enjoying the rest