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

[MontanaChickDoc]

I hate that broiler and chick feed only comes as a crumble. So much gets wasted! My experiment is feeding Purina 20% protein pelleted feed for ducks, to feed to my Cornish Cross. It has extra B vitamins that ducks need and I figure it can't hurt the chickens. So far so good, they are almost 8 weeks old and pretty meaty! And it's comes in a 50lb bag unlike the Nutrena All Flock which is also 20% protein

 

[cmobley]

I give mine Tucker milling 22% showflock from start to finish its pelleted feed and cost 17.00 a bag. Have found it on sale for 13.00 a bag.

 

[HenriettaPizzaNolan]

I hate that broiler and chick feed only comes as a crumble. So much gets wasted! My experiment is feeding Purina 20% protein pelleted feed for ducks, to feed to my Cornish Cross. It has extra B vitamins that ducks need and I figure it can't hurt the chickens. So far so good, they are almost 8 weeks old and pretty meaty! And it's comes in a 50lb bag unlike the Nutrena All Flock which is also 20% protein

Nice! I always wanted to feed pellets but can never find something at my local store that is suitable. They don't sell the 20% in pellets near me. Or 18%.

My last batch of chicks I fed entirely on non-chicken feed after the first two weeks and they did great actually! I consistently gave them beans, pasta, and meat/fish/cat food daily, and then they also got kitchen food scraps and liquid whey. I still need to do the math on how economical is was compared to buying feed, but I think it was comparable and they sure seemed healthy. No deaths, leg issues, and they were free ranging like "normal" chickens until their last moments!

 

[U_Stormcrow]

Nice! I always wanted to feed pellets but can never find something at my local store that is suitable. They don't sell the 20% in pellets near me. Or 18%.

My last batch of chicks I fed entirely on non-chicken feed after the first two weeks and they did great actually! I consistently gave them beans, pasta, and meat/fish/cat food daily, and then they also got kitchen food scraps and liquid whey. I still need to do the math on how economical is was compared to buying feed, but I think it was comparable and they sure seemed healthy. No deaths, leg issues, and they were free ranging like "normal" chickens until their last moments!

I did the math on beans and pasta - its not remotely economical. Adding cat food to the mix likely won't help either.

Cheapest I can find bulk pasta is about $.79/lb, closer to $1/lb is more typical. That puts a 50# bag at $40-50. Bulk beans about $.75/lb-$.90/lb. Best case, you are looking around $38/50# for beans and pasta.. I can buy commercial feed with actual known nutritional value designed for chickens at about 1/3 that price from my feed store, 1/2 that price from the local farm store.

 

[U_Stormcrow]

Here's the article I was responding to last year (the Youtube video is linked in the first post). Fair warning, I was in a mood that day. I think my first comment was "rampant ignorance on display". Clearly,I was feeling less than sociable.

 

[Shadrach]

Nice! I always wanted to feed pellets but can never find something at my local store that is suitable. They don't sell the 20% in pellets near me. Or 18%.

My last batch of chicks I fed entirely on non-chicken feed after the first two weeks and they did great actually! I consistently gave them beans, pasta, and meat/fish/cat food daily, and then they also got kitchen food scraps and liquid whey. I still need to do the math on how economical is was compared to buying feed, but I think it was comparable and they sure seemed healthy. No deaths, leg issues, and they were free ranging like "normal" chickens until their last moments!

It's very difficult to match the methionine in commercial broiler and stock feeds with home made feeds, and if maximum growth in shortest time, with all it's difficulties, is the aim then commercial feed should give the ideal solution.
The profit in raising the birds like the Cornish is in how fast one get to slaughter weight, not so much the maximum natural life wieght. An odd term in these circumstances I'll admit.

I don't feed commercial feed and I don't keep meat birds. I've had lots of problems trying to match the commercial feeds amino acid ratios for so called dual purpose breeds which require far less methionine, should that be the correct approach to their diet. If the birds range all day there is no way of realistically calculating what they need in their feed to match any profile.
What I can write is my attempts to match a commercial feeds amino acid profile has cost at least three times the amount a decent commercial feed would cost. Lean beef and Brazil nuts help get the methionine up but with both comes a fat penalty. Active foraging birds should cope with the extra fat in their diet easily.

 

[U_Stormcrow]

It's very difficult to match the methionine in commercial broiler and stock feeds with home made feeds, and if maximum growth in shortest time, with all it's difficulties, is the aim then commercial feed should give the ideal solution.
The profit in raising the birds like the Cornish is in how fast one get to slaughter weight, not so much the maximum natural life wieght. An odd term in these circumstances I'll admit.

I don't feed commercial feed and I don't keep meat birds. I've had lots of problems trying to match the commercial feeds amino acid ratios for so called dual purpose breeds which require far less methionine, should that be the correct approach to their diet. If the birds range all day there is no way of realistically calculating what they need in their feed to match any profile.
What I can write is my attempts to match a commercial feeds amino acid profile has cost at least three times the amount a decent commercial feed would cost. Lean beef and Brazil nuts help get the methionine up but with both comes a fat penalty. Active foraging birds should cope with the extra fat in their diet easily.

I "liked" this post, but would like to add an "Informative" tag as well. Good practical experience, that, together with an admission of the icalcuable/unknowable as well.

Sadly, not a lot of research done on "dual purpose" birds, a term which is poorly defined, at best.

One can, and I certainly have (elsewhere) offered some reasonable guesswork and underlying assumptions as to how to infer some numbers between the well studied production layers and the well studied (for a few months of life, at least) meat birds. Its a starting point.

From there, you can only build experience and adjust based on experience with your birds, your pasture, your needs and conditions.

 

[Kenya Mwangi]

What I can write is my attempts to match a commercial feeds amino acid profile has cost at least three times the amount a decent commercial feed would cost.

Hello May I ask what reason would you want to match it? What is the reason every backyardchicken.com feed conversation I read is compared to commercial frankenstein chickens with commercial frankenstein synthetic amino acid feed?

Why not feed a natural dual purpose chicken a natural diet at a natural feed rate and slaughter it at a natural compromise of weight and cost?

 

[U_Stormcrow]

Hello May I ask what reason would you want to match it? What is the reason every backyardchicken.com feed conversation I read is compared to commercial frankenstein chickens with commercial frankenstein synthetic amino acid feed?

Why not feed a natural dual purpose chicken a natural diet at a natural feed rate and slaughter it at a natural compromise of weight and cost?

You've erected a strawman (and an erroneous one at that - most feed conversations use Production Red figures as the reference), but sure, I'll play...

To the first, three reasons. One. Many posters here, new to chickens, have Frankenchicken expectations. Its all they've known. Two. Frankenchickens are very well studied. We know their requirements. Their inputs. Their expected rate of weight gain. They provide a unit of common measure as an indirect way of comparing birds of different breed. Three. Frankenchickens have been optimized. We know, with great confidence, that significant alterations to the Frankenchicken method are unlikely to be beneficial, and in fact are likely to be detrimental to their performance.

In short, a Frankenchicken is a unit of common measure. (So is the Production Red for the more frequent conversations re: layers)

As to your second question, many of us do. Kindly define a "natural dual purpose chicken" Those are words with only the vaguest of meaning, like "chair". Do you mean a New Hampshire from the 1920s? Hatchery stock New Hampshires from the Farm store, where Ideal, Murray McMurray, Hoovers, and the rest have focused on egg production over size for generations to prodce more "product" from their parent stock? The New Hampshires one of our posters has been slectively breeding to put mass back on their birds? Or maybe you mean Orpingtons. The Australorp? Brahma? The SLW bred to be better dual purpose birds than the terribly slow growing, poor egg laying "dual purpose" Brahma? A Delware? Maybe you mean [Color] Rangers? My barnyard mutts which will eventually be culled into a recognizeable landrace? Etc etc etc.

How do we compare those birds without a common frame of reference?

 

[HenriettaPizzaNolan]

I did the math on beans and pasta - its not remotely economical. Adding cat food to the mix likely won't help either.

Cheapest I can find bulk pasta is about $.79/lb, closer to $1/lb is more typical. That puts a 50# bag at $40-50. Bulk beans about $.75/lb-$.90/lb. Best case, you are looking around $38/50# for beans and pasta.. I can buy commercial feed with actual known nutritional value designed for chickens at about 1/3 that price from my feed store, 1/2 that price from the local farm store.

I don't have time to do the math right now, but I did take down how much I spent. I think it was much less than that. I often would find sales and buy then. For example, I paid a total of $8 for the 2 14 lb bags of cat food I fed them, because it was on clearance at a pet store. Also, I wasn't really doing this as an experiment for economical reasons anyway. And, I'm not here trying to argue that what I did was better or cheaper. I was just stating what I did last time. It was an experiment, essentially. It went well.

It's very difficult to match the methionine in commercial broiler and stock feeds with home made feeds, and if maximum growth in shortest time, with all it's difficulties, is the aim then commercial feed should give the ideal solution.
The profit in raising the birds like the Cornish is in how fast one get to slaughter weight, not so much the maximum natural life wieght. An odd term in these circumstances I'll admit.

I don't feed commercial feed and I don't keep meat birds. I've had lots of problems trying to match the commercial feeds amino acid ratios for so called dual purpose breeds which require far less methionine, should that be the correct approach to their diet. If the birds range all day there is no way of realistically calculating what they need in their feed to match any profile.
What I can write is my attempts to match a commercial feeds amino acid profile has cost at least three times the amount a decent commercial feed would cost. Lean beef and Brazil nuts help get the methionine up but with both comes a fat penalty. Active foraging birds should cope with the extra fat in their diet easily.

The cat food I gave had a good amino acid profile, as did the beans. They also got meat and fish, which contain amino acids. Maybe it wasn't perfect, but I was conscious of amino acids and tried to keep the levels up. I never did the math or anything, but I never saw any deficiency.

I'm not trying to start anything here or suggest anyone needs to feed like I did. I was just sharing what I did with my last batch of CX. I don't know what the long-term implications of the diet I used would be, but it was more than sufficient for the 10 weeks I kept my meat birds.