Excited try new Organic Layer Food for our Girl's!

[AmethystMary]

We are ver excited to buy 2 50#bags of Organic, Non GMO Layer feed from Natural Farm Feed.com. We went out to the farm to pick up the food and they were very friendly and it feels good to be able to help out a local business.

Once we got home and opened the bag we were even more impressed as this food looks like grains and even has some green veg in it. So, next came the taste test. A lot of times our chickens can be slow to try new foods. Not so with this blend! We have everyone's seal of approval that it's really yummy! I'm thinking we may see some good things as this food looks like it's closer to the original grains. Prior we were feeding Grower or Layer Pellet Crumbles.

Here is the breakdown of what's in it and protein content.

They can be reached at naturalFarmFeed.com or contacted and happy to answer questions:
(509) 720-7064 5705 N RAMBO RD SPOKANE, WA 99224 (Please Call First)

I'm looking forward to trying out fermenting feed with this food, too. I am in no way affiliated with this farm. Buying local always feels good all the way around!

I'll post again later on how the girl's are doing on it.........

 

[ChickenCanoe]

I use a similar feed from nature's grown organics. It's coarsely ground. Pelleted and crumbled feed has binding agents added which are hard to produce organically.
I find it much better to ferment it though. Because many of the goodies (vitamins, minerals, trace elements) are added as a powder so they can be discarded as fines. By fermenting, the fines get bound up and completely consumed.

 

[pdirt]

FYI - Natural Farm Feeds are not organic, but they are non-GMO.

We used Natural Farm Feeds for a good chunk last year. I do agree that it smelled fresh. The starter and layer versions also have Fetrell Nutribalancer, a high quality supplement that includes probiotics. I wanted to like the feed.

I was told at the feed store that the unofficial word was that the grains used in the feed are grown "organically", but are not certified. After a while, I really wanted to hear this fresh from the horses mouth and finally called Natural Farm Feeds. The man I spoke to said, "No, it is not organic. The farmers tell me that they don't use any unnecessary chemicals." Well, that is a very different answer than I originally heard. He was rather defensive and gruff about it, so I didn't press him on it. "No unnecessary chemicals" leaves open to a lot of interpretation. Maybe they truly aren't using any chemicals or very few of them, but I wasn't left with that impression. I've been using a real organic feed since then and I no longer have to mix fish meal in with it (because it already has fish meal in it).

There is a growing movement of "organic" farmers, who basically do almost everything the organic way, but occasionally take shortcuts that would exclude them from being certified organic. For example, some farmers never spray pest/herbicides directly on their fields, but they will spray the entire perimeter of the field. This would not suit well in certified organic, but I don't have a problem with this type of farming.

@Amethysta , what did you learn about the "organic" aspect of the NF feeds? I would love to find out if what I originally thought it was was true. I think the best answer would be to be able to speak directly with the farmers who grow the legumes and grains, to hear exactly what they do or do not do regarding chemicals.