Homemade feed recipe for bantam and/or standard chickens?

[NinjaGamer2022]

I understand that it is harder to make feed yourself for most standard breed chickens due to there high egg production and nutritional needs, but has anyone on here made feed for bantam chickens?
I understand that much research needs to be done to make your own feed. Any recipes that people on here have done for over a year are accepted (for both bantam and standard chicken breeds).
I don't want people on this post commenting angry comments about it not being possible to make feed yourself anymore because chickens are different from then to now and that your abus!ng your birds if you do it. It is very true that when it was common to make chicken feed that chickens only layed about 90 eggs a year. But there are still farmers making feed for their chickens today, and the feed we buy in stores is made out of something. I may never make 100% of my birds feed but I love them very much as friends and if my store can't supply it, I want to be able to keep my birds alive. Positive and non-lecturing opinions and comments appreciated. Thank you.

 

[raingarden]

You will learn a lot by trying to make your own feed. That is the only positive and non-lecturing comment I can make.

 

[Sally PB]

https://www.feedipedia.org/content/feeds?category=13593
This will give you nitty gritty info about what nutrients various foodstuffs contain. Maybe look up a good commercial feed and try to duplicate the percentages of nutrients, or use it to try to figure out the nutrient profile of a recipe for feed.

Thanks to @U_Stormcrow for the link.

 

[U_Stormcrow]

I understand that it is harder to make feed yourself for most standard breed chickens due to there high egg production and nutritional needs, but has anyone on here made feed for bantam chickens?
I understand that much research needs to be done to make your own feed. Any recipes that people on here have done for over a year are accepted (for both bantam and standard chicken breeds).
I don't want people on this post commenting angry comments about it not being possible to make feed yourself anymore because chickens are different from then to now and that your abus!ng your birds if you do it. It is very true that when it was common to make chicken feed that chickens only layed about 90 eggs a year. But there are still farmers making feed for their chickens today, and the feed we buy in stores is made out of something. I may never make 100% of my birds feed but I love them very much as friends and if my store can't supply it, I want to be able to keep my birds alive. Positive and non-lecturing opinions and comments appreciated. Thank you.

Making a nutritionally balanced feed is HARD. Being certain of the nutrition of your home-made feed is functionally impossible, because your ingredients are likely not assayed - meaning you rely on best guesses and averages. Doing so in cost effective manner is, for most situations, impossible.

That said, if you are prepared to accept those caveats, the next problem is that "bantam" is a characteristic, not a breed. I am unfamiliar with even a single study identifying differing nutritional needs for banties than for standard sized birds - and being of no commercial production value, its unlikely any published study will be performed in the coming years.

As is, the majority of chicken feed studies look at leghorns, production reds, production blacks (and those are really rare), or one of the few market lines of Cx-style broilers, ie Cobb 500, Ross 308, etc. I've never found a feed study on the needs of Brahma, SLW, Orps, or any of the numerous other common to the point of ubiquity "dual purpose" birds. We are starting to see a bit of research into colored rangers, but they are marketted for their free range abilities, which makes direct comparisons "difficult".

Not intended as lecture, or to be negative - I just don't believe the research is out there for you to use as a basis for developing your proposed special purpose feed.

 

[NinjaGamer2022]

Making a nutritionally balanced feed is HARD. Being certain of the nutrition of your home-made feed is functionally impossible, because your ingredients are likely not assayed - meaning you rely on best guesses and averages. Doing so in cost effective manner is, for most situations, impossible.

That said, if you are prepared to accept those caveats, the next problem is that "bantam" is a characteristic, not a breed. I am unfamiliar with even a single study identifying differing nutritional needs for banties than for standard sized birds - and being of no commercial production value, its unlikely any published study will be performed in the coming years.

As is, the majority of chicken feed studies look at leghorns, production reds, production blacks (and those are really rare), or one of the few market lines of Cx-style broilers, ie Cobb 500, Ross 308, etc. I've never found a feed study on the needs of Brahma, SLW, Orps, or any of the numerous other common to the point of ubiquity "dual purpose" birds. We are starting to see a bit of research into colored rangers, but they are marketted for their free range abilities, which makes direct comparisons "difficult".

Not intended as lecture, or to be negative - I just don't believe the research is out there for you to use as a basis for developing your proposed special purpose feed.

Do you think bantams could follow a vintage feed recipe since they lay about 120 eggs, more or less, per year? Thank you.

 

[U_Stormcrow]

Do you think bantams could follow a vintage feed recipe since they lay about 120 eggs, more or less, per year? Thank you.

here's the thing.
"I Don't Know"

and those are words I don't use lightly. [I'd rather not post than put them in print]

First, I don't know what you mean by "Vintage Feed Recipes". Some of the vintage feed recipes were actually quite good, by modern standards. Plenty of people, otoh, didn't follow them at all, or relied on other things - unspoken assumptions - to round out feed recipes.

It **MAY** be that Banties are just like their full sized equivalents, except that being of lesser mass, they eat less - but still have the same nutritional needs when expressed as ratios, percentages of the whole.

It **MAY** be that Banties, due to their much shorter digestive tracts need more nutritionally dense feeds, because the shorter digestive tract is less efficient. Or not - their lesser size may more than compensate.

It **MAY** be that Banties are much more susceptible to problems from high fiber diets than larger birds (see intestinal tract size, above) for a combination of reasons. Or not.

I can *Speculate*. Because I'm skilled in rhetoric, I can even make that speculation *sound* reasonable - but I can't know, and I don't know of any sources or studies which would make that speculation EDUCATED . After all, it sounds reasonable that, given two equally sized balls of similar surface, the 10# ball should fall faster than the 5# ball. Yet we know know that isn't true....

So, that's my thinking on the subject. I'll conclude where I began. "I Don't Know".

 

[raingarden]

I've never come across any bantam-specific feeds. The American Bantam Association pushes Nutrina feeds but Nutrina does not make a bantam-specific feed. The implication is that you should make a regular chicken food for bantams. That's challenge enough and there is tons of literature to dive into.

The vintage feed recipes are probably good enough for bantams and many backyard chickens. Since there is no precise data being taken many people wouldn't know the difference as long as they get some eggs and the birds don't get sick and die. If you start measuring and counting stuff it might be a different story.

My bantams get higher protein and more expensive feed just because I like them better than the other birds right now.

 

[JacinLarkwell]

I would not assume bantams could survive on a vintage feed easier than full sized birds. They are not guaranteed to lay less. My Cornish bantams regularly lay more than many of my full sized birds.

 

[raingarden]

I would not assume bantams could survive on a vintage feed easier than full sized birds. They are not guaranteed to lay less. My Cornish bantams regularly lay more than many of my full sized birds.

Stop measuring and counting stuff as long as they don't get sick and die. If the diet is insufficient then they will lay less. It's conceivable that feeding an heirloom diet could bring a person more satisfaction than a lot of eggs. Everybody gets to make their own goals in this hobby.

How in the hell did I get on this side of the debate?

 

[Perris]

Not a recipe as such, but you may find these from another thread useful @NinjaGamer2022

some might be interested in an update on my experiment. All chicks hatched this year (4 June, 3 birds; 1 July, 7 birds; 11 August, 2 birds) are alive and well and are apparently none the worse for having eaten no commercially produced chick feed, grower feed or any other homogenized feed

as chick feed and with them on grass from day 2, I gave several times a day and in small quantities some of the following: milk-soaked bread (or fermented-feed-liquor-soaked bread), chopped boiled egg, wheat flakes, oats (not whole), cornmeal, ground dry cat food (or smashed sardines or peanut butter), a little veg oil, natural yogurt, currants, and live mealworms. For most of the day every day their broodies led them to forage for assorted flora and fauna in the garden.

with the chicks I aimed for roughly (all eyeballed, not measured as such) 20% protein (from the milk, mealworms, sardines, catfood, or peanut butter) and the rest carbs (from the bread or grain products). I figure that adequate vitamins and minerals will be supplied by the other foods mentioned, and by the grass, weeds and bugs that they forage. I have a SS with the nutritional profile of foods I may or do give them, to consult when I can't remember e.g. how much fat or protein a live mealworm typically contains, and that highlights particularly good sources of x, y, or z, which I then make sure to give in the next meal if I haven't offered it for a while or see any sign of deficiency in it.

Update on that: 11 out of 12 are still with us; all 3 boys are crowing, 3 pullets are laying as of this month, and the other 5 pullets are coming on nicely. The experiment was to not use commercial chick feed. I have made my own feed for the adults for years.
The adults eat whole grains lightly fermented with peas, and other foods from the lists above added when served as appropriate. Fermenting whole grains and peas is beneficial; look in the journal Poultry Science for recent research papers on it. If you have any questions, feel free to ask. This was most of the flock this morning; most people who've expressed an opinion think they look well nourished and healthy.