Kelp vs Other Greens

[BrooklandBarn]

We have 8 hens in our urban coop - they free range so get bugs but not much greens, especially this time a year, as not much grows on our shady dirt patch. We make up for this by giving them lots of greens from the grocery store - collards, mustard and turnip greens, whatever’s on sale.

I’ve been reading a lot about the benefits of sea kelp, both for health and those luscious orange yolks. Kelp’s a lot more expensive than our grocery greens. Would there be a big added benefit to feeding them kelp too?

 

[JaeG]

I know in New Zealand our soils are deficient of iodine, so kelp is a good supplement from that perspective.

 

[ChickenCanoe]

I use kelp in fermented feed as one way to boost the nutrition of the standard feed during breeding season to improve the hatchability of the eggs.
I don't think it would be worth the extra expense just for eating eggs.
Anything that contains carotenoids will darken the egg yolks.
Sweet potatoes, squash, carrots, tomatoes, spinach, kale, turnip greens, etc..
Carotenoids are absorbed better if consumed with a source of fat. There is sufficient fat in chicken feed to assist.

 

[rjohns39]

Here's a nutritional breakdown of a good quality kelp for chicken feed. It might be useful in comparing to the other veg you are providing.

 

[ChickenCanoe]

Here's a nutritional breakdown of a good quality kelp for chicken feed. It might be useful in comparing to the other veg you are providing.

Do you mix the kelp meal in your chicken feed?

 

[rjohns39]

Do you mix the kelp meal in your chicken feed?

Only for certain blends, and I'd have to dig for which ones. During the spring I use variations on my broiler feed (it's a good base) for my breeders. I have separate blends for Roosters, Toms, turkey and chicken hens, and ducks and drakes to improve hatch-ability and viability after hatch. I don't use enough, fast enough, to justify a custom order of a ton.

That said, I've worked with Fertrell to come up with additions to my base feed to make batches as small as 25 pounds of the various blends that I'll be using. This is very much a work in progress. I'm also working on a modification to my chick starter to make turkey and duck starter (don't use enough to buy a ton), not there yet, still working out the math and availability of ingredients. Last spring, I was able to modify my turkey starter for my ducklings with really good success, but I had to pickup the turkey starter in Virginia and hand grind the additions.

 

[ChickenCanoe]

Thanks for that. My apologies to the OP for hijacking your thread.
I was wary since it is a soil supplement even though it says the only ingredient is kelp.
I'm only feeding chickens but with a tight gene pool my concern is to get as many micro nutrients in the feed to aid hatchability as I can without overdoing it.
I'll start hatching again at the end of the month and then 2 or three times a month so I'm starting to boost nutrition now.
I found 3 Fertrell dealers within 50 miles of me.
I've mostly been buying large packages of seaweed from the Asian grocery, blending it and adding a bit to each batch of fermented feed.
For chicks I've been adding fish meal to a 16% organic grower at a 1:10 ratio to raise the protein to 20%.
Maybe I'll PM you to discuss this further.

 

[rjohns39]

Thanks for that. My apologies to the OP for hijacking your thread.
I was wary since it is a soil supplement even though it says the only ingredient is kelp.
I'm only feeding chickens but with a tight gene pool my concern is to get as many micro nutrients in the feed to aid hatchability as I can without overdoing it.
I'll start hatching again at the end of the month and then 2 or three times a month so I'm starting to boost nutrition now.
I found 3 Fertrell dealers within 50 miles of me.
I've mostly been buying large packages of seaweed from the Asian grocery, blending it and adding a bit to each batch of fermented feed.
For chicks I've been adding fish meal to a 16% organic grower at a 1:10 ratio to raise the protein to 20%.
Maybe I'll PM you to discuss this further.

X2 @BrooklandBarn my intent of providing the Fertrell nutritional label was to give you a point of comparison. I trust them and their products and IMHO think they are the best in the market place. You can google "nutritional value {any vegetable name}" and find a point of comparison, but read on about deterioration of nutritional value. The kale picked from my garden is way different that the Kale trucked a couple thousand miles to me.

CC feel free to PM me. As I said, I'm an amateur and am constantly digging through the books and pinging folks who do truly have a clue.