Want to ditch the store feed

[Bawkbok]

Do bear in mind the breed of chicken will have an impact on ensuring they get adequate nutrition. A hen tht lays 300+ eggs a year is going to be more demanding to feed properly than a hen that lays 150 eggs a year. The most likely difficulty is supply sufficient Methionine.

What foodstuffs include Methionine?
We have an 8 month old Golden Comet who has just starting squatting two weeks ago but hasn't laid an egg yet. Started giving her Calcium Citrate to help with any contractions that might be happening. As a production breed, I am concerned she hasn't started egg production yet. She was 12 weeks old when we purchased her on layer feed from the farmer - not grower feed, so I fear she may have had inadequate feed source for her early development. I immediately switched her to grower and she seemed more satiated. They always have free access to oyster shell and grit.

 

[saysfaa]

What foodstuffs include Methionine?
...

Meat, dairy, and synthetic chemical

There are no plant sources that are remotely practical. This is can be seen by how the rules (in the US) for certified organic chicken feed don't allow synthetic ingredients but make an exception for synthetic methionine.

I believe a plant source exists but I haven't found it yet in spite of very intensive looking for quite awhile. I've been looking for any at all, not just practical or even extremely remotely practical.

If you hear of a possibility, please share.

My sympathies about your Golden Comet pullet taking so long to show signs if beginning to lay. I'm sorry I don't know enough about to really help with that.

 

[Shadrach]

As saysfaa points out, getting optimal methionine for production breeds is both difficult and expensive and commercial feed uses a synthetic compound to reach the optimal amount.
Meat and some dairy (one pays a fat premium for most dairy) will do it in the right quantity. So will walnuts. Again getting the quantitiy right takes some working out.

The important word to note in the above paragraph is optimal. Hens will still lay eggs on some truely terrible diets. Many believe that in the long term the hens health suffers. Unfortunately with most high production breeds the unatural rate of egg laying kills them before a sub optimal diet effect show.
My advice is feed them commercial feed and let them out to forage. They are quite capable of finding what the need in the various stages of their lives given sufficient diversity and quality of forage choice.

 

[Sally PB]

Fenugreek is a plant source of methionine. Not sure how good a source though. I need to look into it more.

 

[Sally PB]

Copied from online google search:

Fenugreek contains small amounts of methionine, a sulfur-containing amino acid:

Amino acid	Amount in fenugreek seeds (g/100 g)
Methionine	0.61

Fenugreek is also a good source of other amino acids, including:
arginine, glycine, histidine, isoleucine, leucine, lysine, phenylalanine, threonine, tyrosine, and valine

 

[saysfaa]

Ah, yes. I'd forgotten walnuts and fenugreek. We talked about them just as
hm..., life happened here in real life. I was going to see if my hens would eat walnuts, as I remember. I will do that next week.

Also, I was looking for plants as opposed to highly processed parts of plants (website below gives highest met in highly processed ingredients) . If I were to feed that, I may as well feed chicken feed.

And I was wrong. This website gives numbers of several potential ingredients. And says some ingredients are not used because there is no certified organic supply of them.

Edit to clear up typos and such since I can't type well while half asleep, lol.

 

[Perris]

The important word to note in the above paragraph is optimal. Hens will still lay eggs on some truely terrible diets. Many believe that in the long term the hens health suffers.

Note that your comment that hens will still lay eggs on some truly terrible diets applies to commercial feed too.

The key thing a commercial feed does is satisfy AVERAGE requirements (optimal, I think not). So most individuals are actually poorly served by it because they are not, in fact, average. The free choice feeding research shows that not only is it better for the health of the animals, but it is even more efficient for the pocket of the person buying the feed, if the animals are allowed to select their own ration.

The papers on this for chickens were given in the thread on new research debunks trad advice, and here's a paper that shows it for cattle too https://practicalfarmers.b-cdn.net/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/Atwood-et-al-2001-tmr-vs-choice.pdf

 

[Altairsky]

First of all, my breeds are heritage or mixes, and they lay no more than 150 eggs per year, so they don't have the same nutritional needs of production breeds that lay more than 300 eggs a year. Keep this into consideration.

My personal experience:
I used to feed my chickens seeds, then when I joined this forum I was told that it was a big mistake and to feed them layer crumbles.
So I did, but didn't realize I was giving them layer feed with just 15% protein. It was expensive and of a decent brand. It was so bad that it went moldy at the bottom of the feeder and I only realized this when I emptied the feeder because I noticed there was something wrong with my chickens. It ruined my hens for over 3 months, where they laid store quality eggs with pale yolk, watery white and thin, cracked shell.
I quickly went back to my homemade recipe and I will never change their diet again.
The only industrial feed that I buy is chick starter because feeding chicks homemade feed is quite difficult and it's easy to make mistakes. I also feed chick starter to the hens as a treat because why not. It's good mixed with curd or yoghurt and I never had chick starter go moldy.

I buy most seeds at a local mill, who sells all the seeds farmed locally. Based on our local cereal productions, my recipe is:
wheat
oat
barley
rough rice
corn
peas
cowpeas
faba minor beans
sorghum
sunflower seeds
hemp seeds OR linseed for omega3
oyster shells free choice

Plus all sort of meat and dairy scraps I have available. I make sure they have meat or fish twice a week during winter when bugs are scarce, especially if they are laying.

 

[Perris]

feeding chicks homemade feed is quite difficult

It really isn't. I've been doing it for 3 years now and have come to the conclusion that the only thing that matters is that they get real food, with plenty of protein, which here is supplied mainly in the form of tinned sardines and live mealworms. Otherwise they eat what the rest of the flock eats. Commercial chick starter primes their developing gut in the wrong direction. They need fibre, and plenty of it, easily supplied through grass and weeds.

I buy most seeds at a local mill, who sells all the seeds farmed locally. Based on our local cereal productions

IMO this is the best advice for anyone to follow.

 

[Altairsky]

To be honest, I fed chickstarter to my brooder chicks, supplementing with greens, soil, and protein rich kitchen scraps. On the other hand, the chicks raised by my broody hen were already eating the adult's food on day 3. One of them died to malnutrition though, but I think she went blind (she was a polish/Padovana), I didn't realize because those chicks were feral, and she ended up with vitamin b deficiency paralysis because she was unable to forage. No problems with the other chicks, after I cut their crest.