Feeding in preparation for hatching

[Barkley]

   Make sure they are on a complete breeder ration for at least a month before saving hatching eggs. 

Mike,

Could you expand on what a breeder ration is in your opinion? 

in my town I have a choice of buying pre-bagged feed at TSC or driving 20 miles to a feed mill and getting a custom mix. There are a couple other feed sources but they are also offering pre-bagged starter and layer feeds.

I have been feeding the TSC layer feed and have had good luck hatching new hampshires and cochins the past two years, but I am happy to step things up a bit for the show chickens.

Thanks,
Jerry

[Mike Gilbert]

I have tried mixing my own with fish meal, alfalfa meal, layer concentrate, corn & oats.   I believe the concentrate had a lot of soy in it.   But I have had better luck with the scientifically formulated bagged feed.   The only one I have tried is Purina Gamebird Breeder Layena.   It is expensive but may be worth it.   I don't claim to be any kind of nutrition expert.

[John]

pre-bagged feed

The Kalmbach Game Bird Breeder that I feed is an 18% mini pellet.  A couple local friends and I buy 3+ tons at a time together to get a discount.  It is delivered my semi.  This last time it was $12.89/bag and that was about a buck/bag cheaper than a year ago.
TSC is generally convenient, but pricey and if you search around you may find better options.  At one time I drove 20 miles to get feed, but I bought at least 20 bags at a time to make the trip worth while.  Coming up with a little co-op like my friends and I do works great and the 3 tons can be any feed from Kalmbach...not just poultry feed.
Jerry,
There is a Heinold Feeds out of IN and they may have a dealer near your area.

[Mike Gilbert]

The nearest Kalmbach dealer from me is about a 3.5 hour drive - one way.

[John]

With the 3 ton minimum they deliver, plus give a 2% discount if we pay within so many days.  My price includes 6% MI sales tax too that I write off on my taxes.  They deliver the bagged feed on pallets in stretch wrap.  They have a portable fork lift that they use to put the pallets in the one guy's barn.  The rest of us just have to drive to his place to pickup our feed.  It saves a lot on gas too.
The order can be made up of dog food, rabbit feed, etc. and with enough neighbors ordering together it works out well. 
Before going with Kalmbach, two of us used to order thru an ADM distributor.  The minimum was 1 ton and they delivered to my place.  The bags were stacked on little plastic pallets that were put in the shed with a dolly...the truck had a Tommy Lift.  Once again there was a discount for paying within so many days and a big savings in gas.

[Max]

I am using my own custom mix. I downloaded an exel spreadsheet file from the Backyard Poultry website and customized it fit my needs. It's a cool tool to play with. You can add or subtract amounts of each ingredient to change the protein content. I bought an electric cement mixer to do the mixing. It's a lot easier than mixing by hand. With feed prices so high around here, this is the cheapest way i have found to get a higher protein feed. Plus, I know exactly what is in it. Purina gamebird layena is $21 for #50. If I could get it cheaper I probably wouldn't mix it myself.

[Barkley]

thanks for the responses guys,

I see that Kalmbach has a couple of dealers not too far from me ~15 miles so I can check in with them. I also noticed that they are looking for new dealers so maybe I can find enough friends that would want to co-op as John has done and simply become a dealer. 3 tons is way more than I need in a year here. I use about 30 bags of layer feed, 3 or 4 bags of chick starter and 20 or so bags of rabbit feed per year.

I'll talk to some of the other 4-H parents that I know and see if I can work something out.

Jerry

[Russ]

Sorry I have not been on here in a while, thanks to mother nature and being busy. I just picked up feed this morning from my local co-op. It is a 20% custom milled layer ration I have them mill, I have to purchase 1000lbs min. which ends up actually being 1050 lbs of feed by the time they add 50lbs of calcium. I was surprised that it only averaged $10.98 a 50 lb bag (whew who) almost two dollars cheaper. Oh and $10 of that is for pelleting it for me and $12.50 is for bags which I could re-use to eliminate the cost. Any way sorry I got side tracked, 2 years ago I worked on a feed plant that mainly made chicken feed. What I learned is this....look at your labels and see if they use grain by products, and where it is on the list of ingredients. The higher on the list it is the more they use. At the plant I worked they would get semi loads of old donuts, breads and other bakery products (I DO MEAN OLD !!!!). Then run them through a grinder (plastic bags, buckets and wrappers included) then bake it into a powder/pellet to be used in chicken feed....as grain by product. When I saw this I never bought another bag of feed from TSC (it was the main ingredient), the smell of there feed is just like that plant..still makes me gag just thinking about it. Ever since then I have purchased all my feed from the local co-op milled from local grains and had great results. It even smells like grain when I open the bag  so there you have it my 2 cents