The Official Forum of the Ameraucana Breeders Club > Housing, Health & Hatching

Feeding in preparation for hatching

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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  ;D

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