One great way to save money, it is not that difficult
Last year we started mixing our own chicken food. The journey towards making our own food started with researching how others make their own DIY chicken feed. I was able to narrow it down to three main criteria for the food:
- price
- protein content
- nutritional supplements
Cost
It is much less expensive to make your own food. It takes some work and you have to store the grains for up to a year. However, you are also less reliant on the supply chain getting food to your local feed store. This also helps insulate you from the cost increases that we have seen several times on feed this year.
Nutritional Supplement
Fertrell makes a product called Poultry Nutri-Balancer. We used the nutri-balancer to help add in any nutrients that are missing in the grain mix that we feed our birds.
Calculating Protein in Food
The good news is that amount of protein in the common grains used in chicken food is well established and easy to find
GRAIN | % Protein by Weight |
Wheat | 15 |
Corn | 9 |
Oats | 13 |
Soybean Meal | 44 |
Sunflower Seed | 20-44 |
Spreadsheet to Make It Easier
I’ve had several requests for the spreadsheet that I made to develop my own recipe for our chicken feed. They spreadsheet helps you to
- estimate the amount of food needed for a year
- come up with a recipe that provides the correct amount of protein and nutritional supplements
Just click on the image of the spreadsheet below to download. Please send email me if you find a mistake or have a suggestion for improving the spreadsheet.
Please note that different sunflower varieties have different levels of protein. It is also important that you don’t feed raw soybeans to your birds. Instead use soybeans that are roasted and ground up into meal.
One Consideration with Using Soy Beans
Phytoestrogens are present in soy beans. Phytoestrogens can trick the body into believing that they are actually estrogen. Phytoestrogens are passed through the chickens into the person consuming the eggs and meat from the chicken. The impact on us as people is not really well known. One way to avoid any issues is use sunflower seeds instead of soy beans.
Note
We don’t have a relationship with Fertrell other than as a paying customer. We just happen to use the their product in our feed.