i know Im asking the wrong place but does someone know of a method to log back into an Instagram account? I was dumb forgot my account password. I appreciate any help you can offer me
I just stumbled on your video today (Feb 2023) and I can't believe you made this 8 years ago!! You must have seen the writing on the wall long before the rest of us. Homesteaders across the country are complaining about the purina brands they buy at TS and their chickens not laying. Your video could have been made yesterday! Thanks for your info.
Any time a "for profit" corporation gets involved with food, be it animal or human, quality and REAL nutritional needs take a backseat to stockholder dividends. "Crude protein" is a great example: while 25% crude protein may seem like a lot, USDA allows that to include feathers, hair, hooves & nails and more, ALL UNDIGESTABLE! Depending on the cost of the feed, one labelled at 25% (pick any number though) could have as little as 12% DIGESTABLE protein and THAT number is starvation for poultry. Just one of many examples of how the huge food lobby has us dazed and confused!
Robert, I came for the chicken feed and stayed for your commentary! You are willing to speak your mind and provide logic too. Thank you for facts and telling it like it is. Blessings!
This video maybe old but wow look at what we are going thru right now, 2022/2023 with chicken feed and no egg production, coming here to say, HOW RIGHT YOU ARE ABOUT PURINA. I’m gonna try to use your mixture. Thank you so much. Agree with you on your point of view.
I live in Kentucky and have started feeding whole grains. My cost for 50 lbs of my recipe is $9.84. I'm using a recipe I adapted from yours. I use corn, soy, wheat, oats, and sunflower seeds. I have a local feed store that sales these ingredients very cheap and it's from local farmers on all products except sunflower. Thanks for your videos. I fully enjoy them!
I got a comment from someone showing me HIS chickens waiting to feed and the "feeding frenzy" when he did! Unfortunately, I had to delete the comment due to his language during the video. Please folks, talk how you want with your "crowd", but on my channels there is NO profanity, NO direct personal attacks and NOTHING in poor taste. I drove truck most of my working life and can teach most new words and phrases. I choose not to. You should too!
+Sean Henderson My channel, my rules. Your channel, your rules. Foul language is cropping up everywhere and no one stands up to it because they don't want to embarrass themselves to total stranger by saying out loud what the stranger are thinking! This is not a channel about morals, so this is the end of this discussion. NO PROFANITY, NO PERSONAL ATTACKS, my rules and anyone who questions this rule, is themselves, questionable!
I get,"Your channel, Your rules." What eludes me is when, people stop a communication because of a word that they do no like. The point is the communication, the words are merely tools and some people have a limited tool set or vocabulary. Some people are less imaginative than others, but this does not mean that their communication is any less valuable or important. The expletives are real words and can be found in the dictionary. You can go ahead and delete my comment, which is neither a personal attack nor does it contain any profanity. But if you delete my comment you might as well add a 3rd criteria to your channel censoring, "the comments that you just don't like."
+Sean Henderson We will post this one last comment from Sean, not because of the last sentence challenge.... I do not respond to those, or dares..... but because the points made are points some language-impaired would think valid. But no other posts on this subject will be posted, as this channel is not about morality, it is about sustainable, out-of -the-box living. We all understand that some people do not have the vocabulary of others. My brother, with seven or eight degrees, for example, loves to use words that few people know, to describe something in five syllables that could be as easily described in two. But he and I, seldom use four letter words, profanity, or ethnic stereotyping, because this makes one appear ignorant and intolerant. We all know what profanity is, even the Slavey Indians I lived with in the Canadian NWT, who punctuated every sentence with one word that begins with an "F", several times...... until their wives appeared, then that word disappeared!I have traveled through more of North America than 99% of the people in the world and through much of Mexico and much of SE Asia. Even the least educated and conversant in the most remote of places, knows the difference between profanity and acceptable language. As many say, "If you are in doubt about the use of a word, it probably should not be used." My position has nothing to de with one's education level or vocabulary. It has to do with the fact that we all know what language is acceptable language in what company. Using it for shock value in public, within MY earshot, will get a rebuke that will bring tears to your eyes, without a single word of profanity. If this were done far more often, we would not have to be in public places hearing words that would shock a truck driver...... and remember that I was one for nearly 45 years. My channels attract many people, from the very religious, to the very conservative, to the ultra Liberal (like me) and most importantly, the young who are learning and testing language skills. We and this channel need to be and are, an example to follow. My deeds and knowledge are not enough. Respect, humility and more are on display with every video I post, every word I say. I know I have slipped a couple times with words and I let these pass instead of editing them. That I am human and make mistakes is an important part of the education I wish to offer: "it is OK to not be perfect, just strive for it." One of my favorite saying is: "I aimed for the stars. I missed. So I settled for the moon." So I try and sometimes miss in the video. However in writing, there is no excuse and there are MANY synonyms for EVERY curse word. Use them, or don't get posted here! I am NOT sending a message to people that ANY language is acceptable! We will be polite!
Sadly, I HAVE to be gluten-free. The symptoms are VARIED, not just bathroom issues. But ALL of the symptoms cause extreme inflammation inside one's body, which sooner or later will likely cause cancer. I didn't start having issues until I was in my 40's. I believe with my whole heart that those of us that did get hit later in life is due to folks like Monsanto and all the GMO foods and additives to our processed foods. In researching why I was sick I learned that wheat is added as fillers to so many processed things that have no reason to have wheat in them. And the wheat grown these days have been bred to have nearly 80% more gluten in it than it did 100 yrs ago. Then you take the monster wheat and put it in EVERYTHING and VIOLA....a lot of people are basically "overdosed" to the point of no return. Just a little fyi. Thanks for the info. I'm a new subscriber!
Excellent video. I'm in Alberta so fortunately we don't have to deal with Purina. Local producers make local feeds much like yours with locally grown crops. I worked for a farm supply and feed mill in Grande Prairie where I worked the mill. All local grains bought from local farmers and we just ran it through the mixer and bagged it. Ran the corn through the roller of course. Under $20 a bag Canadian which is still cheaper then the big mills in Alberta.
I love Alberta. In 1975-6 I flew out of Edmonton to Echo Bay for a mining contract. Spent some time in Calgary & Banff as well. That was all LONG before there were any skyscrapers in Edmonton and no West Edmonton Mall either!
We’ve been using Mc Murray for our birds every year since we started raising them! Always, and I mean always had good luck. Everyone is usually amazed by the fact that they mail them right to our little post office!
@@conniewojahn6445 thats what my chickens used to do when I started giving them mix grain but after a bit i started grinding their grain and till today they dont leave anything back
Hi Robert thanks for sharing, I am just about to start rearing chickens so your feed mix [once I buy the grain] will come in very handy. all the best keep the videos coming.
Hi there, watching your video in my summer house, your cockerel in the background, so I opened the door and all my birds ran over to see what's going on 😂😂 Kobe Ken UK
Robert Earl, I was just going back over your feed video. I've had very good success with your mix. Several people recently have mentioned to me that I should look at fermenting the feed before feeding to stretch the feed and provide a more digestible feed. I was curious as to your experience and thoughts on fermenting chicken feed. Thanks, William.
Birds are what the dinosaurs turned into. No one gave dinosaurs "fermented feed" and I find it a waste of time that can be better spent elsewhere..... but if it makes YOU feel good, then do it. Gizzards insure great digestibility!
Interesting mix. It’s different from game bird feeding. I feed racing pigeon feed, whole corn, hen scratch/with out crack corn, wheat, laying pellet, and the most important is soaked oats. Feed three times a day 2 with the dry mix and one with soaked oats. Nice video
I'll pass on the GMO corn and soy, I've got kids and grandkids..... we are what our animals eat...Monsanto has been sued and lost as you probably know by now.. their Round up that is used with GMOs cause cancer and more lawsuits are in the works... So I'll just stay with Organic products. But you have done a good job with your video and I will adjust to my liking.... I agree with you about the feed monopolies, pretty much should be illegal... Thanks Robert for the information.
They didn't loose they settled. They did a cost analysis and descided it was cheaper to pay than drag out a trial. I farm for a living and have been around round up and other chemicals for a long time. If the world wants to eat they need GMO's and chemicals so that enough food can be raised to feed them.
My hens are from McMurrays. They are now 3 years old In Oct. They quit laying about a month or so. I feed them crumble all scraps, sweet feed same as I feed my mini horse for the winter. If they don't start laying again before this bag of crumble is done they will be going into the pot!! I love what you feed but can't afford that much for feed for my nine girls!!!Good luck and please continue with the great videos!🐔🐔
+Gimpy Granny If your hens are in their molt, they will not lay eggs for 2-4 months. I lost the entire summer to the molt of our Dark Cornish this year, which destroyed our egg sales. Luckily the new hens started laying a month before the old ones started. Another thing you said was their age. At that age, they really are "spent hens" and unless you have an emotional attachment, they probably should be eaten. As a "granny" you probably knw this, but others don't, so...... in the "old days" , say pre-1980, you could buy a "stewing hen" in the grocery stores. These were usually "spent hens", hens past their laying prime that had been fattened a couple weeks then slaughtered. They were tough, but VERY flavorful and bigger and more expensive than fryers. Farms and semi-rural flock owners would also cull their spent hens in the Fall and hatch out new ones that would mature for Spring. This saved feed by feeding the new, soon-to-produce hens instead of low production old birds. Commercially, as more productive hybrids were developed, hens were worthless as eating birds, totally "spent" and just skin and bones when the first molt came. They are replaced at 16-20 months routinely (I transported these old and new birds when I was in commercial houses) and the spent hens usually go to dog food, soup makers, or some other kind of chicken meals for humans that don't require a "pretty" piece of meat, just flavor. The company I worked for sold the birds to Campbells for years. They lost the contract for some reason and could not find other buyers..... it is a bit more expensive to process these birds than fryers..... so they started bulldozing the birds into a pit and burying them! They had no reason why they would not give the birds to migrant workers, honest poor or create a niche market for the meat, they just buried them!!! This was hard for me to know and hurried us on the journey that continues here! If your birds are not pets, it IS time to process them and replace them!
+eco-ranch.us I don't make pets of live stock. Made that mistake when was young!! Your absolutely correct about them being a bit past their prime. Poor girls are still gorgeous but will be freezer food soon!! Thank you very much for your answer🐔🐔🐔🐔🐔
Thank you so much for this useful information!!!. I made the recommended mix using milo, wheat, corn and soybean meal. The birds are laying as usual and they seem to like this new mix a lot. Compared to the commercial stuff, this is CHEAPER, healthier and something I have noticed is that the birds eat less quantity, so a 50 pound bag lasts more than twice what the commercial feed used to last...!!!!. this is amazing and I'm very happy with the results. I wish I would have done this a long time ago... I'm using this mix for chicken, ducks, turkeys and even my guineas and pheasants!!
Thank you! I am always glad to hear that some of my information is of use and useful! On this feed, I have 4 1/2 year old hens that are laying like first year, so it does work and costs less!
Rachel asked me about "fermented Chicken feed" (see the comment) For some damn reason, I cannot answer the comment directly! Someone please let me know what is up with that!!!!!!! Rachel, I have no experience with fermented chicken feed. I just watched several videos touting it that ended with the presenter showing us how much the chickens liked it as they gobbled it down. My chickens will gobble down Doritos, popcorn and potato chips. This is no indication of what is good for them, any more than letting your child choose own his dinner over what you are serving. Kids will invariably choose ice cream and chocolate over broccoli and fish. That does not mean they should have it daily! Nor should we feed our pets and livestock what they "like" either. Two of the videos said that fermented chicken feed created thicker eggs, as though calcium was magically created during a three day ferment. All said they drank less water........ um, yes....... if food is saturated with water and you eat it, you need less other water. Is this a health benefit? No. They eat less feed too. Yes, because it is saturated with water and they feel fuller sooner. They are NOT getting significantly more nutrients, just volume in their crops. I cannot speak to the "creation" of B vitamins. In fact, like the other fad diets I have seen in seven decades of life: B.A.R.F., vinegar diets, increasing longevity by being grossly underweight, processed & pelletized feed for parrots, vegetarian diets for dogs & cats and an endless list of others....... I WON'T speak to their benefits, mainly because other than making their creators wealthy, there are none! Fermented feed occurs naturally often in a chicken coop after a soaking rain and they love to eat it because it is different, not better. Live insects, green plants, seeds, grains, the occasional mouse or snake and more are all a chicken's natural diet. They have evolved to eat these thing over some 60 million years. What makes some wise guy with wet, spoiled food think he or she knows better than 60 million years of evolution? If it were that effective, commercial growers would be clambering to feed it. They are not! I worked in that business for a number of years. Corn, soy and premix... DRY, dominate the commercial grower/producers for a good reason: the feed to egg or meat conversion is the greatest! We smaller producers can afford to allow pasturing, free ranging and fodder & mealworm production because time is not our enemy like it is to commercial operations, so we can do these things and even jump on the latest fad that a washed-up celebrity sells at 4 AM. If it makes us happy to try, not much harm done other than your birds mature a bit slower or your potential egg production is lower. I say stay with the bird's natural diet as much as you can which by the way is NOT my "secret feed mix", but pasturing and free range. My birds do free range and if grass grew in the desert, they would pasture! In Florida, our poultry had around 10 acres of Bahia Pensacola grass to pasture on and my feed mix as a supplement. Stay natural, let the hipsters follow the wind direction. Your birds WILL appreciate it!
Great job my man. Keep doing wat ur doing, we support u. My moms flock only has 30 chickens but I love taken advice from real ppl who love the chicks instead of looking at them as money. We do sell them but take pride in wat they ingest
"Preppers are white people running around with guns & MREs" Man if I don't feel that, with the folk I used to know. Thanks for the good video with fantastic info! I hope your retirement is going great, and you enjoy it! Little trick for those viewers browsing these comments: I had been pondering how to go about feed bins on the cheap, and remembered everyone in my family has cats, and were able to give me around a dozen of the Tidy Cats plastic bins that close near airtight, and with a bit of easy modification, now can be left outside without worrying about humidity, pests etc (though I keep em inside still).
Disagree with me if you want! I also have not met a gun toter who could take me in a fist fight (and very few others that could either...... when I was under 60). Texas jaundiced me against "white people with guns" and rightfully so. In 55 years of traveling on my own, through EVERY ghetto and barrio in America, many sketchy areas of SE Asia and the wilds of the substance abusers of west Texas, I never, NEVER had an inkling that I needed a gun to protect myself from a HUMAN (bears, wolves, wolverines and coyotes were a different story.) I do love your idea on the Tidy CATs though!!!!
Thank you so much, I am starting to raise my own chickens, I only have 1 roster and 3 hens. They haven't started laying yet. Now I am going to get the feed you talked about. Thanks again.
Wow! Nice presentation! Easy to understand, great setting, concise! I also appreciate you sharing your feed experience and knowledge. So that was two parts: Wheat Cracked corn Milo Then it’s 3 1/2 parts soy meal. Did I get it right? I also feed back any eggs and shells broken and mixed with scraps. Thank you from SW NM! Regards...
This was a wonderful informative presentation of My secret Chicken feed Mix, My husband found this and was so excited because we had just been talking about the subject earlier today, and there you were! Awesome, We have 8 dogs and were wondering what you feed your dog? Do you do the same thing with your feed for your dog? My husband Roy has been going into Spokane and buying whole Oats, Lentil's, Barley, white wheat, Rice, cracked corn and that's it. We mix it, no ratio. We are feeding chickens, ducks and Muscovy. All together we have 38 chickens, 15 Muscovy, 12 German Blue Ducks. They all get the same feed. Roy cooks the feed in a pressure cooker for 5 minutes to soften it up. We used to feed the granules from the feed store but it cost too much. Roy has been cooking the feed in a pressure cooker for 5 minutes because it seems they eat it better. Then he bought shaved Oyster shell just recently to help with the digestion. We are also impressed by your way you built your chicken coop out of bottles. Wow! Please tell us about this. We live in a cold country, but were thinking about the insulation you are creating. Roy has used 6 inch walls filled with pine saw dust, for insulation. The temperature gets to 45 degrees inside when the temperature is 15 below zero. How thick are your walls with the bottles. What does the temperature get inside of your pens? Thank you, Roy and Karen
WOW! That is a lot to request in a comment! I waited for a couple days to answer, as I wanted time to answer properly. First of all, your feed seems to be a bit low on protein, maybe as low as 10%, depending on how much lentil (around 25%) you mix in the diet. If they are thriving, thane something is OK, but poultry will SURVIVE on low protein, just not thrive, lay a lot of eggs and set eggs on low protein. We have five other dogs besides Cascade. They eat a standard "working dog" packaged diet. When I slaughter meat animals, all the decent organs go into a pot to stew for them, with lots of salt and water enough to make a thin stew. Then I add enough rice to set the whole thin thick, chill it and run it through the grinder. I then freeze it in one day portions and mix it with the packaged food. We have had several dogs live to be 16 years old nd no one has cancer, both signs of a good diet. Our construction here, won't work in a clod climate. We have thermal mass, not insulation. In a cold climate, once the walls get cold, they will stay cold and suck all the heat out of the house. Building like we are here, you would need to put a layer or two of insulation board on the inside of the outside wall, so the temperature inside does not migrate out. My method here works in a desert and at altitude in lower latitudes. This would apply to a chicken coop as well. Hay and straw will degrade with dirt and rock fill, so are not suitable. Most of our walls in the early construction, are 19" thick. The new construction and the house in particular, is 24" with that layer of insulating board. The insulating board, will stop the thermal mass migration of temperature and retain a constant temperature inside, year-around. Ceilings are about R-60. There is no roof.... yet... on the bottle coop, so I cannot comment on the temperature. The walls are always cool to the touch though, so since I have build a "solar chimney effect" into the walls & roof, I would imagine the interior will stay cooler than the Summer heat and when I block off the upper openings in Winter, warmer. But we seldom get real cold here, so for the livestock, I am more concerned with dealing with the heat. It dies sound like you have a good insulating set up though and did it using natural materials! Thanks for writing and watch for a new video about our hatching chicks (happening NOW). We are starting these off on a starter mix that uses Moringa powder to bring the protein level to 28%. I want to see if they are more vigorous on the Moringa mix than normally and will discuss that in the video.
If fermenting grain pleases you, do it. If steaming a chicken breast with basil for your dog's food please you, do it. But neither has ANY effect on the nutritional uptake. Chickens and all birds, are what is left of the dinosaurs. They made the last 65 million years without humans fermenting their food! I raised 20 pound meat chickens on my feed mix of grains. Cannot see how any feed could improve that result!
Thank you for the great information as I'm just starting a little home/backyard chicken raising. Have four chickens ready to start laying and need to get feed so I'm going to try your recipe for feed.
Linda Kay Murphy I hope it works as good for as it does for us. Just remember that you still need to add a "premix" of vitamins and minerals, unless they are getting LOTS of greens and insect. My recipe is not complete without the premix and I neglected to say that in the video!
My chicken MacClovia is lonely so she escapes from her house and heads over to the kitchen door, braving 11 cats and 5 dogs jajaja and proceeds to chase them away from their food! She likes dog food. Ay Dios. Good grief what a crazy chicken. She needs a boyfriend.
Awesome video. Tons of info in here and I love your wit! Coming from a conservative minded family, I wholeheartedly support mixing your own feed and even growing your own feed crops. We'll definitely be feeding our flock this when they come off their grower feed. Thanks!
Lots of great, necessary information up to that point! Thanks for watching and for taking the time to point out that any good recipe requires a lot more information than just the ingredients!
Christine asked me if I grind my baby chick feed. For some reason the question does not appear here, but I will answer it and hope she reads the answer: I do grind the baby feed, "starter" much finer than the adult mix. I also make the mix 28% protein so that all baby poultry can eat it. I also neglected to add that if your chickens do NOT free range, you must also add a vitamin/mineral "premix" to the feed.
That is just a little over 4 eggs a week per hen. Usually, our hens laid 5-6 a week when we lived in Florida, but here Summer heat slows them and Winter slows them somewhat. I would not keep hens that laid less than 4 eggs a week though. It is too expensive to feed them. Thanks for the compliment too!
Thank You for this insight. I am aware that clay is rich in minerals, I wonder how the baking effects the minerals in the clay? Once again Thank You for sharing your knowledge and experience with the rest of us. Tom.
Not sure myself. If you are referring to the clay added to Purina and other feeds though, it is NOT cooked, that is the reason it is there, to form pellets without heat (and take about 15% of your money away).
Not really. Like vitamins, they just poop out what they don't need. The exception is the Cornish cross meat birds. You can feed them too much protein and they will gain more muscle mass than their developing bones can support.
+Jordan Nim I agree, that is why it is a "secret" and not a secret! With Purina dominating so many feed stores with their gift & trip bribes that have small feed store owners selling that overpriced crap they call animal feed, we all need to move back to mixing our own, as well as encouraging the small feed mills to continue to make feeds that do not have inert binders! I anyone finds, as we did, a small feed mill that uses heat extrusion and NO inert binders like bentonite clay, buy your base (corn & soy) ingredients from them, in the form of their layer feed. Then you can add the other grains and more soy to it for the variety and protein we want our flocks to have!
PLEASE FOLKS, THIS VIDEO IS OVER FIVE YEARS OLD. DO NOT PHONE ME OR ASK QUESTIONS ABOUT IT ANY LONGER. HERE IS THE LINK TO MORE INFORMATION ABOUT THE MIX: singingturkeys.com/POULTRYFEEDMIX.pdf THIS IS ALL THERE IS, I CANNOT RESPOND TO ANY MORE COMMENTS!!
Love your little araucana hen. I raise araucana in Golden and Silver Duckwing. It is a rare breed and love seeing when other people have them running around.
Unfortunately almost all our birds are just hybrid "mutts". Not an Araucana in the flock, just look alikes! Dark Cornish, Rhode Island Red, White Leghorn and Pioneer all breed together and we hatch the best looking eggs, keeping the best looking hens for eggs & hatching. We JOKINGLY call our "breed" the Chihuahuan Desert Chicken!
eco-ranch.us well you managed to hatch a tufted rumpless black hen that looks exactly like an araucana in the video. She is the funny looking thing wandering around next to you with no tail and white feathers around her head.
Being gluten intolerant isn't a sign of prestige? I work food service for a large corporate office. Lots of yuppies. Most are vegetarian, vegan, gluten free, sugar free, lactose intolerant, or allergic to such and such. So ridiculous. Like the gluten free guy, who eats white flour wraps, or the garlic allergy lady who eats our pizza everyday, with you guessed it, a big dose of fresh garlic in the sauce. Most look like they have cancer. Eat some red meat, on white bread, down it with a Coke, go get some natural sunlight, and grow a pair of testicles. I'm done.
+Hans “Hanzy4200” S. Being "special" IS a sign of "prestige" to the hipsters and young affluents of today! "My child is the best student with blonde hair between 60-70 pounds in his class at Hipster Elementary" bumper stickers are everywhere! We are dumbing down society, then discouraging excellence with "awards" for every participant, however mediocre! THEN, we complain when Asians who ARE taught that to excel is desirable, best us! Being a "vegan", glucose intolerant, lactose intolerant and so on, have become badges of honor for the mediocre masses, desperately seeking to create an identity. The consumer culture of the last 40 years has caused this. Personally, my life would have been a lonely one due to the shunning I get from these crowd following resource vampires, if it had not been for my Mother teaching us all that we were "so special" that the world needs to follow us, not us the world. It is only because of this upbringing that I found the courage to NOT do "what everyone is doing" and to grow into this lifestyle. You are correct. These "allergy sufferers"(many of them), vegans, glucose & lactose intolerants, synthetic fabric allergies, religious fanatics and "talking heads" who preach hatred for all whose politics are slightly different from their own; all need to grow a pair, forget what others think, dance like no one is watching and scratch what itches when it itches. The world would be a far better place! Thank you my friend!
+doug moore My condolences on the loss of your Father. Decades ago, the cartoon "Family Circle" had a Sunday cartoon where the kids were fighting in their bedrooms, running around the bedroom right after bedtime, jumping in and out of their beds. The father came in and sternly said to them to "Settle down! The next one of you that gets out of bed, gets a spanking!" He turned and was walking down the hallway, when Jeffy, the littlest one, came out of the bedroom, saying "I 'havta go to the bathroom". To every rule, there IS an exception. Your Father was a very unfortunate exception to my "rule". But from my generation forward, people somehow feel they must "stand out from the crowd", create a persona that makes them exceptional for some reason. That exceptionality make be one that is earned honestly, or fabricated like being a "vegan", "allergic to smoke" "lactose intolerant", "MSG intolerant", "fragrance intolerant", ADHD, "gluten intolerant", "public toilet intolerant", "bashful kidney", "fart anxiety", or some other thing I NEVER heard of until the 1990's! That does not mean these things are not real and don't exist! It just means that .00005% of the population suffers from them, not 50% of upwardly mobile," attention-needy", BMW driving, young professionals and particularly their children! Somehow, I know you understood that in my post, I am seldom vague! But that does nothing to ease the grief regarding the loss of your Father.
Thank you for the info! I was able to find a mill that sold Soybean Meal for 14.35 a bag. they also had cracked corn for 9.10, both 50 pound bags. Here in my town I can get Triticale 100 bags for 10.00. The Triticale is said to be 12 to 13 protein. With my mix of right around 20 protein, it is costing me 8.35 per 50 pounds. That is less then half of what I was paying before for higher protein.
That is excellent! You are also getting 100% of the corn germ as well. Many commercial feed mills, like the "chessboard" people, remove up to 30% of the corn germ for other uses. This leaves the CRUDE protein the same 7-9%, but reduces the digestible protein by 1/4-1/2. It will take a few weeks, but you will notice an increase in quantity & quality of your eggs as well!
Well, before you mentioned Wheat and Honey as a complete food there is a man mentioned them through God Qur'an around 1400 years ago his name Prophet Muhammad. Read (Surah Yusif) the prophet to see how God told him to store the wheat to last forever. And read what God said about Honey 1400 years ago. Please do. Thanks for your video.
I find religion to be both Man's worst invention and Man's greatest weapon of mass destruction, so I won't read any further than I was forced to for the first 18 years of my life into these Bronze Age myths and deities. That being said, the Talmud, Quran and bible do possess much information that can help us survive in the case of societal calamity. Wheat, honey, dried beans and salted meats are wonderful survival foods. Pork, spoils quickly in heat. This is the reason it was shunned as a meat to eat in the hot desert areas where Islam, Christianity and Judaism flourished. Making its non-consumption a part of the religion, most likely kept many followers from falling ill from eating spoiled pork, so they could "go forth and propagate".. Same can be said of the "book" of Leviticus, where if a Man lay with a woman who has her disease, he is unclean for 20 days (or so). Nowadays, we can wash with unlimited water, so sex during a woman's menstruation is possible without fouling our clothing. These texts have a lot of great practical information in them..... but as guidance from some unseen creature who sees ALL the events in this entire 35 billion light year wide universe, not so much!
And the Almighty said, "Yusuf, friend, we've got seven fat cows eaten by seven lean, seven greens and another land, so I have to go back to people, maybe they know. He said you grow seven years, so you reap a climax in a spike in a little bit of what you eat. Then comes seven people who eat what you gave them a little bit of what they barricaded. Then comes a year later in which people are squeeze and there are a few of them» «Yusuf» «Verses 46-49». The scholars and commentators have argued that the meaning of love and Sanabel in these verses is wheat, although it enters with barley and some other grains, but the wheat remains its duration. and come
Christopher M I grind my "baby" food in a Waring Pro blender. Anything of lesser quality will burn out fast! Eventually, we will get a real grinder and motorize it (store.countrylivinggrainmills.com/grain-mill/). Then I will grind all my own whole grains.
Hello from Parrish Fl, i have enjoyed your video. i mix scratch and do use layer crumble. my birds (18) are out from nine am to dark. i use oats, wind bird seed, cracked corn for scratch, they get a few handfulls twice a day. i cook alot so they are healthy, in winter i make brown rice, ramen noodles dollar store sells by the case what ever cereal i have, you SHOULD write a book. enjoyed your video and i am passionate about Monsanto and the other butts out there that are not for farmers but their own pockets. thank you.
+connie bell and do not get me started about gluten free and dairy free crap. i worked in nutrition for 35 hospital years and i know it is the latest gimmick for most, some folks are truely affected by gluten i need to say, but it is like the Cpap machines, all about the mighty buck.
+connie bell Thanks for the kind words. I am considering writing a book, but it will have to wait until the construction is finished. If I do end up traveling to Haiti & Cambodia to help establish semi-intensive chicken houses, that will definitely be worthy writing about!
Nice Info Robert. We talk about some of this on the phone so in a way I got a sneak peak of what you was posting. I have 21 hens and one Roster. during the winter I go though 2 50 LB bags of Scratch grains and 2 50 lb bags of Layer Feed. a month, I use Hole corn and feed that to them once in the morning and once at night to help keep them warm during the winter. I like to learn how to raise Meal warms, and grow folder to feed my girls with what folder is I have know clue what that is have to research it. Once I sign the paper work on the 5 acres we are adding to out lot. I want to grow foods that will not only feed my family but also feed my animals. I would also like to raise honey bee's also they would provide the honey, witch is a natural sweetener. and help my gardens grow much better. Thanks for sharing this very informative video.
Have you ever fermented your feed? I've heard it can lower your feed cost significantly as it make the nutrients more readily available and results in the animals consuming less water (as the food is so hydrating from soaking in the water/ACV). I haven't done anything of this so this is all regurgitated information, but it seems to be a viable way of reducing your feed cost and keeping healthier birds :)
Hi, I live in Maldives - thanks for being so direct, looks like a clean heart fellow - Insah Allah, I will try your given idea on poultry feed. In case, if you could visit to Maldives, call me, you're most welcome to stay with me and my family.
Thanks for sharing your experience and knowledge with all of us. I have raised Texas A & M quail for the past two years in my back yard. I plan to stop raising them this winter to raise about 6 laying hens. I may also get a couple ducks to keep the slug and bug problem under control. Can you recommend a breed of chicken based on egg production? I'm not concerned about the meat since they will ( knowing us ) be more like pets than livestock and we won't be able to kill them. Another thing...just saying...I don't understand why the 22 people would give your video a thumbs DOWN. Of course with the more than a thousand thumbs UP I guess the negatives show just how much they know. I gave you a thumbs up and have subscribed to your channel. Have a great day !
Thank you for the kind words! Actually I am surprised there are not MORE of the "thumbs down". Purina and Southern States alone could ask their employees to hit me and there would be a couple thousand! I do not care about multi-nationals, or corporations in general. They are the problem, not the solution. My videos try to show the solutions to issues that we will have to deal with whether or not "they" acknowledge them! As far a s the kind of bird you are seeking, there are many. Most of these are American made breeds like the Rhode Island Red and Wyandotte. Our American breeds tend to have better tempered roosters that older breeds. McMurray has a hybrid that we love both sexes of, but they will not breed true if you want to propagate them. That breed is the "Pioneer". I recommend that and the RIR for backyard poultry people!
I used feral hogs, bone them out, grind and cook them we then mix in ground corn and other grains, we mix one third meat to two thirds grains, all cooked. then table scraps and garden stuff (in season) the chickens are in mobil pens so they get grass, our hens give us 7 to 9 eggs a week for the first 2 1/2 years, black astrolops and crosses
Have you thought about sprouting your wheat and raising Black Soldier Fly Larvae to provide protein (46%) and calcium for your chickens instead of soy meal? Comfrey is great too. These components would produce more nutrition for them as well as you and your wife. The two of you could also eat these things if It came down to it.
imasurvivornthriver Exactly! If there were a complete societal collapse, we would have no qualms about eating insect protein. Comfry as a human food, I am sure you know more than I on this, has something that is troublesome to us, but it is excellent as a chicken feed. Right now, we really cannot grow anything until we have the greenhouse completed. It is too hot in the open or under a shade cloth for fruit to set. You get growth, but no fruits. Once I complete the chicken yard, I am setting several "maggot traps" around for the extra protein for the poultry, as well as installing a complete fodder system......... but I am several months away from that at the moment. THANKS for your input!!!!
I just got 2 babies that are about 4 days old. I am going to raise them inside until I can find a good cheap way to build a pen and roost for them. I got them today and already in love with them. :)
DL Spamalot It is very easy to fall in love with chickens.... just remember that as kittens grow up to be CATS, so do chicks grow up to be chickens! We love the adults too, which makes it difficult when it is time to turn them into dinner. Enjoy your new babies and if you need any guidance, just ask!!!
I WARNED THEM! Keep you flock's DIGESTABLE protein level ABOVE 20% and you will have little if any problems. Even "Bird Flu" H2N5, can be fought off with increased protein!!! Think about that. When we get the flu, we lose our appetite. If there is no body fat to draw off of for the 7-14 days you are ill, you get weak, even could die. Same for poultry. A bit of fat gives the birds the edge they need to fight off other, opportunistic virus & bacteria while fighting the flu, dramatically increasing survival rates. If commercial farms did this, prices would increase for good, but the quality meat and eggs would improve. After all, "fat is flavor" AND our meat and eggs here are proof! I would further surmise that "bird flu" would become just a nuisance, not a death knell.
Don't feel bad... some people just can't express themselves without the use of uneducated thoughts or words. some do it to feel big or important. They just don't realize what a foolish idiot it makes them look like. Thank you for standing up for what's right. I for one am sick of hearing bad language. love this video and I'm going to use this mix for our birds. Good results to come I hope.
Great video thanks for sharing your knowledge with us. I have a farmer friend who grows soy beans and yesterday I was on his farm while they trucked there harvest out to market. I was given approximately 150 pounds of this raw bean. How can I prepare this so it's palatable for my chickens? thanks you.
You got me there! I buy my soy already roasted and ground. I do know it has to be roasted first, due to a problem chemical that roasting destroys. So, I would imagine that you could look on-line for the temperature & time and roast it yourself in the oven in something like a huge turkey roaster. Then, you need to grind it yourself in a grist mill ($300 and up). In your circumstance, I would do that, since a grist mil is very handy to have anyway. You can feed it roasted and whole, but my birds won't eat much of it that way. Grinding in a commercial grade blender will work too. We use one to grind food for our chicks.
Thank you for the speedy reply. As for grinding I've seen people feed there chickens whole corn which is signfigantly larger ...I wonder why the soy has to be ground? also considering time and expenses roasting and grinding. first timer here so I eventually will make the investment though.
My chickens won't eat the whole soy for some reason. They even shy away from ground soy at first. This is why I recommend grinding. If you can get shelled peanuts, raw or roasted, at a reasonable price...... even dried black eyed peas, feed those instead. They have far more protein and poultry love them!
My "Secret ingredient" as a treat for feeding my chickens is dog food straight from the can they absolutely love it.Given the choice of their own food or dog food the dog food wins every time .Remember chickens are meat eaters they will eat anything that moves. My chickens are always perfectly healthy and usually live for least 5 years and will lay eggs till the day they die
Video is a few years old but I have to say I am glad someone else is on to purina. Their products are sub par and prices are outrageous for how little they pay for ingredients. I bought a bag of purina breeder pellets in a pinch and my birds refused to eat it after a few tries. It is too hard and dusty at the same time.The bags are pretty though...
Cannabis leaves are probably one of the most balanced foods, and I am not talking about ruining your lungs inhaling, but as a vegetable for salads and green smoothies. Would imagine it would be a great animal food too. I haven't tried it yet, too chicken to break the law in New Zealand, but I hope I can grow some hemp cannabis in future.
I drove a truck and was subject to random drug tests for 45 years so using or being around it was out for me. My only objection is that while illegal, it is subject to adulterations, like to old peraquat (sic) of the '70's. Following instructions from High Roller, I grew some (I was told) "killer" sensemilia (sic) in about 1976 though and tried it.... once. I wonder what the protein content of it would be for animals, the benefit and whether there was any residual THC in the eggs & meat?
I have zero interest in the recreational use of cannabis, but have a great deal of interest in the medicinal and nutritional benefits. The THC acid in the recreational cannabis does not become THC that you get the high from, until heated, so consuming raw is safe and will not trigger a reading on a drug test. Cannabis has an almost perfect balance of essential amino and fatty acids for humans, and as chooks enjoy a similar diet, I thought perhaps the hemp cannabis might be a good option, when the government gets over it's brain fart. I cannot recall the protein content, sorry. As there as been lots of talk about legalizing cannabis in New Zealand, I did some research, so I could form an opinion. It has amazed me, that no one seems to be talking about the food value. I would only want to eat plants I have grown myself, and that cannot happen until NZ laws change. BTW, it was around 76 that I tried a smoke, and it is probably fortunate that I hated the experience, lol.
Oh, I forgot to mention, I have no idea yet what it tastes like, so if you get the opportunity before me, let me know. Those brave enough to grow it as a vegetable, for salads, and juicing apparently are eating about 15 of those fan leaves a day for medicinal reasons. The nutrient content suggests it could be one of the most complete foods out there.
Useful video properly delivered. Does this feed apply to all stages of the chicken? Like from chicks, maintenance, then fattening before being sent to the abattoir.
Yes! Adjust your protein levels to the growth stage though.... 28% 0-4 weeks, 24% to slaughter or 8 weeks, 20% for layers for life. Staying with this mix will reduce your losses and more than make up for the extra cost for the protein rick ingredient, by reducing your losses dramatically!
Thank you for that information, look forward having chicken in the future, just gather information before I start 😀. Keep up the great work your doing to help us new be to have a successful start 🙏❤ God bless P.s New subscriber
Thanks for the video, I learned so much and am excited to make my own feed. I was wondering what could be used instead of soy meal? I cannot have anything with soy so I try to keep that away even from my babies. Thanks again D
+wholistictouch We use soy to increase the protein content. So anything high in protein could be substituted. That is the problem though, as almost everything else is more expensive that soy. But, here is what can be substituted: fish meal; commercial fish food, floating or non-floating, but check this for soy; blood meal. There has to be more, but I just have not studied further. ALSO, if you live near fisheries, fish guts can be fed, but in a separate container that is cleaned daily. If you feel really enterprising, create a worm farm like we have. Meal worms are in the 22-26% protein range. Fly larvae, maggots are even higher and building and maintaining,a maggot trap is simple. Flies are seasonal though, mealworms can be grown year-around. I would very seriously look for fish meal or blood meal. Good Luck!
Would you have any suggestions? Reason I have to keep away from soy is that I had cancer and must stay away from certain items one of them being soy, just my luck
+wholistictouch I would look for fish meal first. That would be all dried fish in pellets. Check the ingredients of the 50# bags of fish food that your local feed store has also. We may be able to make a blend using one of these and some other grains!
Great video. My problem with GMOs is most have been bred to tolerate higher levels of pesticides and herbicides and in some cases to produce pesticides themselves. Our grains are practically soaked in chemicals and they're finding many if not most cause cancer. I think in the coming years we'll see an explosion in the cancer rates and already most people I know have had some form of cancer. A couple of suggestions on the feed. You mention corn being harder to digest which is true. One trick is to soak it in food grade lime water. It breaks down the tough cell wall freeing up the nutrients. Since you'd be soaking it anyway consider fermenting your feed. At the moment I don't have chickens but hope to get back into them and I do plan to try fermented feed. There are lots of videos on the subject and everyone reports good results. The only addition I'd say to your feed mix is a calcium supplement. Even baked and ground egg shells will work fine. Laying hens always need more calcium. Some types of leafy greens are high in calcium as well as things like Moringa leaves. You can get fancy with adding kelp powder but unless you can collect it yourself off a beach I think it's too expensive for animals. You've got a good mix just add a bit of calcium. If you want to up the protein nothing is better than insects and worms. Crickets, black soldier fly larva or plan ole earthworms. Chickens will ignore grain to chase insects. With people that feed chickens compost most of what the chickens are after are the larva in the compost. Some people even put up a bug zapper or a plain light bulb to draw in insects at night for free protein for the chickens.
+Cary Howe Thank you. Much of what you wrote has been covered in the comments before, but it is good for those seeking information to see what we all are doing and suggest! If I said in the video that corn was difficult to digest for chickens, I misspoke. WHEAT is the slow digesting grain and thus not entirely suitable for very young chicks, or for a "factory fryer" operation. Grinding it speeds digestibility. I am still no fan of fermenting, but love sprouting, or fodder.
Sorry, I should have read the comments first. Wheat is really hard to digest it's why so many sprout the wheat. Native americans treated corn with lime because it does increase the available nutrition. The cell wall is really tough on corn. The lime water breaks that down. I've gone back and forth on fermenting even with human foods but I'm pretty sold on it now. It's not critical obviously but it can help. I'm not big on pure grain diets for domestic animals. Sprouting the grains really helps but it's a lot of extra work. I think fermenting can give you some of the results you get off sprouting but it's a personal call. Sorry again about any repetition I some times am moving too fast and don't read everything. I completely agree with you about adding clay as a binder. There are other binders but clay is cheap.
Thank you! Milo is also known as sorghum and is, in itself a wonder grain. We use it here because it is inexpensive to buy. Every region of the world has different demands for grains and we all can tailor our feed mixes to our regional availability. The mix I give you in this video is a 19% protein mix. For a general chick/duck starter and duck maintenance. the protein should be increased to 28% for the first 4-5 weeks, then lowered to around 23-25%. I feed this to ALL my birds, as the ducks free range with the chickens. The feed recipe can be downloaded here: eco-ranch.us/POULTRYFEEDMIX.pdf If you just add one extra part of ground soy to this mix, you will be around the 25% protein content. There are also many things you can substitute for soy. I have been working with a rancher in Nigeria to develop a feed mix for him. The research on grains and potential alternative feeds is priceless and I will be sharing all this in the next feed video, soon!
“We need to share secrets - that’s how we grow” = instant subscriber
i know Im asking the wrong place but does someone know of a method to log back into an Instagram account?
I was dumb forgot my account password. I appreciate any help you can offer me
I love your comment and agree 100% God bless
Was exactly what I thought as well. So I hit the subscribe button 😂
Me, too.
I just stumbled on your video today (Feb 2023) and I can't believe you made this 8 years ago!! You must have seen the writing on the wall long before the rest of us. Homesteaders across the country are complaining about the purina brands they buy at TS and their chickens not laying. Your video could have been made yesterday! Thanks for your info.
Any time a "for profit" corporation gets involved with food, be it animal or human, quality and REAL nutritional needs take a backseat to stockholder dividends. "Crude protein" is a great example: while 25% crude protein may seem like a lot, USDA allows that to include feathers, hair, hooves & nails and more, ALL UNDIGESTABLE!
Depending on the cost of the feed, one labelled at 25% (pick any number though) could have as little as 12% DIGESTABLE protein and THAT number is starvation for poultry. Just one of many examples of how the huge food lobby has us dazed and confused!
Robert, I came for the chicken feed and stayed for your commentary! You are willing to speak your mind and provide logic too. Thank you for facts and telling it like it is. Blessings!
Thanks! I will be back with more and varied videos soon!
This video maybe old but wow look at what we are going thru right now, 2022/2023 with chicken feed and no egg production, coming here to say, HOW RIGHT YOU ARE ABOUT PURINA. I’m gonna try to use your mixture. Thank you so much. Agree with you on your point of view.
Any time corporations get involved in food, animal or human, nutrition takes a back seat to shareholder dividends. The Checkerboard is the worst!!!!!!
I just found you and I must say you are the most honest and educational
person I have found yet!!! Thank you for the info.
I live in Kentucky and have started feeding whole grains. My cost for 50 lbs of my recipe is $9.84. I'm using a recipe I adapted from yours. I use corn, soy, wheat, oats, and sunflower seeds. I have a local feed store that sales these ingredients very cheap and it's from local farmers on all products except sunflower.
Thanks for your videos. I fully enjoy them!
I got a comment from someone showing me HIS chickens waiting to feed and the "feeding frenzy" when he did! Unfortunately, I had to delete the comment due to his language during the video.
Please folks, talk how you want with your "crowd", but on my channels there is NO profanity, NO direct personal attacks and NOTHING in poor taste.
I drove truck most of my working life and can teach most new words and phrases. I choose not to. You should too!
+Sean Henderson Profanity is profanity, regardless the intent. To post on my channels, people need to use acceptable adjectives.
Ok. Judge away.
+Sean Henderson My channel, my rules. Your channel, your rules. Foul language is cropping up everywhere and no one stands up to it because they don't want to embarrass themselves to total stranger by saying out loud what the stranger are thinking!
This is not a channel about morals, so this is the end of this discussion. NO PROFANITY, NO PERSONAL ATTACKS, my rules and anyone who questions this rule, is themselves, questionable!
I get,"Your channel, Your rules." What eludes me is when, people stop a communication because of a word that they do no like. The point is the communication, the words are merely tools and some people have a limited tool set or vocabulary. Some people are less imaginative than others, but this does not mean that their communication is any less valuable or important. The expletives are real words and can be found in the dictionary. You can go ahead and delete my comment, which is neither a personal attack nor does it contain any profanity. But if you delete my comment you might as well add a 3rd criteria to your channel censoring, "the comments that you just don't like."
+Sean Henderson We will post this one last comment from Sean, not because of the last sentence challenge.... I do not respond to those, or dares..... but because the points made are points some language-impaired would think valid. But no other posts on this subject will be posted, as this channel is not about morality, it is about sustainable, out-of -the-box living.
We all understand that some people do not have the vocabulary of others. My brother, with seven or eight degrees, for example, loves to use words that few people know, to describe something in five syllables that could be as easily described in two. But he and I, seldom use four letter words, profanity, or ethnic stereotyping, because this makes one appear ignorant and intolerant.
We all know what profanity is, even the Slavey Indians I lived with in the Canadian NWT, who punctuated every sentence with one word that begins with an "F", several times...... until their wives appeared, then that word disappeared!I have traveled through more of North America than 99% of the people in the world and through much of Mexico and much of SE Asia. Even the least educated and conversant in the most remote of places, knows the difference between profanity and acceptable language. As many say, "If you are in doubt about the use of a word, it probably should not be used."
My position has nothing to de with one's education level or vocabulary. It has to do with the fact that we all know what language is acceptable language in what company. Using it for shock value in public, within MY earshot, will get a rebuke that will bring tears to your eyes, without a single word of profanity. If this were done far more often, we would not have to be in public places hearing words that would shock a truck driver...... and remember that I was one for nearly 45 years.
My channels attract many people, from the very religious, to the very conservative, to the ultra Liberal (like me) and most importantly, the young who are learning and testing language skills. We and this channel need to be and are, an example to follow. My deeds and knowledge are not enough. Respect, humility and more are on display with every video I post, every word I say. I know I have slipped a couple times with words and I let these pass instead of editing them. That I am human and make mistakes is an important part of the education I wish to offer: "it is OK to not be perfect, just strive for it." One of my favorite saying is: "I aimed for the stars. I missed. So I settled for the moon." So I try and sometimes miss in the video. However in writing, there is no excuse and there are MANY synonyms for EVERY curse word. Use them, or don't get posted here! I am NOT sending a message to people that ANY language is acceptable! We will be polite!
Sadly, I HAVE to be gluten-free. The symptoms are VARIED, not just bathroom issues. But ALL of the symptoms cause extreme inflammation inside one's body, which sooner or later will likely cause cancer. I didn't start having issues until I was in my 40's. I believe with my whole heart that those of us that did get hit later in life is due to folks like Monsanto and all the GMO foods and additives to our processed foods. In researching why I was sick I learned that wheat is added as fillers to so many processed things that have no reason to have wheat in them. And the wheat grown these days have been bred to have nearly 80% more gluten in it than it did 100 yrs ago. Then you take the monster wheat and put it in EVERYTHING and VIOLA....a lot of people are basically "overdosed" to the point of no return. Just a little fyi. Thanks for the info. I'm a new subscriber!
Excellent video. I'm in Alberta so fortunately we don't have to deal with Purina. Local producers make local feeds much like yours with locally grown crops. I worked for a farm supply and feed mill in Grande Prairie where I worked the mill. All local grains bought from local farmers and we just ran it through the mixer and bagged it. Ran the corn through the roller of course. Under $20 a bag Canadian which is still cheaper then the big mills in Alberta.
I love Alberta. In 1975-6 I flew out of Edmonton to Echo Bay for a mining contract. Spent some time in Calgary & Banff as well. That was all LONG before there were any skyscrapers in Edmonton and no West Edmonton Mall either!
We’ve been using Mc Murray for our birds every year since we started raising them! Always, and I mean always had good luck. Everyone is usually amazed by the fact that they mail them right to our little post office!
I add black oil seeds to my chicken feed and a bit of diatomaceous earth as well. Chickens will pick out the black oil seeds first! They love them.
My five ladies refuse to eat any kind of sunflower seeds. Silly girls!
@@conniewojahn6445 thats what my chickens used to do when I started giving them mix grain but after a bit i started grinding their grain and till today they dont leave anything back
I use DE as well last 30 years
Thank you very much for sharing good information with every one.
Hi Robert thanks for sharing, I am just about to start rearing chickens so your feed mix [once I buy the grain] will come in very handy. all the best keep the videos coming.
Hi there, watching your video in my summer house, your cockerel in the background, so I opened the door and all my birds ran over to see what's going on 😂😂 Kobe Ken UK
That is cute! It is so easy to fool those roosters!
I love the bottle house behind you! I've wanted to build one after seeing one in Southern Nevada near 50 years ago now.
I really is a work of art!
Robert Earl, I was just going back over your feed video. I've had very good success with your mix. Several people recently have mentioned to me that I should look at fermenting the feed before feeding to stretch the feed and provide a more digestible feed. I was curious as to your experience and thoughts on fermenting chicken feed.
Thanks, William.
Birds are what the dinosaurs turned into. No one gave dinosaurs "fermented feed" and I find it a waste of time that can be better spent elsewhere..... but if it makes YOU feel good, then do it. Gizzards insure great digestibility!
Interesting mix. It’s different from game bird feeding. I feed racing pigeon feed, whole corn, hen scratch/with out crack corn, wheat, laying pellet, and the most important is soaked oats. Feed three times a day 2 with the dry mix and one with soaked oats. Nice video
I'll pass on the GMO corn and soy, I've got kids and grandkids..... we are what our animals eat...Monsanto has been sued and lost as you probably know by now.. their Round up that is used with GMOs cause cancer and more lawsuits are in the works... So I'll just stay with Organic products. But you have done a good job with your video and I will adjust to my liking.... I agree with you about the feed monopolies, pretty much should be illegal... Thanks Robert for the information.
They didn't loose they settled. They did a cost analysis and descided it was cheaper to pay than drag out a trial. I farm for a living and have been around round up and other chemicals for a long time. If the world wants to eat they need GMO's and chemicals so that enough food can be raised to feed them.
You've opened my eyes to the feed industry, I'll be mixing mine for now on. thanks
Thanks for this video. it was very helpful
My hens are from McMurrays. They are now 3 years old In Oct. They quit laying about a month or so. I feed them crumble all scraps, sweet feed same as I feed my mini horse for the winter. If they don't start laying again before this bag of crumble is done they will be going into the pot!! I love what you feed but can't afford that much for feed for my nine girls!!!Good luck and please continue with the great videos!🐔🐔
+Gimpy Granny If your hens are in their molt, they will not lay eggs for 2-4 months. I lost the entire summer to the molt of our Dark Cornish this year, which destroyed our egg sales. Luckily the new hens started laying a month before the old ones started.
Another thing you said was their age. At that age, they really are "spent hens" and unless you have an emotional attachment, they probably should be eaten.
As a "granny" you probably knw this, but others don't, so...... in the "old days" , say pre-1980, you could buy a "stewing hen" in the grocery stores. These were usually "spent hens", hens past their laying prime that had been fattened a couple weeks then slaughtered. They were tough, but VERY flavorful and bigger and more expensive than fryers. Farms and semi-rural flock owners would also cull their spent hens in the Fall and hatch out new ones that would mature for Spring. This saved feed by feeding the new, soon-to-produce hens instead of low production old birds.
Commercially, as more productive hybrids were developed, hens were worthless as eating birds, totally "spent" and just skin and bones when the first molt came. They are replaced at 16-20 months routinely (I transported these old and new birds when I was in commercial houses) and the spent hens usually go to dog food, soup makers, or some other kind of chicken meals for humans that don't require a "pretty" piece of meat, just flavor.
The company I worked for sold the birds to Campbells for years. They lost the contract for some reason and could not find other buyers..... it is a bit more expensive to process these birds than fryers..... so they started bulldozing the birds into a pit and burying them! They had no reason why they would not give the birds to migrant workers, honest poor or create a niche market for the meat, they just buried them!!! This was hard for me to know and hurried us on the journey that continues here!
If your birds are not pets, it IS time to process them and replace them!
+eco-ranch.us I don't make pets of live stock. Made that mistake when was young!!
Your absolutely correct about them being a bit past their prime. Poor girls are still gorgeous but will be freezer food soon!! Thank you very much for your answer🐔🐔🐔🐔🐔
Robert Earl you are great 👍. Thank you VERY much.
Thank you so much for this useful information!!!. I made the recommended mix using milo, wheat, corn and soybean meal. The birds are laying as usual and they seem to like this new mix a lot. Compared to the commercial stuff, this is CHEAPER, healthier and something I have noticed is that the birds eat less quantity, so a 50 pound bag lasts more than twice what the commercial feed used to last...!!!!. this is amazing and I'm very happy with the results. I wish I would have done this a long time ago... I'm using this mix for chicken, ducks, turkeys and even my guineas and pheasants!!
Thank you! I am always glad to hear that some of my information is of use and useful! On this feed, I have 4 1/2 year old hens that are laying like first year, so it does work and costs less!
Rachel asked me about "fermented Chicken feed" (see the comment) For some damn reason, I cannot answer the comment directly! Someone please let me know what is up with that!!!!!!!
Rachel, I have no experience with fermented chicken feed. I just watched several videos touting it that ended with the presenter showing us how much the chickens liked it as they gobbled it down.
My chickens will gobble down Doritos, popcorn and potato chips. This is no indication of what is good for them, any more than letting your child choose own his dinner over what you are serving. Kids will invariably choose ice cream and chocolate over broccoli and fish. That does not mean they should have it daily! Nor should we feed our pets and livestock what they "like" either.
Two of the videos said that fermented chicken feed created thicker eggs, as though calcium was magically created during a three day ferment. All said they drank less water........ um, yes....... if food is saturated with water and you eat it, you need less other water. Is this a health benefit? No. They eat less feed too. Yes, because it is saturated with water and they feel fuller sooner. They are NOT getting significantly more nutrients, just volume in their crops.
I cannot speak to the "creation" of B vitamins. In fact, like the other fad diets I have seen in seven decades of life: B.A.R.F., vinegar diets, increasing longevity by being grossly underweight, processed & pelletized feed for parrots, vegetarian diets for dogs & cats and an endless list of others....... I WON'T speak to their benefits, mainly because other than making their creators wealthy, there are none!
Fermented feed occurs naturally often in a chicken coop after a soaking rain and they love to eat it because it is different, not better. Live insects, green plants, seeds, grains, the occasional mouse or snake and more are all a chicken's natural diet.
They have evolved to eat these thing over some 60 million years. What makes some wise guy with wet, spoiled food think he or she knows better than 60 million years of evolution?
If it were that effective, commercial growers would be clambering to feed it. They are not! I worked in that business for a number of years. Corn, soy and premix... DRY, dominate the commercial grower/producers for a good reason: the feed to egg or meat conversion is the greatest! We smaller producers can afford to allow pasturing, free ranging and fodder & mealworm production because time is not our enemy like it is to commercial operations, so we can do these things and even jump on the latest fad that a washed-up celebrity sells at 4 AM.
If it makes us happy to try, not much harm done other than your birds mature a bit slower or your potential egg production is lower. I say stay with the bird's natural diet as much as you can which by the way is NOT my "secret feed mix", but pasturing and free range. My birds do free range and if grass grew in the desert, they would pasture! In Florida, our poultry had around 10 acres of Bahia Pensacola grass to pasture on and my feed mix as a supplement.
Stay natural, let the hipsters follow the wind direction. Your birds WILL appreciate it!
thanku sir,
We have been fermenting whole grains for 1yr plus and it has been amazing!
Great job my man. Keep doing wat ur doing, we support u. My moms flock only has 30 chickens but I love taken advice from real ppl who love the chicks instead of looking at them as money. We do sell them but take pride in wat they ingest
We have always been proud of our birds! We will get just a few here.
"Preppers are white people running around with guns & MREs" Man if I don't feel that, with the folk I used to know. Thanks for the good video with fantastic info! I hope your retirement is going great, and you enjoy it!
Little trick for those viewers browsing these comments: I had been pondering how to go about feed bins on the cheap, and remembered everyone in my family has cats, and were able to give me around a dozen of the Tidy Cats plastic bins that close near airtight, and with a bit of easy modification, now can be left outside without worrying about humidity, pests etc (though I keep em inside still).
Disagree with me if you want! I also have not met a gun toter who could take me in a fist fight (and very few others that could either...... when I was under 60). Texas jaundiced me against "white people with guns" and rightfully so. In 55 years of traveling on my own, through EVERY ghetto and barrio in America, many sketchy areas of SE Asia and the wilds of the substance abusers of west Texas, I never, NEVER had an inkling that I needed a gun to protect myself from a HUMAN (bears, wolves, wolverines and coyotes were a different story.)
I do love your idea on the Tidy CATs though!!!!
Thank you so much, I am starting to raise my own chickens, I only have 1 roster and 3 hens. They haven't started laying yet. Now I am going to get the feed you talked about. Thanks again.
+Sylvia McDonald Very happy to be of help! I will be posting a new, follow-up feed video late this week.
have u tried hemp seeds high amout of omega 3 and protein etc.
Wow! Nice presentation! Easy to understand, great setting, concise!
I also appreciate you sharing your feed experience and knowledge.
So that was two parts:
Wheat
Cracked corn
Milo
Then it’s 3 1/2 parts soy meal.
Did I get it right?
I also feed back any eggs and shells broken and mixed with scraps.
Thank you from SW NM!
Regards...
That rooster might have been shooting a video of his own.
I keep a mealworm colony . Excellent source of protein for the chickens .
Hope you are still growing chickens!!!! Great advice!!! THANKS!!!!
Hi Sir I really liked your video i am from pakistan and i appreciate your efforts .. I am also a farmer
I loke this channel so much. I am a small town farmer, working here in America and planning to retire in the Philippines to do farming.
LOL; your definition of a prepper was interesting 🙂 I didn't know that about the clay in the pellets; thanks for the info.
THANK YOU VERY MUCH BROTHERS MUCH APPRECIATED!!!🥉🥈🥇🏆🥀♥️👍😃🌻
This was a wonderful informative presentation of My secret Chicken feed Mix, My husband found this and was so excited because we had just been talking about the subject earlier today, and there you were! Awesome, We have 8 dogs and were wondering what you feed your dog? Do you do the same thing with your feed for your dog? My husband Roy has been going into Spokane and buying whole Oats, Lentil's, Barley, white wheat, Rice, cracked corn and that's it. We mix it, no ratio. We are feeding chickens, ducks and Muscovy. All together we have 38 chickens, 15 Muscovy, 12 German Blue Ducks. They all get the same feed. Roy cooks the feed in a pressure cooker for 5 minutes to soften it up. We used to feed the granules from the feed store but it cost too much. Roy has been cooking the feed in a pressure cooker for 5 minutes because it seems they eat it better. Then he bought shaved Oyster shell just recently to help with the digestion.
We are also impressed by your way you built your chicken coop out of bottles. Wow! Please tell us about this. We live in a cold country, but were thinking about the insulation you are creating. Roy has used 6 inch walls filled with pine saw dust, for insulation. The temperature gets to 45 degrees inside when the temperature is 15 below zero. How thick are your walls with the bottles. What does the temperature get inside of your pens?
Thank you,
Roy and Karen
WOW! That is a lot to request in a comment! I waited for a couple days to answer, as I wanted time to answer properly. First of all, your feed seems to be a bit low on protein, maybe as low as 10%, depending on how much lentil (around 25%) you mix in the diet. If they are thriving, thane something is OK, but poultry will SURVIVE on low protein, just not thrive, lay a lot of eggs and set eggs on low protein.
We have five other dogs besides Cascade. They eat a standard "working dog" packaged diet. When I slaughter meat animals, all the decent organs go into a pot to stew for them, with lots of salt and water enough to make a thin stew. Then I add enough rice to set the whole thin thick, chill it and run it through the grinder. I then freeze it in one day portions and mix it with the packaged food. We have had several dogs live to be 16 years old nd no one has cancer, both signs of a good diet.
Our construction here, won't work in a clod climate. We have thermal mass, not insulation. In a cold climate, once the walls get cold, they will stay cold and suck all the heat out of the house. Building like we are here, you would need to put a layer or two of insulation board on the inside of the outside wall, so the temperature inside does not migrate out. My method here works in a desert and at altitude in lower latitudes. This would apply to a chicken coop as well. Hay and straw will degrade with dirt and rock fill, so are not suitable. Most of our walls in the early construction, are 19" thick. The new construction and the house in particular, is 24" with that layer of insulating board. The insulating board, will stop the thermal mass migration of temperature and retain a constant temperature inside, year-around. Ceilings are about R-60.
There is no roof.... yet... on the bottle coop, so I cannot comment on the temperature. The walls are always cool to the touch though, so since I have build a "solar chimney effect" into the walls & roof, I would imagine the interior will stay cooler than the Summer heat and when I block off the upper openings in Winter, warmer. But we seldom get real cold here, so for the livestock, I am more concerned with dealing with the heat.
It dies sound like you have a good insulating set up though and did it using natural materials!
Thanks for writing and watch for a new video about our hatching chicks (happening NOW). We are starting these off on a starter mix that uses Moringa powder to bring the protein level to 28%. I want to see if they are more vigorous on the Moringa mix than normally and will discuss that in the video.
Hi Robert from Downunder Australia...just asking if u ever ferment grains..tc..I know it's hot now..🤔🇦🇺
If fermenting grain pleases you, do it. If steaming a chicken breast with basil for your dog's food please you, do it. But neither has ANY effect on the nutritional uptake. Chickens and all birds, are what is left of the dinosaurs. They made the last 65 million years without humans fermenting their food! I raised 20 pound meat chickens on my feed mix of grains. Cannot see how any feed could improve that result!
Thank you for the great information as I'm just starting a little home/backyard chicken raising. Have four chickens ready to start laying and need to get feed so I'm going to try your recipe for feed.
Linda Kay Murphy I hope it works as good for as it does for us. Just remember that you still need to add a "premix" of vitamins and minerals, unless they are getting LOTS of greens and insect. My recipe is not complete without the premix and I neglected to say that in the video!
The feed is suitable for which growth stage of chickens?
From four weeks to death.
It is advisable to feed my broilers this?
Love your long wind, nothing but information, including the comments. Thanks.
Thank you very much! Lately the "trolls" have been out there with negativity and it always means a lot to me to hear something positive!
My chicken MacClovia is lonely so she escapes from her house and heads over to the kitchen door, braving 11 cats and 5 dogs jajaja and proceeds to chase them away from their food! She likes dog food. Ay Dios. Good grief what a crazy chicken. She needs a boyfriend.
Awesome video. Tons of info in here and I love your wit! Coming from a conservative minded family, I wholeheartedly support mixing your own feed and even growing your own feed crops. We'll definitely be feeding our flock this when they come off their grower feed. Thanks!
Thanks! Just do not forget your pre-mix!
Recipe kinda starts at 3:40....
Lots of great, necessary information up to that point! Thanks for watching and for taking the time to point out that any good recipe requires a lot more information than just the ingredients!
Christine asked me if I grind my baby chick feed. For some reason the question does not appear here, but I will answer it and hope she reads the answer:
I do grind the baby feed, "starter" much finer than the adult mix. I also make the mix 28% protein so that all baby poultry can eat it. I also neglected to add that if your chickens do NOT free range, you must also add a vitamin/mineral "premix" to the feed.
If it was $14 back then what the world would it be today 🤔
awesome info your attitude reminds me of my dad dang I miss him. 7dz a week of of 20 egg layers? wow that is some wonderful feed they are munching on
That is just a little over 4 eggs a week per hen. Usually, our hens laid 5-6 a week when we lived in Florida, but here Summer heat slows them and Winter slows them somewhat. I would not keep hens that laid less than 4 eggs a week though. It is too expensive to feed them.
Thanks for the compliment too!
Can we produce chicks without vaccination?
I do.
Thank You for this insight. I am aware that clay is rich in minerals, I wonder how the baking effects the minerals in the clay? Once again Thank You for sharing your knowledge and experience with the rest of us. Tom.
Not sure myself. If you are referring to the clay added to Purina and other feeds though, it is NOT cooked, that is the reason it is there, to form pellets without heat (and take about 15% of your money away).
Can you feed chi cken's to much protien??
Not really. Like vitamins, they just poop out what they don't need. The exception is the Cornish cross meat birds. You can feed them too much protein and they will gain more muscle mass than their developing bones can support.
Thank you
Best thing I heard all day we don't need to keep it as a secret we need to keep growing!
+Jordan Nim I agree, that is why it is a "secret" and not a secret! With Purina dominating so many feed stores with their gift & trip bribes that have small feed store owners selling that overpriced crap they call animal feed, we all need to move back to mixing our own, as well as encouraging the small feed mills to continue to make feeds that do not have inert binders! I anyone finds, as we did, a small feed mill that uses heat extrusion and NO inert binders like bentonite clay, buy your base (corn & soy) ingredients from them, in the form of their layer feed. Then you can add the other grains and more soy to it for the variety and protein we want our flocks to have!
Bentonite clay you say? Oh sure my cats sh-t in that stuff, but not sure I'd want my dogs or chickens eating it.
Thanks for the informative video and your directness. Appreciate your style and delivery. God bless you sir.
PLEASE FOLKS, THIS VIDEO IS OVER FIVE YEARS OLD. DO NOT PHONE ME OR ASK QUESTIONS ABOUT IT ANY LONGER. HERE IS THE LINK TO MORE INFORMATION ABOUT THE MIX: singingturkeys.com/POULTRYFEEDMIX.pdf THIS IS ALL THERE IS, I CANNOT RESPOND TO ANY MORE COMMENTS!!
Wow
Love your little araucana hen. I raise araucana in Golden and Silver Duckwing. It is a rare breed and love seeing when other people have them running around.
Unfortunately almost all our birds are just hybrid "mutts". Not an Araucana in the flock, just look alikes!
Dark Cornish, Rhode Island Red, White Leghorn and Pioneer all breed together and we hatch the best looking eggs, keeping the best looking hens for eggs & hatching. We JOKINGLY call our "breed" the Chihuahuan Desert Chicken!
eco-ranch.us well you managed to hatch a tufted rumpless black hen that looks exactly like an araucana in the video. She is the funny looking thing wandering around next to you with no tail and white feathers around her head.
Being gluten intolerant isn't a sign of prestige? I work food service for a large corporate office. Lots of yuppies. Most are vegetarian, vegan, gluten free, sugar free, lactose intolerant, or allergic to such and such. So ridiculous. Like the gluten free guy, who eats white flour wraps, or the garlic allergy lady who eats our pizza everyday, with you guessed it, a big dose of fresh garlic in the sauce. Most look like they have cancer. Eat some red meat, on white bread, down it with a Coke, go get some natural sunlight, and grow a pair of testicles. I'm done.
+Hans “Hanzy4200” S. Being "special" IS a sign of "prestige" to the hipsters and young affluents of today! "My child is the best student with blonde hair between 60-70 pounds in his class at Hipster Elementary" bumper stickers are everywhere! We are dumbing down society, then discouraging excellence with "awards" for every participant, however mediocre! THEN, we complain when Asians who ARE taught that to excel is desirable, best us!
Being a "vegan", glucose intolerant, lactose intolerant and so on, have become badges of honor for the mediocre masses, desperately seeking to create an identity. The consumer culture of the last 40 years has caused this.
Personally, my life would have been a lonely one due to the shunning I get from these crowd following resource vampires, if it had not been for my Mother teaching us all that we were "so special" that the world needs to follow us, not us the world. It is only because of this upbringing that I found the courage to NOT do "what everyone is doing" and to grow into this lifestyle.
You are correct. These "allergy sufferers"(many of them), vegans, glucose & lactose intolerants, synthetic fabric allergies, religious fanatics and "talking heads" who preach hatred for all whose politics are slightly different from their own; all need to grow a pair, forget what others think, dance like no one is watching and scratch what itches when it itches. The world would be a far better place! Thank you my friend!
+Hans “Hanzy4200” S. Ever shopped at a health food store? You'll see the pastiest, scrawny, uptight looking neurotic folks you'll ever see.
squire haggard Yeah, I went into one to buy beeswax. The clerk looked like he was going to pass out at any moment.
+BmillTheGamer no they dont...
+doug moore My condolences on the loss of your Father.
Decades ago, the cartoon "Family Circle" had a Sunday cartoon where the kids were fighting in their bedrooms, running around the bedroom right after bedtime, jumping in and out of their beds. The father came in and sternly said to them to "Settle down! The next one of you that gets out of bed, gets a spanking!"
He turned and was walking down the hallway, when Jeffy, the littlest one, came out of the bedroom, saying "I 'havta go to the bathroom".
To every rule, there IS an exception. Your Father was a very unfortunate exception to my "rule". But from my generation forward, people somehow feel they must "stand out from the crowd", create a persona that makes them exceptional for some reason. That exceptionality make be one that is earned honestly, or fabricated like being a "vegan", "allergic to smoke" "lactose intolerant", "MSG intolerant", "fragrance intolerant", ADHD, "gluten intolerant", "public toilet intolerant", "bashful kidney", "fart anxiety", or some other thing I NEVER heard of until the 1990's! That does not mean these things are not real and don't exist! It just means that .00005% of the population suffers from them, not 50% of upwardly mobile," attention-needy", BMW driving, young professionals and particularly their children!
Somehow, I know you understood that in my post, I am seldom vague! But that does nothing to ease the grief regarding the loss of your Father.
Thank you for the info! I was able to find a mill that sold Soybean Meal for 14.35 a bag. they also had cracked corn for 9.10, both 50 pound bags. Here in my town I can get Triticale 100 bags for 10.00. The Triticale is said to be 12 to 13 protein. With my mix of right around 20 protein, it is costing me 8.35 per 50 pounds. That is less then half of what I was paying before for higher protein.
That is excellent!
You are also getting 100% of the corn germ as well. Many commercial feed mills, like the "chessboard" people, remove up to 30% of the corn germ for other uses. This leaves the CRUDE protein the same 7-9%, but reduces the digestible protein by 1/4-1/2. It will take a few weeks, but you will notice an increase in quantity & quality of your eggs as well!
Flax seed is 90 $ a bag here in ontario canada. 2023.
THAT is pricey!!!
Dude!! You are right about being loooong wind'd! I too am loooooong wind'd sooooo I'm subscribing!
Well, before you mentioned Wheat and Honey as a complete food there is a man mentioned them through God Qur'an around 1400 years ago his name Prophet Muhammad. Read (Surah Yusif) the prophet to see how God told him to store the wheat to last forever. And read what God said about Honey 1400 years ago. Please do. Thanks for your video.
I find religion to be both Man's worst invention and Man's greatest weapon of mass destruction, so I won't read any further than I was forced to for the first 18 years of my life into these Bronze Age myths and deities.
That being said, the Talmud, Quran and bible do possess much information that can help us survive in the case of societal calamity. Wheat, honey, dried beans and salted meats are wonderful survival foods. Pork, spoils quickly in heat. This is the reason it was shunned as a meat to eat in the hot desert areas where Islam, Christianity and Judaism flourished. Making its non-consumption a part of the religion, most likely kept many followers from falling ill from eating spoiled pork, so they could "go forth and propagate"..
Same can be said of the "book" of Leviticus, where if a Man lay with a woman who has her disease, he is unclean for 20 days (or so). Nowadays, we can wash with unlimited water, so sex during a woman's menstruation is possible without fouling our clothing.
These texts have a lot of great practical information in them..... but as guidance from some unseen creature who sees ALL the events in this entire 35 billion light year wide universe, not so much!
And the Almighty said, "Yusuf, friend, we've got seven fat cows eaten by seven lean, seven greens and another land, so I have to go back to people, maybe they know. He said you grow seven years, so you reap a climax in a spike in a little bit of what you eat. Then comes seven people who eat what you gave them a little bit of what they barricaded. Then comes a year later in which people are squeeze and there are a few of them» «Yusuf» «Verses 46-49».
The scholars and commentators have argued that the meaning of love and Sanabel in these verses is wheat, although it enters with barley and some other grains, but the wheat remains its duration. and come
Very interesting, and I'll be mixing up my chickens feed like yours once they start laying!! Thanks!!!!
Christopher M I grind my "baby" food in a Waring Pro blender. Anything of lesser quality will burn out fast! Eventually, we will get a real grinder and motorize it (store.countrylivinggrainmills.com/grain-mill/). Then I will grind all my own whole grains.
Hello from Parrish Fl, i have enjoyed your video. i mix scratch and do use layer crumble. my birds (18) are out from nine am to dark. i use oats, wind bird seed, cracked corn for scratch, they get a few handfulls twice a day. i cook alot so they are healthy, in winter i make brown rice, ramen noodles dollar store sells by the case what ever cereal i have,
you SHOULD write a book. enjoyed your video and i am passionate about Monsanto and the other butts out there that are not for farmers but their own pockets. thank you.
+connie bell and do not get me started about gluten free and dairy free crap. i worked in nutrition for 35 hospital years and i know it is the latest gimmick for most, some folks are truely affected by gluten i need to say, but it is like the Cpap machines, all about the mighty buck.
+connie bell Thanks for the kind words. I am considering writing a book, but it will have to wait until the construction is finished. If I do end up traveling to Haiti & Cambodia to help establish semi-intensive chicken houses, that will definitely be worthy writing about!
What an awesome man. Thank you from New Zealand
Nice Info Robert. We talk about some of this on the phone so in a way I got a sneak peak of what you was posting. I have 21 hens and one Roster. during the winter I go though 2 50 LB bags of Scratch grains and 2 50 lb bags of Layer Feed. a month, I use Hole corn and feed that to them once in the morning and once at night to help keep them warm during the winter. I like to learn how to raise Meal warms, and grow folder to feed my girls with what folder is I have know clue what that is have to research it. Once I sign the paper work on the 5 acres we are adding to out lot. I want to grow foods that will not only feed my family but also feed my animals. I would also like to raise honey bee's also they would provide the honey, witch is a natural sweetener. and help my gardens grow much better.
Thanks for sharing this very informative video.
Just found this channel. I love it! New subscriber for sure.
Have you ever fermented your feed? I've heard it can lower your feed cost significantly as it make the nutrients more readily available and results in the animals consuming less water (as the food is so hydrating from soaking in the water/ACV). I haven't done anything of this so this is all regurgitated information, but it seems to be a viable way of reducing your feed cost and keeping healthier birds :)
Thank u, I have learned much, that I can feed chickens an ducks the same feed u made. Thank u again from a beginner
Hey Robert Charlie here From East Texas 👋Thank you for the information.....
You are very welcome!
Hi, I live in Maldives - thanks for being so direct, looks like a clean heart fellow - Insah Allah, I will try your given idea on poultry feed. In case, if you could visit to Maldives, call me, you're most welcome to stay with me and my family.
Thank you! If I do travel abroad again, the Maldives are on my list of places to see!
Thank youbfor giving us insight on the store feeds verses homemade feeds.
I bought 15 Rhode Island ridge and 15 leghorns from McMurray hatchery they are the best hatchery I've ever dealt with
I have another formula of making feeds for chicken and itik and as well as 🐖 pig!!!Thank you very much for sharing your nice video!!!
Thanks for sharing your experience and knowledge with all of us. I have raised Texas
A & M quail for the past two years in my back yard. I plan to stop raising them this winter to raise about 6 laying hens. I may also get a couple ducks to keep the slug and bug problem under control. Can you recommend a breed of chicken based on egg production? I'm not concerned about the meat since they will ( knowing us ) be more like pets than livestock and we won't be able to kill them.
Another thing...just saying...I don't understand why the 22 people would give your video a thumbs DOWN. Of course with the more than a thousand thumbs UP I guess the negatives show just how much they know. I gave you a thumbs up and have subscribed to your channel. Have a great day !
Thank you for the kind words! Actually I am surprised there are not MORE of the "thumbs down". Purina and Southern States alone could ask their employees to hit me and there would be a couple thousand! I do not care about multi-nationals, or corporations in general. They are the problem, not the solution. My videos try to show the solutions to issues that we will have to deal with whether or not "they" acknowledge them!
As far a s the kind of bird you are seeking, there are many. Most of these are American made breeds like the Rhode Island Red and Wyandotte. Our American breeds tend to have better tempered roosters that older breeds. McMurray has a hybrid that we love both sexes of, but they will not breed true if you want to propagate them. That breed is the "Pioneer". I recommend that and the RIR for backyard poultry people!
I used feral hogs, bone them out, grind and cook them we then mix in ground corn and other grains, we mix one third meat to two thirds grains, all cooked. then table scraps and garden stuff (in season) the chickens are in mobil pens so they get grass, our hens give us 7 to 9 eggs a week for the first 2 1/2 years, black astrolops and crosses
We just eat the feral hogs..... they are too tasty for chicken food!
Sir, you are amazing!
Have you thought about sprouting your wheat and raising Black Soldier Fly Larvae to provide protein (46%) and calcium for your chickens instead of soy meal? Comfrey is great too. These components would produce more nutrition for them as well as you and your wife. The two of you could also eat these things if It came down to it.
imasurvivornthriver Exactly! If there were a complete societal collapse, we would have no qualms about eating insect protein. Comfry as a human food, I am sure you know more than I on this, has something that is troublesome to us, but it is excellent as a chicken feed. Right now, we really cannot grow anything until we have the greenhouse completed. It is too hot in the open or under a shade cloth for fruit to set. You get growth, but no fruits. Once I complete the chicken yard, I am setting several "maggot traps" around for the extra protein for the poultry, as well as installing a complete fodder system......... but I am several months away from that at the moment. THANKS for your input!!!!
My pleasure. I wish you and your wife all the best! Looks like you guys have your heads on right in providing for yourselves. :-)
My son suggested a cement mixer for mixing the grains as you do larger amounts. Clean of course.
I think that is a good idea!
Hey thank you for your video, really helpful for us just starting on yard birds
Glad to help
I just got 2 babies that are about 4 days old. I am going to raise them inside until I can find a good cheap way to build a pen and roost for them. I got them today and already in love with them. :)
DL Spamalot It is very easy to fall in love with chickens.... just remember that as kittens grow up to be CATS, so do chicks grow up to be chickens! We love the adults too, which makes it difficult when it is time to turn them into dinner.
Enjoy your new babies and if you need any guidance, just ask!!!
eco-ranch.us I know. I have raised them before many years ago. :) that is how I knew I wanted to do it again .
How prophetic! I noticed this video is 8 years and now 2023 we are having an egg crisis.
I WARNED THEM! Keep you flock's DIGESTABLE protein level ABOVE 20% and you will have little if any problems. Even "Bird Flu" H2N5, can be fought off with increased protein!!!
Think about that. When we get the flu, we lose our appetite. If there is no body fat to draw off of for the 7-14 days you are ill, you get weak, even could die. Same for poultry. A bit of fat gives the birds the edge they need to fight off other, opportunistic virus & bacteria while fighting the flu, dramatically increasing survival rates. If commercial farms did this, prices would increase for good, but the quality meat and eggs would improve. After all, "fat is flavor" AND our meat and eggs here are proof! I would further surmise that "bird flu" would become just a nuisance, not a death knell.
Don't feel bad... some people just can't express themselves without the use of uneducated thoughts or words. some do it to feel big or important. They just don't realize what a foolish idiot it makes them look like. Thank you for standing up for what's right. I for one am sick of hearing bad language. love this video and I'm going to use this mix for our birds. Good results to come I hope.
Great video thanks for sharing your knowledge with us. I have a farmer friend who grows soy beans and yesterday I was on his farm while they trucked there harvest out to market. I was given approximately 150 pounds of this raw bean. How can I prepare this so it's palatable for my chickens? thanks you.
You got me there! I buy my soy already roasted and ground. I do know it has to be roasted first, due to a problem chemical that roasting destroys. So, I would imagine that you could look on-line for the temperature & time and roast it yourself in the oven in something like a huge turkey roaster. Then, you need to grind it yourself in a grist mill ($300 and up). In your circumstance, I would do that, since a grist mil is very handy to have anyway. You can feed it roasted and whole, but my birds won't eat much of it that way. Grinding in a commercial grade blender will work too. We use one to grind food for our chicks.
Thank you for the speedy reply. As for grinding I've seen people feed there chickens whole corn which is signfigantly larger ...I wonder why the soy has to be ground? also considering time and expenses roasting and grinding. first timer here so I eventually will make the investment though.
My chickens won't eat the whole soy for some reason. They even shy away from ground soy at first. This is why I recommend grinding. If you can get shelled peanuts, raw or roasted, at a reasonable price...... even dried black eyed peas, feed those instead. They have far more protein and poultry love them!
My "Secret ingredient" as a treat for feeding my chickens is dog food straight from the can they absolutely love it.Given the choice of their own food or dog food the dog food wins every time .Remember chickens are meat eaters they will eat anything that moves. My chickens are always perfectly healthy and usually live for least 5 years and will lay eggs till the day they die
Love the Reuse of wine bottles & cement! GREAT Idea!!
I really enjoyed this video.
Thanks for all the good tips! - Mike
Video is a few years old but I have to say I am glad someone else is on to purina. Their products are sub par and prices are outrageous for how little they pay for ingredients. I bought a bag of purina breeder pellets in a pinch and my birds refused to eat it after a few tries. It is too hard and dusty at the same time.The bags are pretty though...
Purina is the devil of animal feed.
Cannabis leaves are probably one of the most balanced foods, and I am not talking about ruining your lungs inhaling, but as a vegetable for salads and green smoothies. Would imagine it would be a great animal food too. I haven't tried it yet, too chicken to break the law in New Zealand, but I hope I can grow some hemp cannabis in future.
I drove a truck and was subject to random drug tests for 45 years so using or being around it was out for me. My only objection is that while illegal, it is subject to adulterations, like to old peraquat (sic) of the '70's. Following instructions from High Roller, I grew some (I was told) "killer" sensemilia (sic) in about 1976 though and tried it.... once. I wonder what the protein content of it would be for animals, the benefit and whether there was any residual THC in the eggs & meat?
I have zero interest in the recreational use of cannabis, but have a great deal of interest in the medicinal and nutritional benefits. The THC acid in the recreational cannabis does not become THC that you get the high from, until heated, so consuming raw is safe and will not trigger a reading on a drug test.
Cannabis has an almost perfect balance of essential amino and fatty acids for humans, and as chooks enjoy a similar diet, I thought perhaps the hemp cannabis might be a good option, when the government gets over it's brain fart. I cannot recall the protein content, sorry.
As there as been lots of talk about legalizing cannabis in New Zealand, I did some research, so I could form an opinion. It has amazed me, that no one seems to be talking about the food value. I would only want to eat plants I have grown myself, and that cannot happen until NZ laws change.
BTW, it was around 76 that I tried a smoke, and it is probably fortunate that I hated the experience, lol.
Oh, I forgot to mention, I have no idea yet what it tastes like, so if you get the opportunity before me, let me know. Those brave enough to grow it as a vegetable, for salads, and juicing apparently are eating about 15 of those fan leaves a day for medicinal reasons. The nutrient content suggests it could be one of the most complete foods out there.
my chickens love cannabis leaves. I think they taste gross but juice them with some sweet juice because the nutrients are out of this world.
I like the way you teach others.
😁👍
You got a very big heart sir
God bless you
Great video 😎👍
Thanks! Watch my Holiday message. Should be up tomorrow!
Useful video properly delivered. Does this feed apply to all stages of the chicken? Like from chicks, maintenance, then fattening before being sent to the abattoir.
Yes! Adjust your protein levels to the growth stage though.... 28% 0-4 weeks, 24% to slaughter or 8 weeks, 20% for layers for life. Staying with this mix will reduce your losses and more than make up for the extra cost for the protein rick ingredient, by reducing your losses dramatically!
Great video I just started again having chicken I want to get there feed right
Thank you for that information, look forward having chicken in the future, just gather information before I start 😀. Keep up the great work your doing to help us new be to have a successful start 🙏❤ God bless
P.s New subscriber
Great video with a lot of information. You got another subscriber. Thanks.
Great video my friend!! God bless you!
wow!!! i loved your educational video!! Thankyou!
Thanks for the video, I learned so much and am excited to make my own feed. I was wondering what could be used instead of soy meal? I cannot have anything with soy so I try to keep that away even from my babies. Thanks again
D
+wholistictouch We use soy to increase the protein content. So anything high in protein could be substituted. That is the problem though, as almost everything else is more expensive that soy. But, here is what can be substituted: fish meal; commercial fish food, floating or non-floating, but check this for soy; blood meal.
There has to be more, but I just have not studied further. ALSO, if you live near fisheries, fish guts can be fed, but in a separate container that is cleaned daily. If you feel really enterprising, create a worm farm like we have. Meal worms are in the 22-26% protein range. Fly larvae, maggots are even higher and building and maintaining,a maggot trap is simple. Flies are seasonal though, mealworms can be grown year-around. I would very seriously look for fish meal or blood meal.
Good Luck!
Would you have any suggestions? Reason I have to keep away from soy is that I had cancer and must stay away from certain items one of them being soy, just my luck
+wholistictouch I would look for fish meal first. That would be all dried fish in pellets. Check the ingredients of the 50# bags of fish food that your local feed store has also. We may be able to make a blend using one of these and some other grains!
Thank so much for your help.
Can you feed this also to 🐐 goats,ducks cow's and 🐖 pig's what about fish.Thank you for the very informative advantages you have shared....
I designed it for poultry only. I am not as knowledgeable of the rest, so you should check with an expert on them. Sorry!
Great video. My problem with GMOs is most have been bred to tolerate higher levels of pesticides and herbicides and in some cases to produce pesticides themselves. Our grains are practically soaked in chemicals and they're finding many if not most cause cancer. I think in the coming years we'll see an explosion in the cancer rates and already most people I know have had some form of cancer. A couple of suggestions on the feed. You mention corn being harder to digest which is true. One trick is to soak it in food grade lime water. It breaks down the tough cell wall freeing up the nutrients. Since you'd be soaking it anyway consider fermenting your feed. At the moment I don't have chickens but hope to get back into them and I do plan to try fermented feed. There are lots of videos on the subject and everyone reports good results. The only addition I'd say to your feed mix is a calcium supplement. Even baked and ground egg shells will work fine. Laying hens always need more calcium. Some types of leafy greens are high in calcium as well as things like Moringa leaves. You can get fancy with adding kelp powder but unless you can collect it yourself off a beach I think it's too expensive for animals. You've got a good mix just add a bit of calcium. If you want to up the protein nothing is better than insects and worms. Crickets, black soldier fly larva or plan ole earthworms. Chickens will ignore grain to chase insects. With people that feed chickens compost most of what the chickens are after are the larva in the compost. Some people even put up a bug zapper or a plain light bulb to draw in insects at night for free protein for the chickens.
+Cary Howe Thank you. Much of what you wrote has been covered in the comments before, but it is good for those seeking information to see what we all are doing and suggest!
If I said in the video that corn was difficult to digest for chickens, I misspoke. WHEAT is the slow digesting grain and thus not entirely suitable for very young chicks, or for a "factory fryer" operation. Grinding it speeds digestibility. I am still no fan of fermenting, but love sprouting, or fodder.
Sorry, I should have read the comments first. Wheat is really hard to digest it's why so many sprout the wheat. Native americans treated corn with lime because it does increase the available nutrition. The cell wall is really tough on corn. The lime water breaks that down. I've gone back and forth on fermenting even with human foods but I'm pretty sold on it now. It's not critical obviously but it can help. I'm not big on pure grain diets for domestic animals. Sprouting the grains really helps but it's a lot of extra work. I think fermenting can give you some of the results you get off sprouting but it's a personal call. Sorry again about any repetition I some times am moving too fast and don't read everything. I completely agree with you about adding clay as a binder. There are other binders but clay is cheap.
loved ur video. can u plz explain what milo is and guve me a recipe for chick feed and duck feed
Thank you!
Milo is also known as sorghum and is, in itself a wonder grain. We use it here because it is inexpensive to buy. Every region of the world has different demands for grains and we all can tailor our feed mixes to our regional availability.
The mix I give you in this video is a 19% protein mix. For a general chick/duck starter and duck maintenance. the protein should be increased to 28% for the first 4-5 weeks, then lowered to around 23-25%. I feed this to ALL my birds, as the ducks free range with the chickens. The feed recipe can be downloaded here: eco-ranch.us/POULTRYFEEDMIX.pdf
If you just add one extra part of ground soy to this mix, you will be around the 25% protein content.
There are also many things you can substitute for soy. I have been working with a rancher in Nigeria to develop a feed mix for him. The research on grains and potential alternative feeds is priceless and I will be sharing all this in the next feed video, soon!