Duck & Chicken feed question

[nao57]

So...

After weeks of feeding, its been maybe almost 2 months, and I've been feeding the ducks and chickens black oil sunflower seed sprouts.

It does seem to work. I love it. I'm saving a lot on feed. They love it.

The nutrition theory, says basically that the closer you are to a seed in age of plant seedlings that the more nutrition is still there. So it should be a full nutrition cycle, plus they are yard foraging.

(Any problems with doing this as their only feed?)

What I wanted to ask is if the same thing will work specifically for ducks and chickens with barley & field pea sprouts? And also wheatgrass sprouts?

Is there any particular advantage of one over the other?

I thought I heard someone say the barley sprouts don't get as big, so there might be less gas mileage with the barley and field pea forage sprout mixes? Is this true?

People do barley and field pea sprouts and wheatgrass sprouts with other agriculture animals. I just wasn't sure about ducks & chickens specifically? Plus, its possible one of the 3 types (barley & field pea, wheatgrass, sunflower (BO)) may have an advantage of one or two over the other three in terms of early growth and volume increases, and nutrition fulfillment?

Thanks for any thoughts or comments on this.

 

[NatJ]

(Any problems with doing this as their only feed?)

There is no single kind of plant that makes a complete chicken feed. Not as a seed, a sprout, or a grown plant.

There is no combination of two or three plants that together make a complete chicken food, either.

Corn and soybeans are the main ingredients in most commercial chicken feed, but many vitamins and minerals have to be added, and I think a few amino acids as well, before it will work right. That gets complicated (and expensive, if you try to buy all the right additives.)

Some places sell a vitamin/mineral mix that is meant to be combined with corn and soybeans in specific proportions. Here's a page about one such product:
https://formafeed.com/faf-products/avian-premix-100/

It's easier, and probably cheaper, to base your chickens' diets on a commercially-purchased food.

 

[nao57]

There is no single kind of plant that makes a complete chicken feed. Not as a seed, a sprout, or a grown plant.

There is no combination of two or three plants that together make a complete chicken food, either.

Corn and soybeans are the main ingredients in most commercial chicken feed, but many vitamins and minerals have to be added, and I think a few amino acids as well, before it will work right. That gets complicated (and expensive, if you try to buy all the right additives.)

Some places sell a vitamin/mineral mix that is meant to be combined with corn and soybeans in specific proportions. Here's a page about one such product:
https://formafeed.com/faf-products/avian-premix-100/

It's easier, and probably cheaper, to base your chickens' diets on a commercially-purchased food.

So are you saying people won't get eggs, or get halved production if they aren't doing some kind of vitamins?

Sorry had to ask. I'd rather be safe than be wishing I'd asked more later this year.

 

[NatJ]

I cannot tell how much feed they can get from foraging in your yard, so they may or may not be OK for the summer. (Grass and bugs go a long way toward fixing protein and vitamin/mineral issues.) But when winter comes, there won't be many bugs or much grass in the yard, and deficiencies will start showing up. You might get less eggs, you might get no eggs, you might get dead chickens--I don't know for sure.

Wild chickens, like any other wild bird, would lay eggs only in the spring and maybe summer, because there's more food and better food available at that time of year.

An article I found interesting:
http://www.plamondon.com/wp/save-money-on-chicken-feed/

That guy suggests keeping a feeder of complete chicken feed available at all times, and then offering as much other stuff as you like. He states that chickens will manage to balance their own diet in a way that keeps them alive, healthy, and producing well, while saving him money.

His ideas sound good to me, but I don't have enough personal experience to know how well it works in the long-term.

My chicken raising has always included 24/7 access to a feeder full of complete feed. I have always thrown table scraps and garden weeds and such to my chickens, and they always did fine, but I've never done a long-term experiment of making other food available to them in large amounts.

A hundred years ago, it was thought that chickens could not live on a diet of only plant products. Beef or milk were commonly added to chicken food at the time. More recently, scientists have learned about amino acids in protein, and about vitamins and minerals, so they are now able to make chicken food that keeps them alive and apparently healthy, without adding meat. But making that work is not particularly simple.

 

[aart]

But when winter comes

@nao57 it's important to know.....
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Climate, and time of year, is almost always a factor.
Please add your general geographical location to your profile.
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