So, I have like 3 other articles that have recipes for how to make chicken feed at home - this one is unique though, because it breaks down different ingredient options by their protein content.
It's probably the most "complicated" article that I have for chicken feed recipes, though - so if you're looking for something easier... check out one of these articles (or all of them): Formulating Your Own Chicken Feed, Garden Betty's Homemade Whole Grain Chicken Feed, and/or Homemade Chicken Feed. Organic and soy-free! - Stephanie
Once your chicks grow up and start to lay, you want to change them off the homemade starter/grower feeds and onto laying feeds with 16 or 17% protein.
Once again, I'm listing several choices so that you get an idea of how to put together your own feed recipe. The numbers in the chart indicate a percent of the recipe by weight --- to make a hundred pounds of feed, just pretend those numbers are in pounds.
| Generic - 15-18% protein | Modern - 17% protein | Modern (no alfalfa) - 17% protein | High corn - 15% protein | No soybeans - 13% protein | |
| Corn (shelled or meal) | 48.25 | 48.25 | 60 | 53.5 | |
| Soybeans (roasted or meal) | 30 | 30 | 8 | ||
| Oats | 5 | 10 | |||
| Alfalfa meal (can be eliminated in on fresh pasture.) | 4 | 5 | 2.5 | 5 | |
| Fish meal and/or meat meal | 3 | 7.5 | |||
| Aragonite, ground limestone, marble, or oyster shells (for calcium) | 3 | 8.75 | 8.75 | 6.35 | 3 |
| Poultry nutri-balancer | 3 | 3 | |||
| Combination of corn, milo, barley, oats, wheat, and/or rice | 53.5 | ||||
| Wheat bran, mill feed, rice bran, and/or milling byproducts | 17 | ||||
| Soybean meal, peanut meal, cottonseed meal, safflower meal, and/or sesame meal | 15 | ||||
| Yeast and/or milk powder (for vitamins) | 2 | 3 | 2.5 | ||
| Salt with trace minerals (trace mineral salt or iodized salt supplemented with 1/2 oz. of managanese sulfate and 1/2 oz. of zinc oxide.) | 0.5 | 0.4 | 0.5 | ||
| Bone meal and/or deflourinated dicalcium phosphate | 2 | ||||
| Wheat middlings | 15 | ||||
| Wheat | 30 | ||||
| Cod liver oil | 1 | ||||
| Maine herring meal (65% protein) | 3.75 | ||||
| Meat and bone meal (47% protein) | 1 | ||||
| Kelp meal | 0.6 | |
Stay tuned for the next post about protein content --- this is the one that will really help you make up your own feed.