Ready-made bird feed or homemade feed
It seems to me that buying ready-made feed for raising birds is quite expensive. Don't you think that it would be much easier and cheaper to buy grain and grind it yourself? What do you think?
It seems to me that buying ready-made feed for raising birds is quite expensive. Don't you think that it would be much easier and cheaper to buy grain and grind it yourself? What do you think?
As a big lazy person, I wouldn’t bother preparing compound feed myself. It’s much easier to buy ready-made ones and not think about balancing your diet. Think for yourself, if your feed doesn’t have enough of something, the bird will get sick or develop poorly - do you need it?
If you keep a simple bird (not a broiler) on a free range and, in addition to grain, treat them at least occasionally with vegetables and table scraps (cook porridge from half-eaten soups, borscht, bread, dairy, fatty foods, leftover meat and fish, frying, etc. and ground grain), then your birds will feel completely fine. And if it is a broiler bird (broiler chickens, broiler turkeys, broiler quails, etc.) then for the rapid growth of muscle mass, like prof. Athletes require complete, precise nutrition calculated in calories for each bird individually. Therefore, either buy special feed of good quality, or make it yourself, but adding all the necessary elements (cakes, meal, soybeans, fats, vitamins, chalk, shells, bone meal, etc.
When you buy food, everything is already balanced, vitamins and everything necessary for the growth of birds are added.So store-bought food may be more expensive, but it’s also healthier.
You can do it yourself, no one forbids it. Our grandmothers had never even heard of what a diet was or what balancing nutrients was - there was nothing, there was meat, and the chickens laid eggs. The main thing is not to feed only wheat, but to introduce both corn and fresh grass, so that feeding is not monotonous.
You can also buy inexpensive compound feed. But I definitely wouldn’t bother grinding the grain and mixing it myself. Previously, no one had done such things, they simply gave the birds different types of grain, and generally different food.
At the initial stage of rearing, we feed birds with starter food for 2 - 3 weeks, then sprout food for 3 weeks, but with a mixture of crushed corn. And noticeably, they are already starting to eat clean corn and grain on their own. The start must be of high quality. Minerals are mixed into the feed and are useful for strengthening the bird’s body; they need to be given water to prevent any ailments. We use brovaseptol.
I buy Felucene premix; it can be added to both grain and vegetable feed. It contains all the vitamins a bird needs. Suitable even for broilers. A more budget-friendly option is the “Economy” premix for all types of poultry; you can start giving it to chickens from a day old.