I was butchering (free range) chickens yesterday, and was appalled to find CANCER in two of my old hens. Out of the hundreds I butchered with my mom while growing up, I only recall seeing cancer in an old hen's insides ONCE. While discussing this with my hubby, we came to the conclusion that it must be due to the commercial feeds we are giving out animals. Those feeds are so heavily chemicalised and unnatural.

I searched the web and found what I think I can mix for a simple chicken feed as a supplement to the grass and bugs they get in the pasture. But I need pointers on dairy feed for our milk cow. I want to use organic grains and kelp, and perhaps fishmeal. Anyone out there think they can help?

-- daffodyllady (daffodyllady@yahoo.com), August 02, 2001

Answers

uh oh, I made amistake.. that fishmeal was supposed to go in the chicken ration, not the cow ration! See... I do need help. LOL

-- daffodyllady (daffodyllady@yahoo.com), August 02, 2001.

You don't want to use chemcials or unnatural products but just when was the last time you saw your cow fishing? It's appauling to me that mills put fish and feather meal in my grain mixes for my dairy goats, well lets say used to. With the exception of corn, which grind down back molars, as close as you can get to whole grains the better. The base of a grain mix should be the ceral grains for carbohydrates, corn, oats, barley. If your hay isn't very good quality than alfalfa pellets not only add roughage but good protein. We use black oil sunflower seeds to add natural oils, fiber and protein. For heavy milkers and growing stock, you can also feed the milk based pellets, like calf manna from Manna Pro, or head start, or Purinas Animax, each company carries their own, they are high in protein and a good source of all the basic vitamins and minerals. We have recently found a feed store that carries whole soybeans which would be a great source of protein and oils, if you don't want to use BOSS. Good luck with this, there are as many grain mixes for milkers as their are folks who milk! With any homemade mix you would need to have out a good quality loose cattle mineral mix, along with the kelp. For my milkers I also put out Diamond V Yeast and baking soda in the winter. Vicki

-- Vicki McGaugh TX (vickilonesomedoe@hotmail.com), August 02, 2001.

I would be interested in the recipe for you simple chicken feed or the web site you found it on.

Thank you in advance.

-- Cordy (ckaylegian@aol.com), August 02, 2001.

Daffodyllady and Vicki, I would be cautious in using raw soybeans. If they are roasted, it shouldn't be a problem. My neighbor's cows broke into his barn where he was storing soybeans he said he'd saved from the previous year to use as seed, rather than bought treated seed. The cows went wild over the beans and several died from their feast. The vet told him there is an enzyme in raw beans that inhibits oxygen transfer in the blood and that was the cause of the deaths, rather than over eating, bloat, etc. It was a costly lesson as he lost most of his herd, about 20 and the cows that did survive aborted. Check with your vet to be sure. I've slept since this happened but I'm pretty sure this was the sequence of events.

-- marilyn (rainbow@ktis.net), August 03, 2001.

I'd be interested in that simple chicken feed also, Thanks!

-- Nancy (nannyb@huntel.net), August 03, 2001.

My nephew in law recommended Diamond V for my sickly sheep but in the instance I couldn't find it then I was to use bread machine yeast. Of course the feedstore looked at me like I was from Mars so off i went to grocery store for bread machine yeast! PS Willie hasn't ground his teeth since he had that added to his food. For the most part I have been feeding organic feeds to my animals with the occassional lapse due to time and financial constraints. They sell the whole grains at the organic feed store for those who wish to mix their own rations but they also have great premade rations with no animal by products. just grains (some including roasted soybeans , meal or flax) and minerals. The farmer who said there are as many mixes as there are milkers was not wrong at all! LOL there are some books with good clear tables that illustrate the ratios.

-- Alison in N.S. (aproteau@istar.ca), August 03, 2001.

I don't know about kelp and fishmeal but here's the ration we use for our single jersey cow. The local feed mill mixes it for us. 370lb Crimped corn, 125lb soybean meal, 10lb wet molassas, 5lb Two&One mineral (Calcium/Phosphorus), 3lb trace mineral salt, 3/4lb Selenium mineral. The wet molassas is not needed if the corn is good, but it holds down the dust. I'm told that the Selenium is not needed west of the Mississippi but it's deficient here in central Ohio. This ration is roughly 17% crude protien.

I don't believe in using those pelleted rations. Animal matter, bone meal, blood meal, feathers, and even poultry manure! Yech.

_dave.f

-- David Freeman (_dave.f@mail.com), November 27, 2001.