When the chicks first arrived I was in a bit of a hurry.
I dropped by the local feed store and picked up a 50# bag of their chick starter and called it a day. Only later, after setting the feed out for the chicks did I take the time to read the tag. It’s a nice 18% protein starter, but it’s chock full of Aureomycin. Great, antibiotics are definitely something that I want to stay away from in animal feed.
So a few days later I called them up and asked if they had any unmedicated chick starter. No dice. Although they do have a 20% protein Duck and Goose starter that ought to work.
Sounds good to me.
I swung by and picked up 200# of unmedicated Duck and Goose starter for the chicks. They’ve gone through two bags of the stuff, and only now have I bothered to thoroughly read the label. Just the usual stuff, corn, soy, and…animal protein meal! Yuck! What kind of animal does that come from? No telling, not good.
Fool me once, shame on you.
Fool me twice…shame on…
Well, point is, you won’t fool me again.
I’m pretty disappointed with the selection from the local feed-store thus far, most all of their feed is from US Feeds in Iowa. I still want to go back and double check to see if they have any other feed that would suit, but I’m not holding my breath or anything. Too bad, because having reasonably priced feed only 2 miles from my front door is a darn convenient thing.
There is another feed store in Pine Island, about 5 miles away, and several in Rochester, a 25 mile drive. I already looked at a few places in Rochester, and while they have suitable feed, it’s more expensive at the locally-owned place, and I’m not that fond of patronizing big chains like Fleet Farm if I don’t have to.
So have you considered blending your own? I know of a local farmer here in Missouri who is doing so with non-GMO grains he gets from the local co-op.
Is it Bill who’s blending his own? I’d love to do that eventually, but with 60 chicks I’m stuck buying premix feed at least for a while.
I loaded the page to suggest making your own and found that Cathy beat me to it! Why trust what others do? Their systems are not likely to match yours.
I’m also kinda freaked that the feed comes with antibiotics, and then the duck feed with animal protein.
I’d love to mix my own ration eventually, but I’d have to come up with a place to store 1000# of feed, equipment to mix and grid it… Someday. But for now, I really need to find some non-freaky bagged feed.
Does Nutrena have medications in it? I always though it was medication-free, but still GMO.
The trouble with a blend is the pesticidal treatments the ingredients get to keep insects, etc. away while in storage. I guess you can pick your poison. Literally.
I can’t believe they don’t have any drug free chick feed. You would think that with the movement towards more people growing their own healthy food that they would. Maybe you could fill that nich and sell your own chick ration when you open your farm store. You could also sell other things for the hobby farmer that want to use natural, organic, pasture finished, green and humane products, besides your all natural meat and produce from your farm.