Replies

  • K. Neil April 14, 2012 at 5:04pm

    I make my own mix (organic) with hard red wheat berries and millet as the primary grains with sunflower seeds, lentils, dried peas, peanuts, oats, corn, Brazil nuts (good source of selenium), buckwheat, and other seeds/nuts mixed in for variety and protein (with nutritional yeast and calcium for supplements).  I can give you a more specific formula if you like.  However, keep in mind that my birds are free range, so they get a lot of greens (grass, alfalfa, and weeds) and bugs (they love the mulch I put around my trees because it is a breeding area for roaches, crickets, and isopods).  I give them cold fruit in the afternoon when it is warm/hot and leftovers from the kitchen as occasional treats and during the winter.  I also have a mealworm box (grown on feed that I can control and keep organic).  The feed for the birds is just a supplement first thing in the morning and in the late afternoon.    My birds are javas (dual breed that produce eggs every 1-2 days) and muscovies.

    I hope you find this helpful.

    • jaimee corbet > K. Neil April 15, 2012 at 8:53pm

      Thanks! I can mix those-   We have tried growing meal worms without success.  Can you tell us a little about how you do it? We feed the turtles as well the worms, so it gets costly.

    • K. Neil > jaimee corbet April 16, 2012 at 10:39am

      I have found that mealworms are best grown by ignoring them 98% of the time :]  I use a plastic container with a lid (size depends on how big you want your colony and opaque is best) and toss in wheat bran (a couple of inches deep) mixed with a little bit of nutritional yeast.  I give them a piece of fruit or vegetable (set on top of the bran) as their source of moisture.  It should not be wet, or there will be mold problems.  Remove any moldy fruit/veggies.  Examples of moist food include:  cut apples, carrots, parsnips, and greens.  I usually give them the ones that are old and wrinkled and not that attractive for eating anymore.  I add a couple of paper towel/toilet paper tubes for interest and hide outs.

      I put the lid on (either loosely or will small holes in the top) and place them someplace out of the way and cool (I just try to avoid the hotter places in the house).  Aside from raiding the box to harvest, I ignore them except to check on them once per week to check the fruit/veggie for mold or replacement and if I need to add more bran.  Either once or twice a year (depending on the size of my container), I will sift through the contents (mealworm poop and dead beetles) to remove the live ones, put the dead beetles in the compost bin, and place the mealworm poop in another container with a lid.  The container is then set up again.  I make sure to check on the container with the mealworm poop about once per week for more mealworms because there are eggs mixed in that will hatch.  After a while, I dump the poop around plants in my garden because it is excellent fertilizer.

      My grain mix is about: 

      5-6 parts wheat (by weight)

      4-5 parts millet

      1 part lentils, green peas, and sunflower seeds, each

      1-2 parts peanuts, other nut, other grain (corn, buckwheat, oats, amaranth, etc.)

      Especially with the peanuts, it meets the minimum 16% protein.  Avoid adding too many peas or lentils (they do not like them being too high a percentage of their feed)

      If you like, I can post the websites that I found helpful in learning how to mix my own feed.  It is not the cheapest route (especially if you cannot free range), but it works for me :]  A bonus is that the grains are kept whole so they do not go stale/bad if kept properly.  Also, if you are interested in germinating the seeds first (just soaking for a day and left to germinate another day or two, not longer), it works well (without flax--that makes everything slimy and sticky).

  • Erin April 14, 2012 at 4:06pm

    I don't.  I priced out individual ingredients through the least expensive source I could find, my co-op, Azure Standard.  It was about the same price as I could get an organic feed from them.  I purchased that until Scott Brown, on this site, organized a wonderful organic feed co-op.  (Warning, there are many pages.)

    http://www.phoenixpermaculture.org/profiles/blogs/group-purchase-of...

    Or, here's the Facebook page.

    http://www.facebook.com/BackyardChickenFarmersUnite

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