try to get the purina sunfresh recipe, it is certified all natural and is better than most out there with less $.

I pay $8.95 for 50# of Purina Layena and it has no animal by-products in it. Medicated chick starter is a little more. $30 is highway robbery!

Purina Sunfresh recipe has a flock raiser that is supposed to be what many raise their broilers on, but the chick starter is medicated, I would use Dumor chick starter from Tractor supply, it is not medicated, and since it is broiler I would use the higher protein, for game chicks, I think, 24% If you can only get the reg. chick starter at TSC it is still 20% so it would still work. And Dumor is a good feed.

Since chickens aren't herbivores would Purina Sunfresh non animal products feed be good for them?
You can get a monthy "Buy 2 Get 1 free" coupon for Sunfresh feeds in The Poultry Press publication. It cost $8.75 for a 50 lb. bag through my feed supplier, same price as their other brands.

my feed is all organic, called "Country Boy" and costs $8.70 per 50#

$30? OMG, where are you shopping for it, a city pet store?

Get thee to a farm coop or feed mill. I buy 100 pounds of laymaker and 100 pounds of cracked corn and pay 24 for two hundred pounds of feed and complain about how high it has gotten in the last ten years.

You are being stiffed.

Purina also makes a Start & Grow that is non-medicated.

Bethany: my chickens are the biggest herbivores around. They absolutely love dandelions, chick weeds, apples, tomatoes, corn on the cob, fresh oats. They almost run me over when I come through the door with any of the above, especially the corn on the cob!!!

I wish they were on the bottom floor of the barn, then I could get them outside during the summer. So, I take the outside inside to them.

I don't pay much attention to feed prices, but I'm sure my 40+ lb bag of laying mash is about $7. Canadian.

I pay around $8.50 - $11 for a 50 lb bag depending on what my store has at the time and if I'm buying laying feed vs regular feed for when they arn't laying. Non laying feed is cheaper usually. I can fit two bags into the small plastic garbage can I use to store my feed outdoors.

Yikes! $30 is expensive! I hope you can find somewhere in your area selling feed cheaper.

I'm looking for all natural poultry feed,I'm in Fair Grove,MO.My hens aren't laying much and they are this year chicks about 8 -9 mo.
Thanks for the help

JP, sorry I can't help you out in finding a source for organic chicken feed. I just buy what my local feed mill stocks and I don't think one could call it "organic". I had a bunch of layers this year who really set a record for how long it took them to start laying. They were from a late hatch out, and I'm beginning to think that when the chickens are hatched out has a bearing on when they mature to laying eggs. My early hatch outs seem to have started laying much earlier in their development, but I have no soid evidence to prove that.

Im paying $8.50 for 40 lb. bag laying mash, and I gave them a piece of my mind for the high price!

I'm curious if you can qualify Tractor Supply Chicken feed as organic??

Dave

A 40lb. bag of plain wheat here, on the B.C. Coast, is $9.95 at one feed store, $10.55 at the other. Back a few years ago when folks chatted on the Citizens Band Radio about everything, like we are here, some folks were saying that "laying mash" was nothing but compressed chicken feathers with vitamins, etc., added. Is This True???? I figure it is because, I thought I had remembered my mother boiling up "laying mash" for the chickens during the cold spells -- I had added some mash to hot water and got a brown skum floating on top of the water, not the bulk (like brown porrage) I thought I had remembered.

If the bag doesnt say certified organic, its not. Some feeds do contain feather meal but the main ingredient is usually corn. Each bag has to have a hang tag listing ingredients, etc.

Dredging up an old thread here. Figured I'd add that no chicken is an herbivore, they are all omnivores, some just like some plant based food more than others. In the wild chickens (well, red fowl, Gallus gallus) get upwards of 90% of their caloric intake from insects, so avoiding animal protein probably isn't the best idea.

Glitch caused me to loose the second part of my post.

Some chickens are excellent mousers. Free ranging your birds will reduce feed costs and by most accounts healthier birds (for us, the axe through the neck is bad for them) and eggs are produced.

I agree about the omnivore thing - but a lot of species (including us humans!) can process vegetable proteins so they don't necessarily require animal (including insect) proteins. (This is how people who eat only vegetables and fruits are able to survive, their bodies can process the vegetable proteins - which can be harder to get in the amounts that humans need to survive, but, it can be done.) I don't know about chickens, though.

(Cats and ferrets are obligate carnivores, meaning that their bodies are absolutely incapable of processing vegetable proteins so they require animal proteins...which is why cats and ferrets should never, ever be on vegetarian diets. EVER.)

Sorry, I know this is an pretty old thread.

After searching for organic chicken feed myself, including this thread, over the course of the last year, I made up a list of places that sell organic poultry feed throughout the country. There are many feed stores on the list and online suppliers. There are also links to recipes to mix your own feed.

Here is the List of where to buy Organic Chicken Feed

Here is a link that might be useful: Organic Feed List