0:00

Hi! Welcome to the Poultry Keepers

0:02

Podcast. I'm Rip Stalvey, and

0:04

together with Mandelyn Royal and John

0:06

Gunterman, we're your co hosts for this show,

0:08

and it's our mission to help you

0:10

have a happy, healthy, and productive

0:13

flock. This

0:24

episode is an audio replay

0:26

from a previously recorded Poultry

0:28

Keepers 360 live stream. It

0:30

features Jeff Mattocks talking about feeds

0:33

and the ingredients used to make them. It

0:36

will help you better understand the feed you're

0:38

using to feed your birds. Now,

0:40

here's Jeff.

0:41

We're going to talk about looking at feed tags,

0:43

what on a feed tag what the generic

0:46

terms and so on are, and

0:48

then we'll look at the different

0:50

grains and what they actually are used for

0:52

in, in the feed. So

0:54

I give you a, the 10,

0:56

000 foot view of what

0:58

feeds are about. So the

1:01

why's and what for is feed. When

1:03

you're looking at your feed tag, The

1:05

big manufacturers, and

1:08

I don't need to name names, you can go,

1:10

you'll see it for yourself, right? When

1:12

you're reading tags, and this is really frustrating

1:14

for me, is, code names

1:16

like Processed Grain Products, Processed

1:19

Protein Products, Processed Grain

1:21

By Products, Processed

1:23

Protein By Products, right? Those

1:25

are in there, the reason they do that is,

1:29

today if corn is cheaper than wheat, They're

1:31

going to put in more corn and tomorrow

1:33

if barley is cheaper than corn, they're

1:36

going to use more barley, right? So it

1:38

allows them to change

1:41

the ingredients every

1:43

day or whenever they want to and

1:45

they don't have to tell you what they changed, right?

1:48

And you've been raising chickens long

1:50

enough, you've opened up bags and say

1:52

this don't look the same as it did, three

1:55

weeks ago or a month ago or the last time I

1:57

bought feed they're doing it to

2:00

reduce cost, hold cost down, increase

2:02

their profit, or if

2:05

there's a poor lack of availability

2:07

for a certain grain, it allows

2:09

them to do substitutions. It's a broad

2:11

term, so you don't know what's in that processed

2:14

grain product. It could be corn, oat, wheat,

2:16

barley, could be all of them. May

2:18

only be one of them, and you don't know which one

2:20

it is, and they're not going to tell you.

2:22

Maybe I'm wrong for thinking this way, but

2:25

when I see these things on

2:27

the feed tag like processed grain products,

2:30

or grain byproducts, or protein

2:32

byproducts, to me, I

2:34

view that as a red flag that's maybe not

2:37

as good quality of feed as I

2:39

need to be looking for. Am I wrong

2:41

for thinking that way?

2:43

I wish everybody felt that way and here's

2:45

the thing, you don't know for sure, right? Again,

2:47

it's a code name, right? It's a top

2:49

secret, insiders only,

2:52

you don't know what they're using, right? Whether

2:54

it's Neutrina by Cargill, whether it's Purina,

2:56

whether it's, doesn't matter, right? They're

2:59

all play the same game. And

3:01

as the commodity market changes, so does

3:03

those ingredients. In later slides,

3:05

we'll show which ones are the by products

3:08

where they fall into and things

3:10

like that. So what

3:13

I really like, what I hope

3:15

after tonight folks are going to go look at

3:17

is when you see a tag that says,

3:20

corn, wheat, barley,

3:22

oats, it's actually naming

3:24

out, The ingredients for you.

3:28

Those feed manufacturers can't

3:30

change that formula

3:32

without changing that tag. So

3:34

they're locked into a specific formula,

3:37

which is really awesome for you because.

3:40

You find a feed that you like, and the

3:42

label says this is what's

3:45

on it, it's always going to be

3:47

there. The other thing that's nice about

3:49

that is feeds have to be listed

3:52

by, in descending order.

3:55

The largest input in

3:57

that feed is always first, the second

3:59

largest second, etc., right down the line.

4:02

It can tell us, it can tell me

4:05

what the percentage, I can figure out what the

4:07

percentage of corn is in there, what the percentage

4:09

of soybean meal is in there, or so

4:12

on. And, eventually, if you keep listening

4:14

to this show and we blab on, you're

4:16

going to know how to be able to tell that too,

4:18

because we're going to cover it someday.

4:21

Feed tags are really important, I'm

4:23

a label reader no matter where I go, whether

4:25

it's the grocery store, the feed store, it

4:28

doesn't matter. I'm a label reader

4:30

and it's important to me and I want to know,

4:32

Excuse me for butting in here, but I just can't help

4:34

myself. When I see those terms

4:36

like corn, wheat, barley, oats, soybeans,

4:39

whatever in there, that tells me

4:41

that I'm getting a fairly consistent

4:43

feed. And I can

4:46

tell if they're starting to change

4:48

the formulation. It used

4:50

to drive me absolutely

4:52

nuts when they would change

4:54

the formula on the feed. Sometimes,

4:57

not always, but sometimes I could see

4:59

it, I could smell it. I've even been

5:01

known to taste it. Yeah, I'm that

5:03

screwy, but this is something I

5:06

look for every time that I'm

5:08

seeing what the ingredients are.

5:11

Rip, you're not screwy for tasting feed. I

5:13

taste feed everywhere I go. Every time

5:15

I go on to a farm or a feed mill or

5:17

whatever, I'm testing

5:19

and tasting and, look, people,

5:22

pick it up, taste it. If

5:24

it doesn't taste good to you, why are you feeding

5:26

it? Alright, sorry, I'm going to get off my high horse,

5:28

that's alright, but you can also

5:30

tell if the feed is fresh if you taste it.

5:33

And there's nothing in there that's going to hurt you, right?

5:36

Absolutely we hope there's nothing in

5:38

there that's going to hurt you. If you get sick from tasting

5:40

your chicken feed, then we got a problem.

5:43

I'm not talking about eating a bowl full for breakfast

5:45

or anything.

5:47

Hey, a really good chicken feed? I wouldn't

5:49

mind taking it in the house, adding

5:51

a little hot water to it, make me a little

5:53

chicken feed oatmeal and,

5:56

that's what it should be. That's what it should be

5:58

like.

5:59

I'm not eating no raw corn.

6:01

Why? You don't need sweet corn.

6:04

Alfalfa meal? Yes, they cook, I eat

6:07

sweet corn after they cook it. I

6:09

know that's weird, but, yeah.

6:10

All right. What's on a feed tag? You

6:13

have to have so the top of the feed tag

6:15

has to say, Like the company,

6:17

it doesn't have to say the company's name, but usually

6:19

it'll be the brand name and your title.

6:23

But it has to clearly state what

6:25

type of animal it's for and

6:27

what class. So chick starter, chick

6:29

grower, layer,

6:32

etc. So that's, that has to be at

6:34

the top. You've all seen that. If you see

6:36

a generic term, that

6:38

should be a red flag for you. If

6:40

it's not there a lot

6:43

of people share with me the tags that they're feeding,

6:45

right? They'll message me, email me, whatever,

6:47

say, what do you think of this feed, right? You see it all the

6:49

time on Poultry Breeder Nutrition or Poultry

6:52

Keepers 360. And,

6:54

I tell them what I see, I don't hold back,

6:56

I don't sugarcoat it. If you're a sensitive

6:58

person, don't ask me that question, because I'm

7:01

going to be blunt. Okay, so

7:04

these things have to be on the tag, and then you have

7:06

the guaranteed analysis comes next, right?

7:09

Now, if there's a medication declaration

7:11

has to be in there, supposed

7:13

to be in there between what type

7:15

of feed it is and the guarantee. So

7:18

it should be highlighted if it's medicated.

7:20

So then you go on to the guaranteed analysis, right?

7:23

And the guaranteed analysis, these

7:25

are the levels that are supposed to be in

7:27

there. You need to read the little fine print

7:29

that says minimum and maximum. But for

7:32

a poultry tag in the United States,

7:35

what is legal is you have

7:37

to have protein minimum. You

7:39

have to have the fat minimum. You have to have the fiber

7:42

maximum. Okay. You

7:44

gotta have the lysine minimum. You

7:46

have to have the methionine minimum. You're

7:49

going to have the calcium both minimum and

7:51

maximum. You have

7:53

to have the phosphorus minimum, salt

7:56

minimum and maximum, because too much

7:58

salt in a poultry diet is

8:00

a bad thing, and you'll have

8:02

to have sodium minimum and maximum.

8:05

And I forgot to put the maximum in there, but you,

8:07

the sodium has to be, these are required

8:10

by law. There's a group of

8:12

people out there that says you have

8:14

to do this, right? This is what you have

8:16

to put in on your label. And

8:18

they control all of us in the feed industry.

8:21

So then down below that. Is

8:23

gonna be your ingredient listing. Again,

8:25

there's some generic terms that can be used, but not

8:27

typically like we said on the previous

8:29

slide, are you gonna see processed grain

8:32

products, processed grain byproducts, etc.

8:34

But, we talked about that a little

8:37

bit, but the ingredients are listed in descending

8:39

order from largest to smallest. If

8:42

the if the label was made

8:44

correctly, I see a lot of labels

8:46

that are not in accordance

8:48

with the laws that we have to follow,

8:51

and you may run into some of those too now.

8:54

I would not encourage you to run up to the feed mill

8:56

manager and say, this

8:58

label is not right. This label is not right. They're probably

9:00

going to ban you from the store. And, or,

9:03

label you a heretic behind your back. So

9:05

just don't do that. Just know that it's

9:07

not, but if they can't label

9:09

their feed correctly. What's the chances

9:12

that they could make their feed correctly? So

9:15

just ponder on that a little while.

9:17

And at the bottom, every

9:19

bag has to say who the

9:22

manufacturer or the guarantor

9:24

is for that feed including their

9:26

address. Not a complete address.

9:28

It's supposed to be a mailing address. So

9:31

it'll be like post office, box town,

9:34

etc. That these are the requirements

9:36

for a feed label. That's, that's

9:39

pretty cut and dry.

9:41

I have a question.

9:41

Go ahead.

9:42

So you said the United States, right? I feel like

9:44

I see that there's a lot less

9:46

on the Canadian feed tag. Oh,

9:48

it's

9:48

horrible up there. Yeah, we don't even, for

9:51

our Canadian friends listening, I feel

9:53

sorry for you, but they don't have to list

9:56

hardly anything. They have a much shorter

9:58

list of guarantees. Amino acids aren't

10:00

on there. They don't have to put their ingredients

10:03

on there. They're supposed to make them

10:05

available by request, but

10:07

we've had probably

10:09

a dozen, followers of PK360

10:12

and other places that have requested

10:14

it, and they don't get it, right? Yeah,

10:17

they just get blown off and ignored, that's a whole

10:19

other, and then when you get to Mexico,

10:22

it's another world, and when you get to the Philippine

10:24

tags, it's a whole other world. It's every

10:26

place is different, but, I can talk

10:29

what is required here in the U. S. because

10:32

I have to live by those laws. Here

10:34

at Fertrell.

10:35

Alright, so one more question. Is

10:37

there any size

10:39

of

10:42

an operation that gets labeled

10:44

like this? Here's my example. There's

10:47

been more than one person who has asked me

10:49

to make feed for them and sell it to them and

10:51

I've always said no. Now I have

10:53

an even bigger reason to say no, right? Because

10:56

I would have to have a label that has all that

10:58

on it.

10:58

If you're a business that sells

11:01

feed or animal supplements

11:03

or something like that, right? Mule City feeds

11:05

in your neck of the woods or something like that,

11:08

and they seem to be great people, so I'm not

11:10

picking on them, don't, but they're

11:12

registered with the State Department of

11:14

Ag and any state, and we have to

11:16

register in any state that we sell into,

11:19

okay every state that I sell, Any

11:22

of my animal nutrition products, I

11:24

have to register with that state and

11:26

I have to pay what they call tonnage

11:29

fees. Based on the number of tons that

11:31

I sell, I have to pay them a

11:33

tax. People don't know this.

11:35

Now, for you as

11:37

the farmer wanting to help out a

11:39

friend, if you chose to do that,

11:42

which I know you won't, so nobody

11:44

ask her, but you

11:47

can, right? There's no,

11:49

you don't have to abide by that. You're not selling

11:52

it. Okay. You're

11:54

mixing it.

11:56

And you know what? And Karen, if you came

11:58

to me and said, Jeff, I want you to make this

12:00

custom mineral mix for my chickens, right? So

12:03

that's fine. We talk about what it is. You write

12:05

a letter that I keep on file that says

12:08

you requested this custom mineral mix.

12:11

On a custom feed or mineral

12:13

mix, I do not, you,

12:15

I do not have to put a guaranteed

12:18

feed. analysis on it or an ingredient

12:20

list. It can say custom mix, for

12:23

Apex Poultry Farm, period.

12:25

It still has to have who made it down at

12:27

the bottom, but at the top,

12:30

when it says custom and I have a letter

12:32

on file that says you requested that custom,

12:35

then I no longer have to follow those

12:37

guidelines. So for people who are getting

12:39

a custom feed, There's not

12:41

a requirement for them

12:43

to put a guaranteed analysis or a

12:45

list of ingredients on that, but you should have already,

12:49

that's the whole purpose of the letter on file, right?

12:51

You sat down and worked it out. I

12:54

want these ingredients. I

12:56

want it made to this specification. This is

12:58

what I want, and so

13:00

you already have that relationship. You already know

13:02

what's in there. Yeah. And

13:05

if you are getting a custom mix made by somebody,

13:08

You can always request what's the analysis

13:10

of it, right? What are you using? What's,

13:12

you're in control with your custom mix,

13:14

but not so much for over

13:16

the counter feeds.

13:18

I just feel like so many people are thinking

13:20

that they've found the perfect

13:22

small little tiny niche producer

13:25

that's making feed. You know what I mean? Don't

13:28

get this information, but maybe that's okay because

13:30

they're working together with them to create

13:32

the diet.

13:33

Yeah, I got lots of people that go

13:35

to the local farmer down the road

13:37

who has his own grinder mixer. There's still a

13:39

few of these out there and

13:41

they'll take the supplements, they take the formula,

13:44

and the old farmer's more than happy

13:46

to help them out, makes a custom mix for them.

13:49

They drive home with their feed and that's awesome

13:51

when that happens, right? And everybody's happy,

13:54

but it's few and far between, it's

13:57

less than 1%. Everybody

13:59

likes convenience, we drive down to Tractor Supply,

14:02

we pick up our bag of whatever

14:04

and off we go and,

14:07

people don't check dates, people won't read

14:09

labels, people just, oh, hey, there's

14:11

four layer feeds here on the shelf. Which one's

14:13

cheapest? And that's what they get and they go. Okay,

14:16

and I'm not picking

14:18

on anybody out there, I'm just saying this is what I

14:20

hear almost every day of my life

14:22

here at, talking to chicken people.

14:25

Our people would go to the store and say,

14:27

which one's the most expensive? But

14:30

that's not necessarily the best either.

14:31

If you know the ingredients and you know where it comes

14:34

from and, but look, even

14:36

if you don't know all those things, there's

14:38

nothing wrong with taking a tongue full of chicken

14:40

feed. There's nothing in there that should hurt

14:42

you if it doesn't taste good

14:44

and appealing or fresh and, then

14:47

I don't know, why are we doing it? I

14:50

find that talking with a lot of folks, and

14:52

helping them with their feed a lot of folks don't

14:54

understand why different ingredients are used.

14:56

Okay, what are they actually in there for? Or,

14:59

everybody knows the common stuff, pretty much, but

15:01

they don't know, beyond that. In

15:03

a commercial feed, when you see processed grain

15:05

products, that could include corn,

15:07

wheat, barley, oats, milo, sorghum,

15:10

which is grain sorghum, rye,

15:12

triticale. So those,

15:15

you know Those that I just rattled off, those

15:17

are all energy feeds, okay,

15:20

those are all starches, or carbohydrates

15:23

to get the energy level to the desired

15:25

level. Your processed protein products

15:28

are going to be, almost always,

15:30

is going to be soybean meal, solvent extracted

15:32

soybean meal, that is the most heavily traded

15:35

protein source out there. Depending

15:37

on where you live and what the availability is,

15:39

could be corn gluten meal, which

15:41

is 60 percent protein corn gluten

15:43

feed, which is only 20 percent protein.

15:46

Corn distillers, dried

15:49

distillers grains, sometimes it's called.

15:52

You're going to see that on a lot of labels. And those

15:54

are coming from the ethanol plants. I'm not

15:56

a big fan. Further north

15:58

and west you go, you're going to see peas

16:01

canola meal. You

16:03

get down into Texas, Louisiana,

16:05

Mississippi, you're going to see cottonseed meal.

16:08

Cotton is not a good chicken feed.

16:11

You don't want cotton in there. Peanut

16:13

meal, pretty readily used. Now,

16:17

sunflower meal is showing up all over the place.

16:20

There's a little bit of a shortage right now. But,

16:22

proteins can be made pretty much from

16:24

any of the oil seeds. Even

16:27

linseed, which is flax. Anything

16:29

that they're pressing the oil out of. But,

16:32

when you see meal, alright, they've

16:34

pressed the oil out of it. You Believe

16:36

it or not, okay, people don't understand

16:38

this. They don't, they can't wrap their head around it. The

16:42

meal that goes into our animal

16:44

feeds is the byproduct,

16:47

okay? They are pressing

16:49

oilseed because they want the

16:51

oil. There's a higher value

16:54

in oil than there is

16:56

in the residual meal. For

16:58

a hundred years, during

17:00

the industrial revelation in the United

17:02

States, and we started pressing

17:05

oil seeds and doing things like this,

17:07

but they've been looking for

17:10

ways to use byproducts

17:12

from other industries to,

17:15

and they always push it off on agriculture,

17:17

whether it's for fertilizer, whether it's for animal

17:19

feed, whatever, right? We've been stuck with

17:21

the byproducts and the leftovers.

17:24

For close to 100 years,

17:27

so it, the Industrial

17:29

Revolution was what, 30s, 40s, somewhere

17:31

in there, Rip, you were around in those days, weren't you?

17:34

I'm just teasing, I'm just teasing,

17:36

I'm just teasing.

17:37

I feel like it.

17:39

Yeah since that time frame, they've been looking

17:41

for places to go with, by-products,

17:45

and they've been running the experiment,

17:47

right? They feed a little bit of this, they feed a little bit of that

17:49

to the animal, see if they die. See

17:51

how well they perform. And see if they

17:53

can figure out how to fix them so the animal

17:55

can actually utilize them. Just know that

17:58

going into it. When you see

18:00

the word meal it's a byproduct.

18:03

Where oil has been removed, or something's

18:06

been removed. So like

18:08

corn gluten meal is when they pull off the

18:10

corn syrup. For cooking and

18:12

sweeteners and so

18:14

everything's every, all the meals are a byproduct.

18:17

So we move on to

18:19

process grain byproducts, right? So

18:21

what does that word actually mean? Most

18:24

of the time it's wheat middlings. So

18:27

when they mill wheat for flour

18:29

to make white flour, not whole wheat flour,

18:32

there's outer skin layers on

18:34

the wheat, the outer shell that comes

18:36

off and those are known as the wheat

18:38

middlings. Same thing happens

18:40

with soybeans. So when they're making soybean

18:42

meal, to press the oil

18:45

when they do that first crack and roll

18:47

the outer skin of the soybean will fly off,

18:50

and they collect that, and

18:52

it goes into the feed stream primarily

18:55

as a filler and a fiber. Depending on where

18:57

you live and if they have access to

18:59

it, there's a product called bakery waste

19:01

or bakery meal, and bakery meal

19:03

is a waste. Unsold,

19:06

mispackaged, overrun, outdated

19:08

bakery products. Okay, could

19:10

be little Debbie cakes, it could be

19:13

loaves of bread that didn't get sold, it could

19:15

be anything that falls under

19:17

the category of bakery. And

19:20

they'll bring that back, and

19:22

they grind it up, they process it, and they turn

19:25

it into a meal. They don't

19:27

always remove the packaging, just so

19:29

you know. If you look really close, you'll

19:31

see little pieces of plastic in there

19:33

and whatnot. Wheat bran

19:36

the wheat middling is the outer layer, the wheat

19:38

bran is like the second layer. Closer

19:41

to the heart of the wheat berry some

19:43

places you'll find that if it's been separated

19:46

out, and there's other byproducts

19:48

out there. Like I said, the most common is wheat

19:51

middlings it's cheap, it's easy,

19:53

it's, it's been

19:55

widely used. It's a very

19:58

inexpensive filler, it

20:00

looks good on paper, and

20:02

for all of you who are in love with pellets,

20:04

it's You have to have wheat middlings

20:08

to make a good hard pellet. The harder

20:10

the pellet, the more wheat middlings that are in

20:12

it. Again, I don't sugar coat

20:14

it much. That's the bare bones

20:16

truth of how you make a pellet.

20:19

Jeff, I've got a question that's related

20:22

but while we're talking about grains, this

20:24

is probably coming

20:26

up in some people's minds, and

20:28

that's what grain can be

20:30

substituted for what, and I'll

20:33

explain what I'm talking about. Breeders

20:35

of white skinned birds

20:38

like Orpingtons, Marans,

20:41

are afraid to use Corn,

20:44

because they don't want to turn

20:46

the skin or the legs of the

20:48

shanks or anything

20:50

yellow. And so there is an aversion

20:54

to feeding corn in the diet. Now if they

20:56

wanted to go out and make, say, a scratch

20:58

feed, what could they use

21:00

to replace corn in that scratch feed

21:02

mix? And I'm mentioning that because

21:05

it's probably the most common thing folks associate

21:07

with

21:08

it. Wheat's fine milo, grain sorghum's

21:11

fine. You're not going to get the pigmentation.

21:13

There's no yellowing in that. We can

21:15

make a combination of wheat, milo, and

21:17

barley. Wheat, milo, and oats.

21:20

Depending on where you live, if you're down in Louisiana

21:22

or Texas where they grow a bunch of rice, we

21:25

can use rice as part of that yeah, it

21:27

it's not hard at all to make a scratch grain

21:29

or to make a feed around

21:32

that without the yellowing

21:34

factor of corn. And

21:36

I think if you keep the just for the listener's sake,

21:39

and I'm going to throw this out here so you, you know

21:41

too, Rip, is, I would tell

21:43

you that there's, corn

21:45

is probably, Forty

21:48

to fifty percent of every

21:50

chicken, commercial chicken diet out

21:52

there. Because it's the cheapest

21:55

grain to put in there. So

21:59

they're going to balance that amount of corn.

22:02

Then they're going to put in there at least three

22:04

to 400 pounds of wheat middlings. You're probably

22:06

looking at about 800 pounds of corn,

22:09

400 pounds of wheat middlings, about 400

22:11

pounds of soybean meal. And

22:13

then they're going to fill it up with, fluffy,

22:15

big word type stuff. Just you feel

22:17

like you're getting more for your dollar, that's

22:20

going to be. So it's going to be

22:22

800 900 pounds of corn, and

22:24

then 400 500 pounds of wheat mandelings.

22:27

Depending on what protein level you're after, then

22:29

the soybean meal will be anywhere from 400

22:31

600. It's not, when you do

22:34

something long enough, you can reverse

22:36

engineer a feed tag and

22:38

know what levels the ingredients are

22:40

going to be in. Yeah. I

22:42

lay awake at night thinking about wonder

22:45

what kind of crap they're putting in that feed today. So

22:47

I, and I shouldn't be that way, when you're passionate

22:49

about something, that's what you do. Yeah.

22:53

Could we talk about oats for a minute?

22:56

Is there a desired form

22:58

of oats to give to chickens? I don't

23:00

know if you can get it. Whole oats, you can

23:02

get clipped oats, you can get crimped oats

23:04

Ha. Yeah, you can get oat groats,

23:06

naked oats, clipped oats, steel

23:08

cut oats, you can get whole oats, you can get jockey

23:10

oats, you can get Swedish oats,

23:12

you can get Canadian oats. Yeah, people

23:14

just get carried away. Look, I'm just looking for,

23:17

in my formulas, I'm

23:19

just looking for a plain old whole

23:22

oat. It doesn't have to be jockey oats,

23:24

it doesn't have to be, But, a

23:26

lot of times, all you can get are what they

23:28

call horse oats, which are a little bit more plump

23:30

and they're a little bit more expensive. If

23:33

you're not in a grain region where you can go

23:35

find these things, you're stuck buying

23:37

it at Tractor Supply or, wherever.

23:40

I'm not picking on Tractor Supply.

23:42

Horse oats is the only thing I found down here.

23:45

Yeah, that's fine. I don't, it don't matter.

23:47

There's not a big difference. The horse oats have

23:49

been screened and graded, so you're getting

23:52

these big fat plump oats, and

23:54

they look really pretty. A little

23:56

bit easier for the horses to pick up,

23:58

again, the industry is

24:01

marketing to a specific

24:03

species to make them feel special. And

24:06

if we have horse listeners tonight, I'm sorry,

24:08

I didn't mean to step on your toes, but,

24:10

there's the truth of it.

24:12

And for all

24:14

our breeders of white skinned birds, there

24:16

are some alternatives out there

24:18

you don't have to mess up your birds by feeding

24:21

them corn.

24:22

But you're not going to get it from a commercial feed, right?

24:25

Look, a commercial feed is so

24:27

locked into corn, right?

24:29

They don't have a choice. Corn is king.

24:32

It just it's everywhere, it's easy,

24:34

it's cheap.

24:35

And to be fair, there's corn in all my stuff.

24:38

My holder diet is 35 percent

24:40

corn. So even when you're mixing your own, you're still

24:42

using a whole lot of corn unless you're instructed

24:44

to not. Yeah.

24:46

And that's not a lot of corn. I see diets

24:48

roll in front of me that are 70 percent

24:50

corn, Karen. Yeah, the

24:53

real bare minimum bottom of

24:55

the barrel type feeds is going to be

24:58

1, 450 pounds of corn,

25:00

450 pounds of soybean meal.

25:03

Then you start putting in your minerals and your vitamins

25:05

and stuff like that and your little additives.

25:08

That's all that's in there, corn and soybean meal,

25:10

right? And there's no there's no

25:12

room for anything else and

25:15

yeah, now yours is, 35

25:18

percent is a wonderful number.

25:19

So a corn free feed would

25:22

be healthier and easier to accomplish

25:24

than a soy free feed would.

25:26

It's easier to accomplish. I don't

25:29

feel the need to be necessarily

25:31

corn free, but, people

25:33

do and that's fine. I kinda,

25:35

I like to work with what the region of

25:37

the country grows the best. And

25:40

try and utilize those grains when I can, if

25:42

you want to, if you're selling eggs for

25:45

table eggs and you need good

25:47

yolk color, you're going to be

25:49

dependent on corn and alfalfa meal,

25:51

things like that. So it's, there's

25:53

no real way around it.

25:55

I'm sorry. I didn't mean to laugh there, but when

25:58

you said what grows the best

26:01

in your region and down here, that would have

26:03

to be golf courses. Yeah.

26:05

Kudzu. Can you use kudzu?

26:07

We don't have kudzu in Florida. Not

26:09

in my part of Florida.

26:11

As I promised earlier, I put like

26:13

all the energy grains on one slide

26:15

for you so you can easily see how they compare. So

26:18

look, I didn't put all the nutrients

26:20

on there, look, I'm tracking somewhere

26:23

close to 60 different nutrient levels

26:26

when I put together a feed formula. These

26:29

are the most critical, okay? So

26:31

it's just for your understanding, but. Barley,

26:34

for instance, is going to be anywhere from 10

26:36

to 12 protein, and it's going to be

26:38

low fat, it's 1. 9, 2 percent

26:41

fiber typical. These are national averages,

26:44

okay? You may be in a place where this

26:46

is completely different, and that's fine. These

26:49

are just national average numbers that we

26:51

use, they're actually international

26:53

numbers that I use. Fiber

26:55

level at 5, energy, this

26:58

is measured in kilocalories per pound.

27:00

So anybody that's gotten a ration from

27:02

me, you'll see an energy calculation. So

27:06

we have to add all these up based on the

27:08

pounds used, etc. So

27:10

you got your calcium, you got your phosphorus,

27:12

I had to abbreviate phosphorus, otherwise I

27:14

couldn't get all this on one slide. Lysine,

27:17

methionine, for the

27:20

Dedicated listeners, I've beat this

27:22

horse to death there's just, I've talked about

27:24

lysine and methionine forever. So

27:27

you look at corn, it doesn't

27:29

matter whether it's cracked or whether

27:31

it starts out as whole corn that's ground

27:33

national average we're looking at 8%, 3. 5

27:36

percent fat, 2. 9

27:38

percent fiber good energy,

27:40

really high energy because it's got a huge

27:42

amount of starch in it. And with the

27:44

low fiber, so fiber

27:46

comp, fiber affects

27:48

the energy. cause when we

27:50

look at oats later on, you'll

27:53

see a way lower energy. So

27:55

as the fiber goes up, the energy goes down,

27:57

and you can see that in the rice down

28:00

there. Rice should be a higher

28:02

energy, but rice actually,

28:04

with that fiber at 10% is

28:07

it knocks it down again. almost no minerals

28:09

0. 01 on calcium, 0.

28:12

25 on phosphorus. These are not helping,

28:14

these are actually hurting the diet,

28:16

if you will. But it, pretty

28:19

much every poultry diet I'm looking for a phosphorus

28:21

at least. I like 0. 75.

28:24

I'm lucky to see a 0. 6 or a 0.

28:26

65 in phosphorus, right?

28:29

Again, looking for lysine levels at close

28:31

to 1%. These are 0. 22.

28:34

So you can see they're not helping the diets

28:36

whatsoever. Corn doesn't have

28:38

a lot of lysine, doesn't have a lot of methionine.

28:41

It's only there for the energy just

28:44

only there for the energy. And

28:47

millet, little bit better on protein

28:49

not a lot of millet grown, you got to be

28:51

in that Kansas, Colorado

28:54

area. It's not, we don't

28:56

make a lot of millet and most of the millet that

28:58

is, grown. is

29:01

going into like wild bird seed

29:03

or specialty feeds. So it's

29:05

rare to see millet show up in a chicken feed,

29:08

but it's out there. You live in the

29:10

Midwest or in the South grain

29:12

sorghum known as Milo. It'll

29:14

run. 10 11 percent

29:16

protein the higher yielding

29:18

is going to be 7. 5, again, I'm using

29:20

national averages. Fat

29:22

level 2. 8, fiber

29:25

2 it's the best replacement for corn,

29:27

actually, as far as energy goes, because it has

29:29

a really good starch, so it's

29:31

around 1, 500, birds

29:34

really like it. Got a little bit

29:36

better mineral profile, but the

29:38

amino acid profile is worse. So

29:41

again, everything on here is only

29:43

for, it all goes into

29:45

the pot as far as calculation

29:47

goes, but these are the primary

29:50

ingredients that we look to

29:52

for our energy, to achieve

29:55

the required amount of energy. That's

29:58

purely what they're in here for. I've

30:00

had people contact me and say,

30:03

Hey, I'm going to increase my corn

30:05

is that going to hurt my protein? Yeah, it's

30:07

actually going to drag your protein down. But

30:09

people, I've had people who think that corn

30:13

will increase the protein and

30:15

mess a chicken up. It's not.

30:17

But, the energy is what makes them stop

30:19

eating though, right?

30:21

Yeah. That is according to some studies

30:23

and university data, we

30:25

are told that chickens eat for their energy

30:28

needs. And I think this is true

30:30

of probably 95 percent of all

30:32

chickens. When they hit a certain calorie

30:34

count, they're no longer interested

30:36

in eating. I think that

30:39

there's a 5 to 10 percent out there

30:41

that just like to eat. They're like me. They're

30:43

going to just keep eating until they're full,

30:46

right? They can't help themselves, right? But

30:48

the majority of chickens eat for their energy

30:50

needs and they're going to stop, when they hit

30:52

their calories required for the day based

30:54

on temperature, living environment, all

30:56

that.

30:57

Thank you for joining us this week, and

30:59

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31:01

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