Chicken Feed

Well, Dad wanted me to talk about the change in chicken feed we implemented recently. Hi, I'm Ella, one of the care takers of our animals and I do the research behind the feed given to our animals to make sure they have proper nutrients.
We have about 40 hens and this past winter our egg count drop to an average of 7 a day. We were barely able to keep up with our own egg consumption, let alone have enough to provide for those who usually bought eggs from us.  This lead me to do a bit of research on homemade chicken feed.  I found calculator very helpful on monitoring protein and fat levels (I'll put the link in the comments). I found a bunch of grains and seeds chickens can eat including: corn, oats, sunflower seeds, millet, split peas, flax seed, wheat, sesame seeds, barley, etc.. Chickens should have a steady diet of about 16% crude protein, with a little more protein during molting season but not exceeding 21%. When finding the proper mix for my birds I gave them a few samples to my chickens and observed how they ate them. Then built my feed. My feed consists of cracked corn, oats, alfalpha pellets, sunflower seeds, and a Layer Omega-3 mix. The end results of our homemade chicken feed was outstanding, within a couple of days our egg count went back up to about 20 eggs a day, our chicken health soared and above all they were really happy about their food! 

If you choose to make your own chicken feed after this, be sure to keep some ingredients lower than others. For example chickens can only have a little bit of sunflower seeds, while they can eat a lot of corn. So please be sure to research or ask me about the ingredients you would like to put in your next chicken feed if you are unsure.