experimental food downgrade

mendozer said:

I've been feeding my girls Scratch and Peck Naturally Free ever since they were born. It's organic, non-gmo, and corn/soy free (which is the main thing for me since I'm extremely anti corn and soy).

However, money is tight now and since I give them fruits and vegetables practically daily I think they'll still get "way above average" care in terms of feeding. Since the protein, calcium, etc is all the same, will it really matter to downgrade to "regular" feed?

I bought a bag of Elenbaas today as an experiment. It comes in pellets, which is nice since another concern I have is wasted food. The scratch and peck consists of beans, peas, whole wheat, alfafa, etc. Since it's whole grains, they pick through to what they want and spill the rest. It's the priciest feed out there so I don't want wasted food. I figured plain looking pellets will reduce waste since they only have one thing to pick at.

The ingredients are as follows on Elenbaas' feed: processed grain by-products, grain products, forage products, plant protein products, and then vitamins. "grain" could be wheat, barley, corn, rye, spelt, etc. "plant protein" could be peas, alfalfa, soy, wheat, barley, etc. I don't like not knowing what's in it, but it is formulated well. It just bothers me that it's listed so vaguely.

I emailed the company to see what specifically it contains. Good luck with that!

Any thoughts?

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mendozer said:

well i'm experimenting with a small load of S&P in the garage fermenting.

meanwhile, I finally got a hold of Elenbaas feed (also known as eplfeedco)

They decoded the formula for me which on the label was "processed grain byproducts, grain products, forage products, plant protein products, and the minerals, along with kelp meal"

89% of the feed includes these: corn distillers, barley (off hulls), wheat (mill run), alfalfa meal (which is why it's green and smells grassy compared to the tan chunky Purina), and the "plant protein" is canola. I specifically asked if there was soy and she said no. It is a set formula of these ingredients.
12% contains the vitamins and minerals


I'm relieved there is no soy. While there is corn, it's less of a concern to me because I occasionally give them scratch which was cracked corn. I'm glad they include alfala and canola since they tore up their grass run to dirt. I think i will continue to use this while experimenting with fermenting the S&P to reduce waste (mainly because I have 50 lbs of it now!). I would rank it right under S&P simply because it has corn. But it's definitely above Nutrena, Purina, Albers, etc that get all their ingredients from corn and soy, mainly soy.

Here's a pic if anyone's interested:

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