Scratch and Peck Whole Grain Grower Mash Chicken and Duck Feed - 10 lbs Bag - Corn-Free and Soy-Free - 17% Protein, Certified Organic and Non-GMO Project Verified Chicken Food

Super happy with this feed. We have tried other options for soyfree/corn free feeds, because this one is definitely pricey. However, it's been very worthwhile for us, resulting in increased egg production and excellent quality of eggs. Last year when we switched to another organic, soy free corn free feed option, egg production went down quite a bit. When we went back to this, it went up quickly This was also during the time of losing light per day, when we would normally have fewer eggs however production actually increased. Very happy with this and have been using for several years now.

Finally found a food my chickens will eat. They dont like pellets and dont like crumbles. Read about this and decided to try. Glad I did. Not a lot of dust as far as I can tell as some have complained. Expensive yes but if they eat it I'm happy.

This stuff is great. Granted I'm only a couple days into it, but so far so good. I had intended on getting the chick starter locally. Then ran down the clock trying to find organic chick starter in LA... Because I have Prime I ordered Manna Pro Organic Chick Starter which is roughly $20 for 5 pounds and guaranteed to arrive within two days. It seem like a pricey but safe bet to be sure I'd have it when the little ones arrived. I'm new to this, I didn't know what to compare it to, seemed fine enough. The first ingredients were corn and soy, which I wasn't wild about, both for health and for environmental reasons. But the chicks ate it, they look healthy, good enough. Come time to order more food and I try the starter from Scratch and Peck. It arrived in four days. Which was awesome and unexpected. These little ladies get a pretty diverse snack diet and plenty of time outside in the hot California sun. I wouldn't say they are picky, but I would say they aren't suckers, they've tasted all sorts of stuff and they've shown their individual preferences even now at just under 4 weeks. They all went nuts on it. Bonanza style. Chicken party. Because they were so into it, I got curious and compared. Visually the Manna Pro looks like tiny torn up pieces of flimsy cardboard, left to bleach in the sun for a week. Scratch and Peck looks more like a packet of soup spices mixed with ground up Muesli. There looked to be a few pieces still too big for them, but when poking around their bedding later I didn't see any left; perhaps they became accustom. The Manna Pro didn't smell like much of anything, while this stuff smelled like foodstuffs – dry grass and a TINY hint of cooked fish. Then I looked for packing dates. When the Manna Pro shipped it was already nearly 3 months old. When the Scratch and Peck shipped it was a few days old. Even if the chicks liked it the same, if it cost just as much; that alone would cause me to only buy this ever again. Wait two extra days for it to arrive and get food that's three months fresher, seems like a fair deal. Okay, now packaging. Manna Pro, plastic ziplock back. Convenient but wasteful. Scratch and Peck, sturdy paper packaging filled to the brim, densely pressed, with ingredient list and product name sewed along one of the seams. If that kind of thing matters to you as well, you'll feel better about getting this. I put the feed into large mason jars for storage. Finally, cost. Manna Pro cardboard crumble = $4 per pound. Scratch and Peck tasty looking chick Muesli $1.60 per pound

I've ordered Scratch & Peck feeds 3 or 4 times now and my chickens have gone crazy for it since day 1. You can definitely tell the difference in your flock when you give them a quality feed vs. the mass produced highly-processed crap they sell in most feed stores (the biggest difference that I've noticed is in the smell of their poop - much less potent when on this stuff). I love that you can actually see the grains in this feed, but the downside is that the chickens will pick out their favorites and leave the rest (at least that's been my case). There is some powder in this feed as well, which is more difficult for them to eat. You could add water to the powdery stuff and give it to them as a mash, but what I've been experimenting with recently is fermenting feed. I'm down to the last bit of the bag on their current feed, so much of my experimenting has been with the powder or bits that they "rejected", but you can ferment all the feed if you wish to do so (which I plan on doing with the next bag that I get). If you're not familiar with fermenting feed, here's a quick run-down: There are tons of benefits to fermenting - the process produces what are essentially probiotics (healthy bacteria) that promote digestive health. I've also read that the components of the feed are better utilized by the chickens' bodies after the feed is fermented - they don't have to eat as much to get the nutrients that they need (which saves you money, essentially, because it takes them longer to get through a bag of feed). Since fermentation produces a wet feed, they also don't require as much water. From the first day of offering this feed to them after it had fermented, I've noticed that their poop is well formed for the most part (not runny) and there is nearly no stink to it (yay!). Others have also reported healthier looking feathers and less illness (I haven't been fermenting long enough to see these benefits in my flock yet). The fermentation process is pretty simple - you just place some feed into a vessel/bucket, add a source of healthy bacteria (I use apple cider vinegar with "the mother"), and add enough water to cover the feed. You can also add other things to the mix that you would normally feed them (kitchen scraps, etc), though I haven't tried adding other components yet. Loosely cover the container (so gasses can escape & air can get it - you don't want to leave the container completely uncovered or it'll attract bugs... unless that's what you're going for, lol) and place the container in a location where it is somewhat warm and dark. After a day or two, you should notice the odor change to kind of a sour scent (if you've ever made sourdough bread or worked with a sourdough starter, it's along those same lines) and it'll get frothy - when this has occurred, it's ready to feed to the flock. If your birds are adults, it may take a day or two for them to "accept" it, though mine didn't really have an issue with it. There are tons more details about fermenting in the forum of the Backyard Chickens website - one of the threads on there is over 1000 pages long, lol (just search for fermented feed). From what I've seen, fermenting is definitely the way to go - it keeps the flock happy & healthy and it stretches the feed budget (win-win-win). This feed on it's own is great, but fermenting just takes it to the next level.

The price is absolutely 💯 worth it. My hens are thriving on this feed.ive started them on this from the beginning with the grower feed and now layer.i have switched to store bought regular feed and quickly switched back to scratch and peck . The difference is amazing with the egg laying, taste of eggs are incredible. Please buy, you won't be disappointed.