Poultry Nutrition Basics
I'm quite sure that most folks will have come to this portion of the website, looking for ration recipes so that they can make their own poultry feed. Yet it's difficult to evaluate and/or compare rations, without at least some solid information about basic nutritional concepts and how they work together to provide complete nutrition. So these pages will concentrate on describing those nutrients and how they are interrelated. So without further adu, let’s talk about the most basic nutritional concepts. That will form the foundation for all our subsequent conversations.
The most basic poultry feed characteristics are:
Proteins - most folks know that proteins are important, but we'll need to get more detailed than that if we're going to provide our birds with high quality, cost effective nutrition. Our Proteins page provides a solid introduction to this complicated topic.
Amino Acids - These are the building blocks for all the proteins of the body. Some of them can be manufactured from other materials, but others must be provided in the diet. Our Amino Acids page will describe these essentials and how to provide them in the diet.
Energy Content - Any complete ration needs to provide not only proper protein, but also proper energy levels. And the energy levels of any given ration, will determine how much of the other nutrients a bird eats any given day. So it's a crucial topic that ration-builders need to consider carefully. Our Energy Content page will provide solid information for those who are building their own rations, or evaluating others' feed recipes.
Vitamins/Minerals - We can provide all the proteins and energy needed by our birds, but they will never reach full health, or full production, without complete vitamins and minerals. We'll cover some critical concepts on our Vitamins and Minerals page.
The above pages are not intended to be a comprehensive college-level course in poultry nutrition. There was simply too much information in each topic to squeeze into a single page. Instead, the above pages are intended to be an introduction and overview of those topics, so that flock owners will have some basic understanding of how important each category is to the health of their birds, and their wallets.
As I've said on other pages, this section of the website will continue to grow as I find more online resources to share. In the meantime, as readers do their own research, feel free to send me links to any helpful or meaningful summaries of poultry nutrition. I'll be happy to share them here.