Zambia Agribusiness Society - ZAS Making Own Poultry Feeds Formulae, Rations and Ingredients

Poultry feed is food for farm poultry, including chickens, ducks, geese and other domestic birds.

Before the twentieth century, poultry were mostly kept on general farms, and foraged for much of their feed, eating insects, grain spilled by cattle and horses, and plants around the farm. This was often supplemented by grain, household scraps, calcium supplements such as oystershel, and garden waste.

As farming became more specialized, many farms kept flocks too large to be fed in this way, and nutritionally complete poultry feed was developed. Modern feeds for poultry consists largely of grain, protein supplements such as soybean oil meal, mineral supplements, and vitamin supplements. The quantity of feed, and the nutritional requirements of the feed, depend on the weight and age of the poultry, their rate of growth, their rate of egg production, the weather (cold or wet weather causes higher energy expenditure), and the amount of nutrition the poultry obtain from foraging. This results in a wide variety of feed formulations. The substitution of less expensive local ingredients introduces additional variations.