We Compared 6 Organic Feeds on Form, Protein and Cost per Pound

Why the Purina Organic Layer wins this category

Two things, and the second one surprises people.

It is a pellet. A pellet is the whole ration pressed together, so a hen gets the vitamin premix and the trace minerals whether she wants them or not. On an organic bag that is worth more than it sounds, because the powder a hen flicks out of a grind costs about twice what conventional powder costs.

And it is the cheapest feed per pound here, at about $1.54, even though $53.99 is the highest sticker price of the six. The 35 lb sack is doing that work. Every other full size bag on this page is 25 lb, and per pound they run from $1.80 up to $2.00.

Living with the Purina Organic Layer

A flock of six standard hens eats roughly 1.5 lb a day, so a 35 lb sack lasts about three weeks. That is a good match for how fast feed loses vitamin content once the bag is open.

Certification is the plain USDA Organic seal, which means audited records, no genetically modified grain and no synthetic pesticides or fertilizers on the crop. The listing also says made without pesticides, which overstates it. Organic rules permit some substances rather than banning everything, so read that phrase as shorthand for the seal and not as an extra guarantee.

Calcium is 3.25 percent with the large particle system Purina brands as Oyster Strong. Still put out crushed shell.

Where the Purina Organic Layer falls short

Sixteen percent protein is the lowest stated figure in this group. It is correct for a hen in steady lay, and it is on the thin side in autumn, when a bird is rebuilding a full coat of feathers out of protein while still being asked for eggs. Plan to supplement or switch for those six to eight weeks.

The bigger gap is the label. The listing never says whether there is corn or soy in the mix. Four of the other feeds here are explicit about it. If soy avoidance is the reason you went organic in the first place, this is not your feed and no amount of certification fixes that.

Then there is the sack itself. Thirty five pounds is a real lift, and tipping it into a bin without spilling half of it down the side takes two hands and a bit of height.

Why the Pink Rose Organix earns its place

Because you can check it. Every other listing on this page gives you a protein figure at best, and one gives you no figure at all. Pink Rose Organix gives 17.5 percent protein, 3.8 percent fat and 5 percent fibre, and that is enough to tell whether a ration is built for laying hens or padded out.

It is also the only full size layer pellet here that states both corn free and soy free. New Country Classic is soy free but contains organic corn, and it is a grind rather than a pellet. Scratch and Peck Layer is soy free but does not say whether there is corn in it. The Mile Four pellet is corn free and soy free too, but it only comes as a 2 lb sample bag, so it is not a feed you can run a flock on.

So if your reason for buying organic is avoiding those two grains, this is the one that answers the question without you having to email anybody.

Living with the Pink Rose Organix

It is a pellet, which is the point. A hen at a trough of pellets cannot select. She eats the ration or she does not eat.

The bag is 25 lb, so a flock of six standard hens takes roughly 16 days to clear it at the usual quarter pound a bird a day. That is a good freshness window and a slightly annoying reorder cycle.

Corn free rations are a little lower in energy, so watch condition in a cold snap. Birds compensate by eating more, which means the bag empties faster than the calendar suggests, not that the feed is failing.

Where the Pink Rose Organix falls short

The wording. Calling 17.5 percent high protein is a stretch when standard layer rations run 16 to 18 percent. It is a perfectly good number and it is not a category of its own, and a keeper buying on that phrase for a moulting flock would be better served by a proper 20 percent moult ration or a protein treat.

The price is the other honest problem. At about $1.84 a pound this sits roughly 20 percent above the Purina pellet, and what you get for the difference is 1.5 points of protein plus the corn and soy answer. If you do not care about corn and soy, that is a lot of money for a small nutritional gap.

The 25 lb bag is the less efficient of the two full size formats here. Every 25 lb organic bag on this page costs more per pound than the single 35 lb sack, and that pattern holds across the category generally.

Why the Scratch and Peck Layer is the value pick

It is a pellet, it carries two audited certifications, and it is the cheapest of the 25 lb bags on this page at about $1.80 a pound.

The two certifications are worth separating. USDA Organic covers how the grain was grown and handled. Non-GMO Project Verified is a separate audit with its own testing thresholds. Plenty of feeds claim one. Carrying both means two organisations have looked at the supply chain.

The pellet is made from cracked grains and whole food ingredients rather than a fine flour, which is the Scratch and Peck house style. What matters for waste is only that it is pressed, so a hen cannot pick the corn out and leave the minerals.

Living with the Scratch and Peck Layer

It is rated for ducks as well as chickens, which matters if your yard is mixed. Ducks make a mess of any feed near water, so keep the trough away from the pool and expect to sweep.

A 25 lb bag runs a flock of six standard hens about 16 days at the usual quarter pound a bird a day. That is a comfortable freshness window.

It is soy free, and the listing says no medications or fillers, which is consistent with the certification rather than an extra claim on top of it.

Where the Scratch and Peck Layer falls short

The protein figure. There is not one. A layer feed sold without a stated protein percentage is asking you to trust the category name, and every other feed on this page prints a number. Sixteen percent and eighteen percent are different rations for different birds, and you cannot plan a moult, a heavy laying hybrid or a mixed age flock without knowing which one is in the sack.

Corn is the second gap. Soy free is stated. Corn is not mentioned either way, so anyone avoiding both grains has only half an answer here.

And the value framing has limits. It is the cheapest 25 lb bag, and at $1.80 a pound it still costs about 17 percent more per pound than the 35 lb Purina sack. Bag size is doing more for your feed bill than brand choice is.

Why the New Country Classic suits some keepers

If you are already buying kelp and a probiotic and stirring them into feed by hand, this bag does that job for you.

Seventeen percent protein is a point above the standard laying figure, which is a sensible place to sit for a mixed age flock. It is soy free, the grain is sourced in North America, and it carries both organic and Non-GMO certification.

There is also a group of keepers this is genuinely built for: people who ferment. A grind soaked overnight into a wet mash is the form fermenting works best with, and fermented feed stops sorting completely because the birds cannot separate anything out of a porridge.

Living with the New Country Classic

Feeding format decides whether this is good value or bad value, and there is not much middle ground.

In a deep sided trough with a lip a hen cannot flick over, it is fine. Soaked into a mash and served in the morning, it is very good. Poured into a shallow open pan or a gravity port feeder, it will cost you money every single day, because the powder goes on the floor and the grain goes in the bird.

The 25 lb bag lasts a flock of six standard hens roughly 16 days, and a fermenting bucket takes a day of planning ahead.

Where the New Country Classic falls short

The form is the whole problem. A classic grind is exactly what hens are good at sorting, and what they leave behind is the vitamin premix, the trace minerals and part of the calcium. On a conventional bag that is a small annoyance. At about $2.00 a pound, the dearest full size bag here, that same handful on the floor costs real money every day.

It is also the dearest full size bag here per pound, roughly 30 percent more than the Purina pellet. You are paying that premium partly for the kelp and probiotic, so the maths only works if you were buying those anyway.

Corn is the last catch. Soy free is stated clearly, and organic corn is in the mix. Anyone avoiding both grains has to look at Pink Rose, the Scratch and Peck Grower or the Mile Four sample instead.

Why the S&P Grower Crumbles are the right pullet feed

Because the calcium is not in it, and that is the point of a grower ration.

A layer feed carries roughly 3 to 4 percent calcium so a hen can build shells. A pullet that has not started laying has no use for that, cannot store it and has to excrete it, and sustained excess calcium in a growing bird is associated with kidney damage. Feeding layer pellets to 12 week old birds because it was the bag in the shed is a common and avoidable mistake.

Seventeen percent protein is a sensible growing figure. It is corn free and soy free, and it carries both the organic and the Non-GMO audits. It is also the only grower ration on this page, because the other five bags are all layer feeds, so there is no like for like organic grower to weigh it against here.

Living with the S&P Grower Crumbles

Feed it from roughly six weeks through to the first egg, then move to a layer ration over seven to ten days.

Watch for the first egg rather than the calendar. Breeds mature at different rates, and a bird that starts laying on a grower ration will pull calcium out of her own bones to make shells if there is nothing else available. A dish of crushed oyster shell alongside the grower from about 16 weeks covers you either way, because a bird takes what she needs and ignores it when she does not.

It is rated for ducks as well as chickens, which is useful if you are raising both together.

Where the S&P Grower Crumbles fall short

The form. A whole grain crumble is loose pieces, and loose pieces are exactly what a bird sorts. Pullets are, if anything, worse at this than adult hens, because they are still learning what food is and they play with it. What ends up on the floor is the fine mineral and vitamin fraction, and at about $1.96 a pound that is expensive dust.

A deep sided trough fixes most of it. So does soaking it overnight into a wet mash, which pullets clear enthusiastically.

The second issue is scope. This is a growing ration and nothing else. The day your first pullet lays, this bag becomes the wrong feed for that bird, and if you are running a single mixed flock you either keep two bags going or you accept a compromise. It is also the second dearest full size bag on this page per pound, so keeping two bags going is not cheap.

Why the Mile Four sample bag is on this list

Not as a feed. As a question you can answer for $19.99 instead of $45 to $54.

Hens are conservative about food. A flock that has eaten the same crumble for two years will stand and look at a new pellet for a day or two before deciding it counts as breakfast, and that is a normal reaction rather than a bad bag. The problem is finding that out with a full sack already in the shed.

Mile Four sells 2 lb of the same certified organic layer pellet so you do not have to. It is corn free and soy free, certified organic and certified Non-GMO, non-medicated, and the grain is stated as USA grown, which lines up with the reasons most people pay organic prices in the first place. The same feed is also sold as whole grain and mash, so if the pellet is refused you can trial a different form of the same ration rather than starting again with another brand.

Living with the Mile Four sample bag

Treat it as one meal, not one week.

At the usual quarter pound a bird a day, 2 lb is about eight bird days. Six standard hens will finish it in a day and a third. Three hens get four days out of it. That is enough to see whether birds eat it readily, and it is not enough to see anything else.

The useful way to spend it is mixed rather than neat. Put a quarter of it through the existing feed on day one and watch whether the pellets get left in the bottom of the trough. Birds that pick around them are telling you something before you have spent $50 finding out.

Sixteen percent protein and a plain layer formulation is what you would expect. It is the same figure Purina states, and it is the lowest stated protein on this page, which matters if your reason for shopping was a flock in moult.

Where the Mile Four sample bag falls short

The maths, if you mistake it for a feed. Nineteen ninety nine for 2 lb is $10 a pound. Every full size bag on this page runs between about $1.54 and $2.00 a pound, so you are paying roughly six times the cheapest rate per pound for the privilege of a small bag. That is a fair price for a trial and an absurd one for a flock.

The second problem is that it is too small to do the job it hints at. A proper feed change runs over seven to ten days, starting at a quarter new feed and working up, and six hens getting through 1.5 lb a day will need several pounds of the new ration before the changeover finishes. Two pounds covers the first taste and then stops, so you are ordering the 25 lb bag anyway and doing the transition off that.

And a one day trial only measures acceptance. Whether a ration actually suits your birds shows up in condition, droppings and lay rate over two or three weeks, which is a question no sample bag can answer.