What’s Inside Counts: More Than Protein for Happy, Healthy Chicks

Jan 30, 2024

These happy, healthy chicks are off to a great start in life!

Walk down the aisle at your local feed store or browse online, and you’ll notice a number of different chick starter/grower feeds at different price points. Many chicken keepers consider only the protein content of feeds and choose the lowest-priced feed with the acceptable amount of protein. But why is there a difference in cost? And is protein the most important ingredient in a chick feed?

Correct levels of protein are an important part of your chick feed, but they are only one element of a good nutritional foundation. A feed with advanced nutrition combines high-quality ingredients and additives in the precise blend to support vitality, health, and growth for a superior start. It will also provide appropriate levels of amino acids, which are critical for protein formation, enabling your birds to live their best lives from the very beginning.

We asked our customers to review our NatureWise® Chick Starter Grower with FlockShield™, and it earned rave reviews from across the United States.

See more customer reviews here.

But what makes the difference? It all comes down to Nutrena's motto: What's inside counts. The quantity, quality, and kind of ingredients all make a difference. Chick feeds typically have several main components.

The quantity of the ingredients affects the health and growth of your chicks. For example, too much calcium can damage your chicks’ kidneys, and too little protein can cause them to process feed inefficiently.

Feed quality is also important: the quality of the ingredients—the vitamins, minerals, proteins, and carbohydrates—matters. NatureWise®'s high-quality ingredients make a difference!

Finally, the kind of ingredients is key. Some premium feeds contain extra ingredients that provide supportive nutrition for your birds, such as pre- and probiotics, yeast culture, and essential oils. These extra ingredients boost the immune system, support healthy growth, promote optimal digestion, and cut down on odor in droppings. Our NatureWise® products contain a proprietary blend of these additional ingredients called FlockShield™.

But how do we know that these ingredients are useful? In addition to the reviews from satisfied customers, our scientific trials provide the proof.

In July 2021, we set up a research trial to test the quality of our NatureWise® Chick Starter Grower feed at our Cargill Innovation Campus in Elk River, Minnesota. We selected 510 speckled Sussex chicks and divided them into six groups of 85 chicks each. Each group was fed one of six different feeds manufactured by national brands, including Nutrena's NatureWise® Chick Starter Grower and other brands of chick starter. The birds were housed under the same conditions, with the only difference being the brand of feed, and we observed them over 18 weeks.

We examined the birds for several different variables, including body weight and breast muscle, death rate, feed conversion ratio, as well as feed consumption and instances of illness. Our NatureWise® Chick Starter Grower yielded superior results in all categories.

The results of this study show that Nutrena's blend of quality protein, carbohydrates, vitamins, and minerals, as well as its FlockShield™ proprietary blend of additives, led to faster-growing, more feed-efficient, and healthier birds across all categories that we examined.

So the science proves that what's inside counts: Nutrena NatureWise® provides superior nutrition, setting the stage for your chicks to live their best lives as healthy, happy chickens.