I give my chickens ful-o-pep 9779 scratch. I do that because theres ingredients in the scratch that act as a natural dewormer, plentry of vitamins, ingredients to support gut health, enough calcium to keep their shells hard, and their feathers are always a rich, vibrant, and shiny color. They always look really healthy when on 9779. Also i can leave it out and rather than eat to obesity they eat until full and then leave the rest for tomorrow. I have tried other feed in the past because they dont crack the corn enough and the chickens discard and waste it. Every other feed i tried made their feathers dull and their egg shells brittle. Everyone who sees my chickens remarks how shiny and beautiful their feathers are. Its the 9779. Its damn good feed. Well, theres only two feed stores in the hill country that carry it. One is in bandera and the other is in fredericksburg. So i went to the feed store i usually go to in fredericksburg and tried to buy more 9779 when i still had a bag left. They said they were out of 9779 but were getting a new truck on wednesday or thursday and i could call and see if there was any on that truck. I waited until wednesday rolled around. So, a week into my last bag of feed i call to see if they have any 9779 or if they’re getting the truck thursday and will have it a day later. As it turned out, they got the truck, but they did not receive any 9779 on it. When would they be getting more 9779? They said they had another truck coming monday, and i could call in 5 days and see if there was any 9779 on that truck. This wasnt an option for me because at best i had enough feed to make it through Saturday evening, not Monday. If chickens dont have feed, they start eating the eggs and the bedding…its best to keep them stocked with scratch. I asked what the closest thing to ful-o-pep 9779 was…maybe i could buy a bag of that to hold me over…..but feed is sold in 50 lb bags…no less. I didnt want 50 lbs of a scratch i didnt want. Then i heard the brand they recommended. They said, “the closest thing would be our p***** scratch. I was angry with p***** and had been for years. I had both my dogs on a very good all natural dog food called redford naturals. They were on the brown rice and salmon formula. One of my dogs had lived to a ripe age and neither had ever had cancer, tumors, or other major health problems. The food kept their coats shiny and had a lot of ingredients i was happy with. It was also pretty pricey, but it was worth the money to add years to my dogs life and not lose them early to cancer. All my childhood dogs had cancer and every friend with dogs i have known in adulthood has had at least one dog die of cancer. A lot of times, the food they are eating has cancer causing ingredients in it. So i made a point to do my research and put my dogs on redford naturals, the brand i settled on. And i saw the results with my own eyes. I took the dogs to san antonio to get vaccinated when i needed to board them for a trip out of state. The vet that saw them mentioned that if i didnt already have my dogs on p***** i needed to put them on p*****. I thought it was a random comment but i just politely informed her that i had already selected a food for my dogs, a lot of thought went into picking it, and i was happy with the results. This vet then produced a propaganda pamphlet similar to one a political candidate would put out against their running opponent. It was a smear campaign against other dog food brands highlighting p***** as the only healthy option for dog owners who care about the longevity of their pets to choose. I flat out asked her, “does this vet office get some kind of kick back or benefit from peddling p***** to their customers?” She said that her own dogs were on p***** and that it was the vet recommended healthiest option. I told her she could say sentences until the cows come home, it wouldnt make me believe the statements were true just because she wore a white coat. There are much healthier and as a result more expensive dog foods on the market than p*****, including raw meat patties or human grade whole grain, veggie, and meat foods such as the farmers dog. You cant tell me you think p***** kibble is healthier for your dog than human grade rice, veg, and meat. The vet then doubled down and told me that i was killing my dogs and shortening their lives because i refused to switch them from redford naturals to p***** dog kibble because studies had shown that grain free dog food actually causes cancer in dogs because dogs need grain. I actually laughed at her and said, “okay, well now i know im not taking any of your advice because clearly you are either brainwashed or just motivated because dogs are descendant from wolves, who literally lived exclusively on meat, and they didnt die off as a species because humans werent around to feed them wheat, rice, or barley. They did what wolves do; they hunted other animals. You dont see a whole bunch of wolves dropping dead in their tracks because of lack of grain do you? They’re not over there in alaska going, ‘if only we had some bread we could live 5 more years’…”. I told her that she had shown me her level of intelligence and listening skills right there because brown rice is a grain and the food she was adamant was going to kill my dogs young because it was ‘grain free’ was the brown rice and salmon formula of redford naturals. I told her rice is gluten free but not grain free and her little study regarded grain free feeds said nothing about whether the grains should have gluten, only that dogs needed grains; and i dont believe the results of the study anyways because it listed the brands that are the cheapest as the healthiest and all the super expensive healthy brands as the worst for your dogs health and i feel like one ought to use their brain and eyeballs first rather than just trust what was written. Organic chicken breast is going to give your dog cancer less than chicken byproduct would. If there are ingredients you’ve never heard of and cant pronounce, trust and believe they are more harmful than blueberries and carrots. Its binding agents, chemicals, and byproducts that shorten dogs’ lives. You want a food with ingredients you recognize. I told her my dogs were getting rice so even by her theory, they should be fine. She told me that she couldnt make me make the right decision for my dogs but that if i loved them i should take the p***** pamphlet with me and try to think about it and realize i had been brainwashed by the healthy dog food brands and wasnt able to think clearly. I asked her one more time, “how much do you get paid when yall sell someone p*****?” She told me i was mistaken and there was no special relationship between her veterinary office and p*****. I left that veterinary office so angry at that vet because p***** is a well known and well liked affordable mainstream dog food and theres nothing wrong with that. But dont tell me redford naturals and farmers dog are more likely to cause health problems in dogs. Those are brands geared and engineered towards preventing health problems in dogs through human grade or organic whole food ingredients. I felt some sort of way towards that brand after that because of the things that one veterinarian had said. And i never bought anything from p***** again. I cant be sure what that vet’s deal was but i know she had some incentive to push it so hard. I would not buy their dog feed and i would not buy their chicken feed either if i could help it.
I called the feed store in bandera. They told me they had 4 bags of 9779, how many did i want? With double the chickens to feed now, i really needed 3 bags, but i didnt want to be greedy and take every last bit of 9779 in the hill country. I bought 3 bags over the phone and told them i could pick them up thursday, the following afternoon after work. They said they’d hold them for me and i just had to drive through the warehouse and pick them up, or i could come inside first if i preferred. i made sure that i finished my work early, left all my paperwork for the following day, and drove from fredericksburg to bandera after work before they closed at 5:30. I went in, asked hopefully after the three bags of 9779z. The first young lady knew nothing of such a sale and kept saying i wasnt in the computer. The older lady she went to go get came back and said, “No ma’am you are all paid up. You already purchased them. Your receipt is hanging up in the warehouse, you need only pull your car into the warehouse and they will load em up for you. As promised, i told you it would be easy.” I thanked her, very excited that i was one step closer to obtaining 3 whole bags of 9779. I pulled the car into the warehouse and i could have cried as i watched three men grab the signature red and tan 9779 bags. They put them in the trunk and i thanked them and drove on through. They were in a hurry to get to the truck behind me and the one behind it, there was just no tome to stop and chit chat, but if i had even for a moment caught and held one of the three men’s attention i would have told them that i was so happy to see those tan and red bags and they had really just loaded treasure into my trunk. 50 lb bags of red and tan treasure. I felt accomplished as i drove back in the opposite direction to my town. I had driven to a separate town a total of 7 times that day to get my work done, pick up the 9779, and get back to my town for the night. But it was worth it, because i had a trunk full of 9779z. As soon as i got back into my town i stopped on the side of the road, got out, went back there and opened the trunk. I just wanted to look at the 3 bags of 9779 stacked in the trunk. They were such a pretty sight. I was bringing home the bacon for my animals. I had gone and done what it took to get the 9779 that they ate, that would keep them shiny and healthy, and i was headed back carrying precious cargo. This is what the paycheck was for. To buy chickens, chicken feed, and chicken related items. I was just beaming as i pulled into the driveway and announced to the waiting dogs and chickens that we were successful in our operation and there were indeed 3 bags of 9779 in the trunk of the car at that very moment. I carried one to the shed and left the other two in the trunk for mouse proof storage. Sometimes you gotta drive to 7 towns in one day to get your work done and obtain your chicken feed, and that should tell you what a difference i see in my chickens when they are on it.
My wife and I are lucky. We have a friend that is a retired vet and he is glad to help us separate the BS out of the advice.
My vet is now an old school livestock vet and farmer who just put a little tiny house with an operating table and x-ray machine and kennels on the edge of his property and then built a larger structure behind it for them to expand into, but its on his property he owns it, and he’s his own boss, and thats how he gets around having to try and sell a certain amount of tests and scans every month…they push vets to do that now, whether they’re needed or not. I hate it. Its bullshit. I know they have to do it because i know two young vets that just graduated but nobody should be made to feel their dog may die if they dont order tests because the vet has a quota to hit. The world is going in a whacky direction as a whole and its harder and harder to find people with their head on straight still doing the right thing. But this vet with his practice on the edge of his own land in the middle of nowhere is real grounded and reasonable. They’re about to force us to use AI to write our paperwork at work, which means it will listen and record everything said, which means staff will stop building rapport with patients or putting them at ease by telling them stories or talking about the news or the latest happening on the homestead or ranch while they try their hardest to poop in front of a stranger or work on dressing with staff when they’ve been doing that in private by themselves since they could tie their shoes….we’ll become real clinical and sterile because nobody wants their story about their chickens or their aunt bea recorded and put into the session notes forevermore for management and possibly one day if sued a judge in court to look at. I already have plans. The lap top can sit in a broom closet while i treat my patient and then ill just instruct mr mop on the exercises i want done and it can record everything i said to mr mop. I refuse to delete my ability to establish rapport with my patients because computers dont know that thats a thing that is important or why. 9 times out of 10 patients do their exercise not because they care about themselves and want to put the work in to get home. They do their exercise because their therapist is upbeat, funny, and entertaining, and on some level they like them, and when they knock on the door and want to drag the patient out of their comfy bed with their tv remote and their nice dark room, they say, “okay, just for you…” because it would be nice if everyone was self motivated but they arent. They’ll lay there like vegetables, unless they decide they like you and dont want to disappoint you or refuse you out of making your living. Having us go in and repeat a real sterile formula of introduction, instruction, goodbye is not a good idea. Robots would respond well, but humans have free will. Theres going to be a lot more refusals. I have one patient who will only participate in exercise if the curtain is pulled all the way to the wall, the little pillow is on the chair, the lights are off, and she’s watching little house on the prairie during exercise. Theres another one that you have to talk about horse racing with and have the rodeo channel on. Then another one who used to be a mechanic and you must talk about fixing tractors to get him to participate. How will AI document my small talk about fixing tractors? Cuz thats not really a conversation that needs to be written down with the exercise, and im now wearing a sweatshirt that says “need prayer, tap me on the shoulder, we’ll bring it to God together.” If someone taps me what am i gonna say, “hold on while i go chuck this laptop in a broom closet so it cant document whatever you would like to pray about for everyone with access to our software to read?” This is a mistake. They’ll know it way after ive said it. Years down the road when everything’s a bigger mess than it had to be.