Inside Stone House Grain’s 17% Organic Layer Mash: The Science From Soil to Eggshell

There is a lot hiding behind the number 17%.

On a bag of layer feed, 17% refers to the guaranteed minimum crude protein in the ration. It is an important number. It is also only one number.

A complete laying hen diet has to do considerably more than deliver a target percentage of crude protein. It has to provide energy, essential amino acids, fats, fiber, calcium, phosphorus, sodium, vitamins, trace minerals and other nutritional components in forms the bird can actually use. It has to support a hen whose physiology is doing something remarkable on a near-daily basis: assembling an egg, mineralizing an eggshell and then beginning the process again.

The ingredients have to work together. Their physical form matters. Their sources matter. The balance between them matters. And, for us at Stone House Grain, the agricultural system and supply chain behind many of those ingredients matters too.

Our 17% Organic Layer Mash is our longtime best-selling feed. It is used by people keeping a small flock at home and by commercial poultry farms feeding thousands of birds. It is also one of the products that best explains how we think about feed.

So rather than tell you simply that it is “premium,” we want to do something more useful.

We want to take it apart.

From the soil where grain is grown, through the wheat, corn, soybeans, sunflower meal and alfalfa in the ration, through amino acid formulation and into a surprisingly complicated calcium system designed around the biology of eggshell formation.

Because when you really look at a layer feed, 17% is only the beginning.

First, What Is Actually in Our 17% Layer Feed?

The current guaranteed analysis for Stone House Grain 17% Layer Feed is:

Nutrient	Guaranteed Analysis
Crude Protein	Minimum 17.00%
Crude Fat	Minimum 7.30%
Crude Fiber	Maximum 5.68%
Calcium	Minimum 4.02%, Maximum 4.92%
Phosphorus	Minimum 0.56%
Salt	Minimum 0.17%, Maximum 0.67%
Lysine	Minimum 0.95%
Methionine	Minimum 0.39%

 

And this is the current ingredient statement:

Organic Wheat or Organic Triticale, Organic Roasted Soybeans, Organic Corn, Organic Sunflower Meal, Alfalfa Meal, Monocalcium Phosphate, Dicalcium Phosphate, Oyster Shell, Calcium Carbonate, Salt, Brewers Liquid Yeast, dl-Methionine, Sodium Bicarbonate, Manganese Polysaccharide Complex, Sunflower Oil, Zinc Proteinate, Manganese Proteinate, Copper Proteinate, Cobalt Proteinate, Zinc Polysaccharide Complex, Betaine, Yeast Extract, Vitamin E Supplement, Selenium Yeast, Brewers Dried Yeast, Yucca schidigera Extract, Dried Trichoderma Reesei Fermentation Extract dehydrated, Dried Aspergillus Niger Fermentation Extract, Dried Saccharomyces Cerevisiae Fermentation Solubles Extract, Copper Polysaccharide Complex, Niacin Supplement, Dried Aspergillus Oryzae Fermentation Extract, Vitamin A Supplement, Biotin, d-Pantothenic Acid, Folic Acid, Vitamin B-12 Supplement, Dried Bacillus Licheniformis Fermentation Product, Riboflavin Supplement, Dried Lactobacillus Acidophillus Fermentation Product, Vitamin D3 Supplement, Menadione Dimethylpyrimidinol Bisulfite, Thiamine Mononitrate, Pyridoxine Hydrochloride, Dried Enterococcus Faecium Fermentation Product, Calcium Iodate and Cobalt Sulfate.

That is quite a journey from “17% chicken feed.”

But that long ingredient statement is exactly the point.

A complete layer ration is not a bucket of grain with some calcium thrown into it. It is a formulated diet in which major ingredients provide the nutritional foundation and much smaller ingredients help fill specific amino acid, mineral and vitamin requirements.

To understand why the ration looks like this, it helps to start well before the mill.

Better Chicken Feed Starts Before the Grain Reaches the Mill

Stone House Grain is unusual for a feed mill because we are also a grain farm.

Stone House Farm cultivates roughly 3,000 acres of Regenerative Organic Certified fields in New York’s Hudson Valley. Across those acres we grow crops including corn, soybeans, peas, wheat, barley, oats, dry edible beans, sunflowers and flax, alongside cover crops that support soil and biodiversity. Approximately 75% of the grain used across Stone House Grain feeds is grown on Stone House Farm. The exact percentage varies by ration and by crop year, which is why we describe that figure across our feeds rather than promising that every individual batch contains precisely the same proportion of farm-grown grain.

That connection between farm and mill matters to us for reasons that go beyond geography.

Organic grain production is a management system, not simply the absence of a particular pesticide. USDA Organic crop standards specifically require soil fertility and crop nutrients to be managed through practices including crop rotations and cover crops. The organic crop-rotation standard requires rotations to maintain or build soil organic matter, help control pests, manage and conserve nutrients and protect against erosion.

Those practices are deeply embedded in how Stone House Farm operates.

Growing different crops in sequence changes what is happening above and below ground. Root systems differ. Nutrient demands differ. Residue differs. Legumes can contribute biologically fixed nitrogen to a rotation. Cover crops can protect soil when a cash crop is not growing. A well-designed rotation can interrupt pest and disease cycles and reduce the vulnerability that comes from repeatedly asking the same field to produce the same crop.

We should be careful here about what this does and does not mean nutritionally.

We are not claiming that regenerative soil management automatically makes every kernel of grain more nutrient-dense, or that a chicken can somehow detect the philosophy under which its wheat was grown. That would go beyond what the science can tell us.

What we can say is that the agricultural system behind the grain is more transparent to us because we are part of it. We know fields, crops, rotations and harvests, and we supplement what we grow through relationships with other organic growers. That gives us a degree of connection between farming and feed manufacturing that is difficult to create when feed ingredients are treated only as commodities moving through an anonymous supply chain.

For us, feed starts in soil because grain starts in soil.

Where Layer Mash Fits Among the Different Types of Chicken Feed

Before going further into the formulation, it helps to establish what a layer ration is actually designed to do.

Chickens require different nutrition at different stages of life. A chick starter feed is formulated for young, rapidly growing birds. A grower or pullet developer feed supports birds moving toward maturity. A layer feed is designed for birds that have entered egg production. A broiler feed is formulated around the requirements of meat birds. And a scratch grain is something different again. Scratch can be a useful supplemental feed or enrichment, but it should not be confused with a nutritionally complete layer ration.

Stone House Grain’s 17% Organic Layer Mash is a complete diet for laying birds, according to its registered feed tag. Our current product guidance positions it for hens entering the laying stage and beyond.

That distinction matters because egg production changes nutritional demand substantially.

A mature laying hen is not simply maintaining her own body. She is continuously exporting nutrients into eggs. Protein and amino acids are incorporated into egg proteins and body tissues. Lipids contribute to energy metabolism and the yolk. Calcium is transferred on an extraordinary scale into shell mineral. Phosphorus, vitamin D and a long list of trace nutrients participate in the systems that make that possible.

A layer feed therefore has to be formulated for the biology of a laying hen, rather than simply being “chicken food.”

Wheat and Corn Build the Energy Foundation

The first ingredient on the Stone House Grain 17% Layer label is organic wheat (sometimes referred to as organic triticale), followed by roasted soybeans and organic corn.

Wheat and corn are important because the hen needs substantial dietary energy simply to maintain herself, regulate body temperature, move, forage and sustain egg production. Cereal grains provide a large portion of that energy through starch while also contributing protein and other nutrients to the total ration.

But cereals are not nutritionally interchangeable.

Corn and wheat have different nutrient profiles. Their protein concentrations differ. Their amino acid profiles differ. Their fiber fractions differ. A feed formulation therefore cannot be reduced to “grain plus protein.” Each ingredient changes the nutritional balance of the mixture around it.

This is why formulation is an exercise in combination.

Corn brings substantial energy. Wheat contributes energy while also bringing its own protein contribution. The protein meals and roasted soybeans that follow them help fill out an amino acid pattern that cereals alone cannot provide efficiently.

The objective is not to find one perfect grain.

It is to formulate a ration in which multiple ingredients complement one another.

Why 17% Crude Protein Does Not Tell the Whole Protein Story

This is one of the most important ideas in poultry nutrition.

Protein is made from amino acids.

Crude protein tells us something useful about the total amount of nitrogen-containing material in a feed, but it does not tell us the complete amino acid balance of that protein or how effectively individual amino acids will be digested and used by the bird.

Modern poultry nutrition therefore pays close attention not simply to crude protein, but to specific amino acids.

The new 2026 edition of the National Academies’ Nutrient Requirements of Poultry, the first major revision since 1994, devotes an entire chapter to protein and amino acids, including amino acid sources, bioavailability, requirements, deficiencies and the relationships among individual amino acids. It also separately addresses the nutrient requirements of laying hens.

Two particularly important amino acids on our feed tag are lysine and methionine.

Stone House Grain guarantees a minimum of 0.95% lysine and 0.39% methionine in the 17% Layer Mash. Those guarantees tell you something the headline “17% protein” does not. The ration is being formulated not simply toward a total crude-protein number, but toward specific amino acid targets within that protein system.

And in an organic ration, getting there is more complicated.

Conventional poultry feeds can use synthetic amino acids to correct a ration very precisely. Lysine, for example, can be manufactured commercially through microbial fermentation and added directly to conventional feed. Under USDA Organic rules, however, synthetic livestock-feed additives are prohibited unless they are specifically allowed on the National List. Synthetic lysine is not currently one of those permitted additions.

That means an organic feed formulator cannot simply look at a ration that is short on lysine and add a small dose of synthetic lysine until the number is right.

Instead, that lysine has to come from the permitted ingredients in the ration itself.

That sounds simple until you start formulating.

Adding more of one protein ingredient changes more than lysine. It can also change crude protein, energy, fat, fiber, other amino acids, mineral levels, ingredient cost and the physical character of the finished feed. Every ingredient also has practical inclusion limits. At some point, solving one nutritional problem by adding more of a particular ingredient can create another problem somewhere else in the ration.

This is one reason our protein system uses several complementary ingredients rather than depending on a single source. Organic roasted soybeans are especially valuable for their lysine contribution, while sunflower meal, wheat or triticale, alfalfa and the other components of the ration contribute their own amino acids and nutrients.

Methionine is an interesting exception. USDA Organic currently permits limited use of synthetic DL-methionine in organic poultry diets because natural organic feed ingredients alone can make it particularly difficult to meet poultry methionine requirements. For laying chickens, the National List sets a maximum of two pounds of synthetic 100% methionine per ton of feed, averaged over the life of the flock.

Our ingredient statement therefore includes dl-Methionine, while lysine must be built through the broader ingredient system.

That distinction gets to the heart of organic feed formulation.

The challenge is not simply to reach 17% crude protein. It is to assemble the right amino acid profile, from a more constrained set of ingredients, while keeping the entire ration nutritionally balanced.

That is why two feeds carrying the same 17% protein guarantee can be very different feeds.

Roasted Soybeans: Protein, Fat and an Important Lysine Contribution

Soybeans are valuable in poultry nutrition because of the quantity and quality of protein they can contribute, including lysine.

Our ration uses organic roasted soybeans.

The roasting step is important in feed manufacturing because raw soybeans contain compounds that interfere with protein digestion. Proper heat processing reduces these antinutritional factors while preserving the nutritional value of the bean. The result is an ingredient that can contribute both protein and oil to the finished ration.

That matters in our formulation because we are not trying to build the protein system around a single numerical target.

We are trying to create a useful amino acid profile.

Andrew Currie, our Commercial and Financial Manager, puts particular emphasis on soybean’s contribution to lysine when explaining the 17% Layer ration internally. The soybean component complements protein coming from ingredients such as sunflower meal, wheat and alfalfa rather than asking any one of those ingredients to carry the entire protein system.

It also contributes to another striking number on our guaranteed analysis: the 17% Layer has a minimum crude-fat guarantee of 7.30%.

Fat is energy-dense, although it is important not to turn that observation into an unsupported performance claim. A higher crude-fat guarantee by itself does not prove better feed conversion or more eggs. It does tell us that two rations carrying the same 17% protein guarantee can still be compositionally quite different.

We will come back to that.

 

Sunflower Meal: Another Protein Source, and a Source of Fiber

Organic sunflower meal plays a different role.

It adds protein to the ration and broadens the mix of protein sources. It also contributes dietary fiber.

Sunflower meal is increasingly interesting within poultry nutrition because it provides an alternative protein ingredient with a nutritional profile distinct from soybean meal. A 2024 feeding study in pullets and laying hens tested sunflower meal at inclusion rates of 10%, 20%, and 30%. Even at the highest inclusion rate, the researchers found no overall negative effect on amino acid digestibility and concluded that sunflower meal could fully replace extracted soybean meal in the pullet and layer diets used in the trial without impairing protein digestion. The study does not establish an ideal inclusion rate for every ration, and sunflower meal still presents formulation constraints including higher fiber, lower energy, and a different amino acid profile. But it reinforces its legitimacy as a serious poultry-feed protein ingredient rather than a filler.

The fiber contribution deserves attention too.

Fiber used to be discussed rather simplistically in poultry diets as something to minimize. Contemporary research gives us a more nuanced picture. Different fiber fractions can affect the digestive tract and behavior differently.

For example, research in laying hens has found that diets containing greater amounts of insoluble dietary fiber were associated with substantially lower rates of severe feather pecking under the study conditions, without a measurable decline in laying performance.

We need to phrase that carefully.

We are not claiming that the sunflower meal in Stone House Grain feed prevents feather pecking. Pecking behavior is multifactorial, and feed is only one part of flock management. What the evidence does show is that dietary fiber can play a meaningful role in laying-hen nutrition and behavior.

That gives us another reason not to think about feed ingredients one-dimensionally.

Sunflower meal is not present just because “we need more protein.” It contributes to the broader physical and nutritional character of the ration.

Alfalfa: A Small Ingredient With a Visible Effect

Then there is alfalfa meal.

Alfalfa contributes nutrients and plant compounds, but one of its most interesting roles in laying-hen diets is visible every time an egg is cracked.

Yolk pigmentation.

Egg-yolk color is affected by pigments consumed in the diet, particularly carotenoids. Research evaluating alfalfa meal in laying hens found measurable changes in yolk color and increased yolk β-carotene in hens receiving the alfalfa-containing diet.

That makes alfalfa a nice example of how feed becomes food.

A plant grown in a field contains pigments. A hen consumes those pigments. Some can ultimately be deposited into the yolk.

There is biology connecting those steps.

Alfalfa also contributes protein, fiber and minerals including magnesium and potassium to the overall ingredient mix. And, for anyone who spends time around the mill, it has another characteristic that does not appear on a guaranteed analysis: you can smell it.

Good feed manufacturing is technical, but it is still intensely physical. Grain has weight and texture. Freshly milled feed has an aroma. Alfalfa has a smell. Calcium has particle size. Sunflower meal changes the feel of a ration.

The feed tag describes chemistry.

The mill has to turn that chemistry into an actual, consistent physical product.

The Smaller Ingredients Are Doing Serious Work

After the major grains and protein ingredients, the label becomes considerably more technical.

There are phosphorus sources, salt, sodium bicarbonate, trace-mineral complexes, amino acids, vitamins, yeasts and fermentation products.

They are present in much smaller quantities, but small does not mean unimportant.

Monocalcium phosphate and dicalcium phosphate contribute mineral nutrition, particularly phosphorus and calcium. dl-Methionine allows the ration to reach its specified methionine target without forcing the rest of the formulation out of balance simply to chase that amino acid through larger ingredient additions.

Then come trace elements such as manganese, zinc, copper, cobalt, iodine and selenium in a variety of ingredient forms.

Vitamins include A, D3, E, K and multiple B vitamins.

There are also yeast ingredients and dried fermentation products from organisms including Saccharomyces cerevisiae, Aspergillus species, Lactobacillus acidophilus, Bacillus licheniformis and Enterococcus faecium.

This is a useful place to clarify something about certified organic chicken feed.

USDA Organic livestock-feed rules require agricultural ingredients used in organic feed to be organically produced. But the regulations also recognize that nutritionally complete livestock feeds require things such as minerals, vitamins, amino acids and other supplements that are not crops. Specific allowed nonsynthetic substances and permitted synthetic feed additives and supplements can therefore be used within organic livestock-feed formulations under USDA rules.

In other words, a long vitamin and mineral statement does not contradict the feed’s organic certification.

It is part of what allows an organic feed to also be a complete, professionally formulated livestock ration.

York Ag Calcium Chips. Image from York Ag.

And Then There Is Calcium

If there is one nutrient worth slowing down for in a layer ration, it is calcium.

Calcium is easy to underestimate because everyone knows eggshells contain it.

But saying “hens need calcium for shells” is a bit like saying “engines need fuel.”

True, but not especially illuminating.

A laying hen has to move an enormous amount of mineral through her body on a repeating cycle while also maintaining the calcium required for her own skeleton and basic physiology.

York Ag, one of Stone House Grain’s ingredient partners, describes the complete egg-production cycle as typically taking about 24 to 26 hours. After ovulation and the formation of albumen and shell membranes, the developing egg spends the largest portion of that cycle in the uterus, or shell gland. York estimates approximately 19 to 20 hours of the process occurs there as the shell is formed.

That has a major implication for feed formulation.

The hen does not merely need a certain total percentage of calcium somewhere in her daily feed.

The availability of that calcium over time matters too.

Calcium Is Not Just Calcium

Our 17% Layer Feed guarantees between 4.02% and 4.92% calcium. But even that range does not tell the entire story.

Calcium sources can differ in chemistry, particle size, solubility and the rate at which calcium becomes available in the digestive tract.

This is why commercial layer nutrition pays close attention to coarse and fine calcium.

Hy-Line’s current commercial layer-management guidance recommends introducing large-particle calcium before lay and explains that digestion of coarse calcium provides a slower, sustained source for eggshell formation. Typical coarse calcium particles are roughly 2 to 4 millimeters in diameter. As birds progress through the laying cycle, Hy-Line recommends increasing the share of large-particle calcium, subject to the solubility characteristics of the source being used.

There is a biological logic behind this.

Fine calcium particles dissolve relatively quickly.

Larger particles can remain longer in the digestive system, particularly in the gizzard, creating a more prolonged release of calcium at a time when the shell gland is actively mineralizing the egg.

This is not an argument that coarse is good and fine is bad.

It is an argument for formulating a calcium system rather than simply adding calcium.

And that is exactly what we do in the 17% Layer Mash.

York Ag Aragnoite Chips. Image from York Ag.

Why We Use Both York Calcium Chips and Aragonite-C

Stone House Grain uses two York Ag calcium ingredients in the 17% Layer formulation: YORK CALCIUM CHIPS® and ARAGONITE-C.

On our regulatory ingredient statement, these appear under the applicable generic feed-ingredient declarations calcium carbonate and oyster shell.

York Calcium Chips are a coarse calcium-carbonate ingredient. York describes them as a high-purity coarse calcium source developed specifically for the egg-laying industry. The company emphasizes the combination of particle size, chemistry and solubility, with the goal of making calcium available progressively while the eggshell is forming.

Aragonite-C is different.

Aragonite is another mineral form of calcium carbonate. York’s Aragonite-C is an oolitic calcium carbonate formed through marine precipitation and sedimentation in tropical waters. York markets the ingredient for its solubility and bioavailability in poultry nutrition.

So why use more than one calcium form?

Because the objective is not simply to maximize the speed at which calcium dissolves.

We need calcium that is nutritionally available, but laying-hen physiology also benefits from a sustained supply as the shell is being formed.

That combination of immediacy and persistence is where calcium formulation becomes particularly interesting.

 

New Research Makes the Aragonite Story Even More Interesting

A 2026 study published in the Journal of Applied Poultry Research evaluated fine-ground aragonite as a calcium source in poultry.

In an initial broiler experiment, the researchers estimated very high relative calcium bioavailability for the fine-ground aragonite compared with the limestone source used in the study.

They then tested laying hens receiving diets built with either a mixture of fine and coarse limestone or fine-ground aragonite at several calcium concentrations. The research found relatively small overall differences in laying performance by calcium source, while the mixed fine-and-coarse limestone treatment produced stronger eggshell-quality measurements. Aragonite maintained bone mineralization particularly well, suggesting high calcium availability, but the researchers concluded that more work is needed to understand how fine aragonite is used specifically during eggshell formation.

For us, that is a fascinating result.

It reinforces exactly why we do not think the calcium question should be reduced to finding one “best” calcium ingredient.

A highly bioavailable fine calcium source can be valuable.

A coarse calcium source that persists longer through the shell-forming period can also be valuable.

The biology points toward a deliberately constructed combination.

Our 17% Layer ration therefore uses Aragonite-C alongside coarse York Calcium Chips as part of a broader mineral system, rather than asking one calcium source to do every job.

That is the sort of formulation detail that disappears entirely if you compare feeds by looking only at crude protein.

Calcium Also Has to Work With Phosphorus and Vitamin D

Calcium does not operate independently.

Phosphorus is closely tied to skeletal mineral metabolism, which is why our current 17% Layer tag also guarantees at least 0.56% phosphorus. Vitamin D3 is included in the ingredient statement because vitamin D participates in calcium homeostasis and absorption.

This relationship is one reason professional ration formulation is a balancing exercise.

More of one nutrient is not automatically better.

Nutrients interact. Their concentrations, ratios, bioavailability and the physiological stage of the animal all influence the result.

The National Academies’ 2026 poultry nutrition reference treats calcium and phosphorus together within its minerals chapter for exactly this reason.

Good feed formulation is therefore not about loading a ration with the maximum possible amount of every desirable nutrient.

It is about getting the system into balance.

Mash Is a Physical Form, Not Just a Product Name

The word mash is another part of the product name that deserves more attention.

Chicken feed can be supplied as mash, pellets or crumbles, and the physical form of feed influences how birds interact with it.

A mash preserves a visibly heterogeneous structure. Depending on particle size and milling, the bird encounters grain particles, protein ingredients and minerals as part of that texture rather than consuming a compressed pellet.

Particle size matters because chickens have a highly specialized digestive system. The gizzard is a muscular grinding organ, and the physical structure of the diet influences how feed moves through and interacts with that system.

Hy-Line guidance for commercial layers describes a well-textured mash after the starter period and recommends maintaining a substantial proportion of feed particles between roughly 1 and 3 millimeters, while also introducing larger calcium particles as birds approach lay.

That does not mean mash is universally “better” than pellets.

Different farm systems, equipment and management goals can favor different physical forms.

What it does mean is that the word mash describes another deliberate part of the feed, not merely a packaging distinction.

Ingredient selection and feed structure meet each other in the finished ration.

Certified Organic Is a Production Standard, Not a Marketing Adjective

Stone House Grain’s 17% Layer Feed is certified organic by NOFA-NY under the USDA National Organic Program.

For livestock feed, USDA Organic has specific meaning.

Certified organic livestock operations must feed animals organic agricultural feed ingredients, while vitamins, minerals and other approved supplements may be used where permitted under organic regulations. Genetic engineering is prohibited in organic production, and the agricultural ingredients must comply with the National Organic Program’s production and handling standards.

At Stone House, that certification connects to a broader agricultural system.

Stone House Farm’s farm-grown crops are produced on acreage carrying Regenerative Organic Certified status . Stone House also participates in the Real Organic Project , whose standards place particular emphasis on soil-based organic agriculture and biological soil management. The certification claim for feed produced through the mill itself remains the USDA Organic certification because the mill sources organic ingredients more broadly than Stone House Farm alone.

That distinction matters.

We do not want to blur different certification programs together simply because their goals overlap.

USDA Organic defines the regulatory organic standard for the finished feed. The regenerative and Real Organic certifications attached to our farm and farm-grown ingredients describe additional aspects of how the agricultural system behind part of that feed is managed.

Real Organic Project explicitly emphasizes soil as a living biological system and calls for practices that build organic matter, support soil biology and minimize erosion.

For us, those ideas belong together, but they are not interchangeable labels.

How Two “17% Organic Layer Feeds” Can Be Different

This brings us to a useful real-world comparison.

Green Mountain Feeds is a respected regional organic feed producer and one of the companies farmers in the Northeast may reasonably compare with Stone House Grain.

Green Mountain offers an Organic Layer Mash.

Its headline crude-protein guarantee?

17%.

Ours?

17%.

If that is where the comparison ends, the feeds look equivalent.

But the publicly available guaranteed analyses tell a more complicated story.

Stone House Grain figures are taken from our current registered product tag. Green Mountain Feeds figures are taken from the company’s current Organic Layer Mash product page.

The point is not that every higher number is automatically better.

That would be poor nutrition science.

A bird does not benefit simply because someone keeps raising nutrient concentrations indefinitely. Formulations have to be evaluated as complete systems and against the requirements of the birds consuming them.

The interesting point is that these two feeds both carry a 17% crude-protein guarantee while differing materially in several other guaranteed nutrients.

Stone House Grain guarantees approximately 36% more lysine on the label, 30% more methionine, and more than 50% more minimum crude fat than the Green Mountain Organic Layer Mash figures currently published online.

Those are formulation differences hiding underneath the same headline protein percentage.

This is exactly why comparing chicken feeds only by “percent protein” can be misleading.

Feed Price Is Really a Question About What You Are Buying

Stone House Grain is not generally the cheapest feed available.

We know that.

And we do not think farmers should simply accept a higher price because a company describes itself as local, regenerative or premium.

A feed has to earn its place in a farm’s operating budget.

That is why we would rather show what goes into ours.

You are buying a ration with a specified amino acid profile, not simply a crude-protein percentage.

You are buying a multi-source protein system based around ingredients including roasted organic soybeans and organic sunflower meal.

You are buying a calcium system that uses both coarse York Calcium Chips and highly available Aragonite-C, alongside phosphorus, vitamin D and the broader mineral package required in a complete layer feed.

You are buying certified organic agricultural ingredients and a finished feed certified under the USDA Organic system.

You are buying feed produced by a company that also farms thousands of acres of organic grain in the same regional agricultural economy it serves.

And you are buying from a mill that can tell you what it put into the ration and why.

None of those facts guarantees a particular egg-production result on an individual farm.

Genetics, flock age, temperature, housing, forage, disease pressure, water, total feed intake, management and dozens of other variables influence hen performance.

But those facts do explain what the feed is.

That is a much better foundation for comparing price.

Why We Grow So Much of the Grain Ourselves

There is another way to think about the cost of feed.

Feed is usually the largest recurring input in poultry production. That makes price extremely important.

But agricultural resilience also has value.

Stone House Grain grows the majority of the grain used across our feed program on Stone House Farm, and we source additional grain from other growers when needed.

Our team's goal is not to pretend we have eliminated commodity markets, transportation or supply-chain risk.

We have not.

Minerals come from somewhere. Vitamins and amino acids have supply chains. Calcium is extracted and processed. Crops have good years and bad years. Farming and feed manufacturing are physical businesses operating in the real world.

What we can do is shorten and understand more of that chain.

When wheat is grown on our farm, milled by our team and fed to poultry on farms across the Northeast, there is a relatively direct line connecting field, mill and animal.

That is the regional agricultural system we are trying to strengthen.

And it is why the phrase printed on our feed bags is more than decorative language:

Cultivating Healthy Soils, Animals, Farms and Communities.

The steps are connected.

From Healthy Soil to Healthy Animals

Healthy soil does not magically become a healthy chicken.

There are several important steps in between.

Soil supports crops.

Crop management influences whether those agricultural systems remain productive and resilient over time.

Harvested crops become ingredients.

Ingredients have to be tested, stored, handled, combined and milled.

A nutritionist has to build a ration that meets the physiological needs of the animal.

The farmer then has to store the feed correctly, provide sufficient clean water, manage the flock and ensure birds actually consume the ration.

Only then does feed become part of animal performance.

That is the chain we think about when we talk about soil to feed.

The value is not in skipping steps and claiming everything is connected by magic.

The value is in understanding that none of the steps exists alone.

From Healthy Animals to Healthy Farms

A feed mill can formulate a ration.

The farmer still has to make it work.

For a small flock, that might mean buying 50-pound bags and keeping them dry in sealed storage.

For a larger poultry operation, moving feed one bag at a time quickly stops making operational sense.

Our 17% Organic Layer is therefore available in multiple formats, including 50-pound bags, pallet quantities, one-ton totes and direct bulk delivery for farms equipped with silos or grain bins.

The feed inside does not become a different nutritional product because the delivery system changes.

What changes is the farm’s material-handling system.

A one-ton tote can dramatically reduce bag handling while requiring appropriate equipment and dry storage. Direct bulk delivery can reduce another layer of handling for sufficiently large operations, but it requires suitable bins, truck access and delivery volume.

We have written separate practical guides on storing and handling one-ton feed totes and on deciding between bulk feed and totes, because logistics matter almost as much as formulation once feed reaches a working farm.

A beautiful ration that cannot be stored, moved or delivered efficiently is not a good operating solution.

Good feed has to fit the farm.

Not Every Farm Wants Soy

The standard 17% Organic Layer Mash uses roasted soybeans because soy is an extremely useful ingredient in balancing poultry protein and amino acids.

But not every farm wants to feed soy.

Some farmers have specific production philosophies, customer requirements or ingredient preferences that lead them toward soy-free feeds.

For those farms, Stone House Grain also produces a 17% Organic Corn-Free , 16% Soy-Free Layer Mash , and a 20% Organic Soy-Free Chick Starter formulated around ingredients including peas, wheat, sunflower meal, fish meal, alfalfa meal and poultry minerals rather than whole soybeans or soybean meal.

That ration is not simply the standard formula with soy removed.

When you remove a major protein ingredient, the entire amino acid and energy system has to be rebuilt around different ingredients.

That is another useful lesson in feed formulation.

Ingredients are not isolated checkboxes.

Change one major component and the rest of the ration has to respond.

The Eggshell Is the Final Evidence of an Extraordinary Biological Process

There is something satisfying about ending the story with an egg.

It begins with something as ordinary as a kernel of wheat.

That wheat was a seed.

The seed grew because a plant turned sunlight, water, carbon dioxide and soil-derived nutrients into new tissue.

The grain was harvested.

It came to the mill.

It was combined with corn, soybeans, sunflower meal, alfalfa, fats, amino acids, phosphorus, vitamins, trace minerals and carefully selected calcium sources.

A hen ate it.

Her digestive system broke the ration down.

Nutrients crossed the intestinal wall.

Amino acids entered metabolism.

Lipids were used and transported.

Minerals circulated.

Calcium from the diet and the hen’s physiological reserves became available during the long hours in which an eggshell formed around the developing egg.

And then the egg was laid.

The following day, the system did it again.

That is what fascinates us about layer feed.

It sits in the middle of biology, agriculture and food.

Healthy Soils. Healthy Feed. Healthy Animals. Healthy Farms. Healthy Communities.

Stone House Grain’s 17% Organic Layer Mash is not special because it has the number 17 printed on the tag.

Lots of layer feeds do.

It is special because of everything underneath that number.

The organic grain.

The protein blend.

The amino acid guarantees.

The alfalfa and sunflower meal.

The fat.

The mineral system.

The calcium sources, in different physical forms, selected around how a hen actually builds an eggshell.

The farm where much of our grain begins.

The mill where those ingredients are turned into a complete ration.

And the farms where that ration ultimately has to perform in the real world.

We believe that if you are going to pay more for feed, you deserve to understand why.

And if we are going to ask farmers to trust us with one of the most important inputs in their operation, we should be able to explain what we are doing at considerably greater depth than saying:

It’s 17% protein.

Because 17% is only the beginning.

SHOP OUR 17% ORGANIC LAYER MASH →