{"id":342795,"date":"2023-03-07T19:58:13","date_gmt":"2023-03-08T00:58:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.sgtreport.com\/?p=342795"},"modified":"2023-03-07T19:58:13","modified_gmt":"2023-03-08T00:58:13","slug":"exclusive-natural-news-releases-lab-test-results-of-tractor-supply-producers-pride-chicken-feed-and-five-other-chicken-feed-products","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sgtreport.com\/2023\/03\/exclusive-natural-news-releases-lab-test-results-of-tractor-supply-producers-pride-chicken-feed-and-five-other-chicken-feed-products\/","title":{"rendered":"EXCLUSIVE: Natural News releases lab test results of Tractor Supply \u201cProducer\u2019s Pride\u201d chicken feed (and five other chicken feed products)"},"content":{"rendered":"

by Mike Adams, Natural News<\/a>:<\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Following widely circulated anecdotal reports of people claiming that Tractor Supply\u2019s \u201cProducer\u2019s Pride\u201d brand of chicken feed was causing their chickens to stop laying eggs, we purchased six chicken feed products (of various brands) from Tractor Supply for the purpose of conducting comprehensive lab testing.<\/p>\n

As background, we own and operate our own ISO-accredited (17025) mass spec laboratory and conduct over 10,000 tests each year for heavy metals, aflatoxins, glyphosate, raw materials identity and microbiological contamination (e.coli, salmonella, etc.). To my knowledge,\u00a0our lab conducts more food safety testing than any other non-governmental organization in the world<\/strong>. We routinely test all our raw materials and finished products that are offered at\u00a0HealthRangerStore.com<\/a>, where customers know they are purchasing clean, lab-tested and certified organic products for health and personal care.<\/p>\n

TRUTH LIVES on at\u00a0https:\/\/sgtreport.tv\/<\/a><\/p>\n

As a public service, we decided to apply our laboratory infrastructure to the Tractor Supply chicken feed question. So we purchased six products at a Tractor Supply in Central Texas:<\/p>\n

\u2013 Purina Layena Layer Crumbles
\n\u2013 Flock Party Egg Maker Pellets
\n\u2013 Nature\u2019s Best Organic Egg Layer Pellets
\n\u2013 (Tractor Supply brand) Producer\u2019s Pride 16% Layer Feed Mini Pellets \u2013\u00a0Lot#TE30169528<\/strong>
\n\u2013 DuMor 16% Egg Maxx Pellets
\n\u2013 DuMor Organic 16% Layer Crumble<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s a closeup of the Producer\u2019s Pride label with the ingredients and lot number. Note the production date is January 16, 2023:<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Keep in mind that\u00a0because these are all agricultural products, the following test results are only a \u201csnapshot\u201d of an ever-changing mix of raw materials and inputs<\/strong>. We purchased just one bag of each product, so we only have one data point for each product. To really get a clearer picture of the composition of these products, it would be necessary to purchase dozens of bags from different retail locations, spread out over time.<\/p>\n

Nevertheless, these results are intriguing.<\/p>\n

Aflatoxin results<\/h2>\n

Aflatoxins are highly toxic chemicals created by molds and fungi. They are known to be fatal to chickens, cows, horses and other animals if consumed in large enough quantities. Aflatoxins are very common in oats, wheat, corn, peanuts and various grains. They are likely the No. 1 contamination problem in agriculture today.<\/p>\n

Aflatoxin limits in the USA for crops such as corn are\u00a020 ppb<\/strong>. Anything under 20 ppb is considered \u201csafe\u201d by the FDA. Other countries have more strict limits. The EU, for many years, had a limit of\u00a04 ppb<\/strong>\u00a0for many agricultural products. That has been changed to\u00a010 ppb<\/strong>\u00a0for several products. Other countries have various limits, but most are in the range of\u00a010 ppb \u2013 50 ppb<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Notably, none of the chicken feed products we tested exceeded 5 ppb (which is good news). Interestingly, the Tractor Supply Producer\u2019s Pride product contained 2.9 ppb of aflatoxins, or about twice the level of the other brands we tested.<\/p>\n

Here are the actual numbers our tests showed:<\/p>\n

\u2013 Purina Layena Layer Crumbles:\u00a01.5 ppb<\/strong>
\n\u2013 Flock Party Egg Maker Pellets:\u00a01.4 ppb<\/strong>
\n\u2013 Nature\u2019s Best Organic Egg Layer Pellets:\u00a01.8 ppb<\/strong>
\n\u2013 (Tractor Supply brand) Producer\u2019s Pride 16% Layer Feed Mini Pellets:\u00a02.9 ppb<\/strong>
\n\u2013 DuMor 16% Egg Maxx Pellets:\u00a01.1 ppb<\/strong>
\n\u2013 DuMor Organic 16% Layer Crumble:\u00a01.9 ppb<\/strong><\/p>\n

Again,\u00a0none of these numbers would be considered unsafe by US food regulators<\/strong>. As a food scientist, it seems doubtful to me that 2.9 ppb of aflatoxins could be responsible for chickens not laying eggs. However, I\u2019m not an avian biologist, so I can\u2019t answer that question with certainty. It just seems\u00a0unlikely<\/em>\u00a0to me that this could cause chickens to stop laying eggs.<\/p>\n

Glyphosate results<\/h2>\n

Glyphosate is a weed killer chemical<\/a>\u00a0linked to various cancers and endocrine system disruption in humans and animals. It\u2019s often used as a desiccant and sprayed on crops to dry them more quickly before final harvest\u2026 even on non-GMO crops. This is why glyphosate often ends up in wheat, legumes, alfalfa and other crops that aren\u2019t even GMO.<\/p>\n

Our mass spec testing on glyphosate concentrations in the chicken feed products shows that Tractor Supply Producer\u2019s Pride chicken feed contains about\u00a0twice the level of glyphosate of other brands<\/strong>\u00a0(at least in this one bad we tested), but even at 19.8 ppb, this level would not be considered unsafe by the FDA or USDA.<\/p>\n

Here are the actual numbers we found:<\/p>\n

\u2013 Purina Layena Layer Crumbles:\u00a010.7 ppb<\/strong>
\n\u2013 Flock Party Egg Maker Pellets:\u00a010.5 ppb<\/strong>
\n\u2013 Nature\u2019s Best Organic Egg Layer Pellets:\u00a01.8 ppb<\/strong>
\n\u2013 (Tractor Supply brand) Producer\u2019s Pride 16% Layer Feed Mini Pellets:\u00a019.8 ppb<\/strong>
\n\u2013 DuMor 16% Egg Maxx Pellets:\u00a02.5 ppb<\/strong>
\n\u2013 DuMor Organic 16% Layer Crumble:\u00a00 ppb<\/strong><\/p>\n

Note that the two organic brands showed the lowest levels of glyphosate, which is expected. The DuMor Organic brand showed zero glyphosate. Note that the practical limit of quantitation in our instrument is around 1 ppb for glyphosate, so technically this product could contain something like 0.5 ppb and we wouldn\u2019t be able to see it, thus our instrument tells us \u201czero.\u201d<\/p>\n

Importantly,\u00a0none of these levels of glyphosate set off any alarm bells in my mind<\/strong>. These are not high enough, in my opinion, to explain chickens being unable to lay eggs. The natural drive to lay eggs is very strong in chickens, and although I\u2019m not an avian biologist, I strongly doubt that exposure to this level of glyphosate could, by itself, cause chickens to stop laying eggs.<\/p>\n

It is noteworthy, however, that\u00a0if you wish to avoid glyphosate, you should buy organic<\/strong>. The organic brands tested here showed the lowest levels.<\/p>\n

Toxic elements and heavy metals: Mercury, Arsenic, Cadmium and Lead<\/h2>\n

We also tested all the brands for toxic elements and nutritive minerals. For the toxic elements, we look at Mercury (Hg), Arsenic (As), Cadmium (Cd) and Lead (Pb).<\/p>\n

On the positive side,\u00a0all the brands tested at zero mercury<\/strong>. This is expected, since mercury is \u201csticky\u201d and very rarely finds its way into agricultural products unless plants are grown in a toxic mercury dump.<\/p>\n

Here are the toxic element results we found. Note that even \u201corganic\u201d products can often contain\u00a0higher<\/em>\u00a0levels of heavy metals. That\u2019s because\u00a0the USDA organic program has no limits on heavy metals<\/strong>, and the USDA requires no testing for heavy metals in organic agriculture. (Hence one of the reasons why we test our own products so meticulously, since we can\u2019t trust any \u201corganic\u201d claim to mean the food is actually clean.)<\/p>\n

All results in ppb (parts per billion)<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
<\/td>\nAs<\/td>\nCd<\/td>\nPb<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Purina Layena Layer Crumbles<\/td>\n379.4<\/td>\n152.7<\/td>\n285.9<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Flock Party Egg Maker Pellets<\/td>\n268.6<\/td>\n74.8<\/td>\n223.4<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Nature\u2019s Best Organic Egg Layer Pellets<\/td>\n137.6<\/td>\n102.7<\/td>\n237.6<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Producer\u2019s Pride 16% Layer Feed Mini Pellets<\/td>\n178.6<\/td>\n74.2<\/td>\n113.6<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
DuMor 16% Egg Maxx Pellets<\/td>\n892.8<\/td>\n689.9<\/td>\n588.6<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
DuMor Organic 16% Layer Crumble<\/td>\n269.5<\/td>\n151.7<\/td>\n345.4<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

Note that the highest metals were found in the DuMor Egg Maxx Pellets, and even DuMor\u2019s organic line contained a significant level of lead.<\/p>\n

On my website\u00a0LowHeavyMetalsVerified.com<\/a>, I publish the in-house rating system that we use for rating agricultural products on their heavy metals content, from A+++ down to F.<\/p>\n

Any product with lead over 250 ppb but less than 500 ppb earns a \u201cB\u201d rating. This isn\u2019t horrible, but it doesn\u2019t meet our in-house standards for clean products.<\/p>\n

The conclusion on these metals is that\u00a0all the products we tested would be considered \u201csafe\u201d by the FDA and USDA in terms of their heavy metals content<\/strong>, but some of the products do, indeed, contain much higher levels of toxic elements than other products. Interestingly, the Tractor Supply brand had the\u00a0lowest<\/em>\u00a0level of cadmium, arsenic and lead of all the products we tested.<\/p>\n

Thus, the Tractor Supply brand was the highest in glyphosate and aflatoxins, but the lowest in heavy metals.<\/p>\n

Where do these heavy metals come from? Mostly from industrial pollution that has settled on crop lands over the last two centuries or so, combined with some of the lead-based pesticides that were routinely sprayed on crops until they were banned (such as lead arsenate). Lead and arsenic never \u201cdegrade\u201d or magically vanish, which is why there\u2019s still lead in those same crop fields.<\/p>\n

Finally,\u00a0calcium sources added to chicken feed are very frequently contaminated with lead<\/strong>. That\u2019s because lead tends to replace calcium in nature, and calcium contamination of lead is extremely common. Even off-the-shelf, low-cost calcium supplements (calcium carbonate) sold for human consumption are almost always contaminated with lead. This is also why lead ends up in a lot of non-dairy \u201cmilk\u201d products like almond milk, for example, because they add calcium carbonate to make the product look more white and milky. This introduces lead into the \u201cmilk.\u201d Nearly every grocery product made with calcium carbonate will contain some amount of lead in it.<\/p>\n

Read More @ NaturalNews.com<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by Mike Adams, Natural News: Following widely circulated anecdotal reports of people claiming that Tractor Supply\u2019s \u201cProducer\u2019s Pride\u201d brand of chicken feed was causing their chickens to stop laying eggs, we purchased six chicken feed products (of various brands) from Tractor Supply for the purpose of conducting comprehensive lab testing. As background, we own and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[150017],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sgtreport.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/342795"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sgtreport.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sgtreport.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sgtreport.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sgtreport.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=342795"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.sgtreport.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/342795\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sgtreport.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=342795"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sgtreport.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=342795"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sgtreport.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=342795"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}