Guest guest Posted June 4, 2002 Report Share Posted June 4, 2002 Howdy, I have friends that fed their chickens straight cracked corn and what they could catch themselves out in the barnyard. And gravel too. Another friend has a store bought feed, gravel, animal fat scraps and some grain. These hens are big free rangers too. No fencing and the dog keeps them safe. The owners keep track of the weather by there hens as when it's going to storm the hens eat the animal fat scraps in a big way. Both sets of hens made nice orange yolk eggs with firm whites. Also, learned older hens are more likely have problems with the shells being weak. I'm going to do more research on that. Rondi > From: " beckymauldin2001 " <beckymauldin@...> Subject: what to feed chickens? Hello, I finally have my very own chickens! They are so neat! I've been giving them feed store laying pellets and cracked grains since I'm so new at this...They do get a few hours of free ranging in the evenings. I am trying to figure out if I can make my own feed for them. What do you folks do? If this has already been addressed in the archives, I'm sorry, but I could not locate it. Any pointers would be great! >Becky Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted June 4, 2002 Report Share Posted June 4, 2002 At 08:06 PM 6/3/2002 +0000, you wrote: >Hello, > >I finally have my very own chickens! They are so neat! I've been >giving them feed store laying pellets and cracked grains since I'm so >new at this...They do get a few hours of free ranging in the >evenings. I am trying to figure out if I can make my own feed for >them. What do you folks do? If this has already been addressed in >the archives, I'm sorry, but I could not locate it. Any pointers >would be great! > >Becky I do feed mine some commercial pellets, but we bought them mainly as " garbage chickens " -- that is, they get the wilty salad, leftover cassarole, etc. that isn't 'bad' or moldy but no one will eat. Also they love watermelon rinds and corn cobs and brown bananas. They like meat just fine, and love grass. They don't like beans though (at least mine don't). Also the weeds from the garden (they get the bugs from the roots). They seem very forgiving about what you feed them: if they don't like it they won't eat it. However, DO feed them oyster shell calcium. Laying an egg a day really depletes them. Heidi Schuppenhauer Trillium Custom Software Inc. heidis@... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted June 5, 2002 Report Share Posted June 5, 2002 The corn is cracked, the other grains are whole. Once I had them in their pen for about four months straight. At that time I gave them sprouted kamut and lentils everyday. After awhile they weren't interested in the lentils but they would devour the kamut. I would just toss it out in the pen to keep them busy. The chickens are really good at letting you know what they need. If they aren't eating something it's usually because they don't need it. I keep straw in their pen so any kamut that's missed ends up continuing to grow buried under the straw. When I turn the straw they are scrambling for the worms and kamut that surfaces. Anytime I have extra eggs they get them, shell and all. The sprouted kamut is higher in protein than the wheat, although I think the hard red winter wheat is pretty high as well. Kamut is quite a bit more expensive than the wheat. I keep my compost pile right beside the hen house. The chickens spend hours digging through it. There are tons of little creatures living in it that they consume. Also, toss out some sunflower seeds in the shell. It keeps them very busy and they really like them. Another option is sprouted quinoa. I think it's very high in protein. I've experimented with tons of grains and just found the ones that worked best for me. When the first batch were chicks I was trying to avoid grinding anything up for the chicks so I was feeding them small grains including amaranth, teff, sesame seeds, millet. They weren't real excited about any of it so I went back to the standard grains. If you take the extra five minutes to sprout your grains you are already light years ahead of any mixed ration. The corn, wheat, pea mix the chickens eat but they don't come running for it. None of it is sprouted, it's all dry that way I can keep it in an auto fill bin so there's always something for them incase we don't get a chance to take care of them for a day or so. However, the sprouted grains, and table scraps they come running for. Today one of them hopped up on my shoulder when she realized I was carrying table scraps and she helped herself as we walked down the path to the compost pile. I toss meat scraps, bones, etc in my compost pile. The chickens don't leave any meat for other critters, they pick the bones clean and the dogs and cats follow behind the chickens and chew on the bones. If you don't have any clabbered milk then you may want to check into a lactobacillus supplement of some type you can feed them. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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