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Feeding chooks isn’t difficult, but there is some basic rules to remember

Chickens, like everything, love their food. If you have hungry chickens and you feed them in the evening they will climb all over each other to get to the food.

Feeding chickens is relatively simple, however it’s still important to understand some basic principles.

At different stages of life chooks need different nutrients. Young birds, for example, need different nutrients to laying hens.

Fortunately there are commercial feeds available at cater to the different demands of birds at different ages. Grow pellets are intended for younger birds whilst layers palettes are intended for laying hens. Chickens are started on chick crumble.

It’s important to make sure you’re using the correct commercial free for birds of the correct age. If you use layers pellets for young birds the calcium content is too high and this is not good for them.

And if you use growers pellets for laying hens the calcium content is too low. Laying hens require a higher level of calcium to help form the eggs.

However commercial pellets can become expensive, and you can supplement your chicken’s diet yourself. There is no reason why you cannot feed your birds with vegetable and table scraps for example, as long as this is not their only feed.

I personally prefer to have itemised the table scraps and to add pollard to make a good consistency. My chooks love this mash and I feed this in conjunction with commercial pellets.

You can also feed grass clippings to hens, surprisingly they will eat grass and love it. Not only that but grass has omega 3 fats and this will increase the omega 3 content of your eggs. However don’t feed too much grass.

Remember however that you should not feed meat or chicken to your chooks to combat the spread of disease.

Get it right and your chickens will provide you with lovely eggs, get it wrong and you won’t get any eggs. It is not difficult to do, concentrate on a daily supply of commercial feed, supplement with some table scraps of your own and a little grass and you’ll have happy laying hens.

Use good feed for higher yields of eggs (and meat)

If you want good harvests in terms of meat or eggs then it’s important to examine the food you are providing your hens. Here are some of the food varieties or types of feed you may consider mixing up for production impact and effect:

Choice between mash and pellets

The use of layer mash may have standard for many years, but you need to make sure that mash or pellets provides your hens with the essential nutrition for their health. Conventional feed is packed in bags weighing between 20 kg and 25 kg and may cost you between $10 and $15, depending on quality and your choice for those that have organic ingredients, if that’s what you want. Most livestock supply stores and pet shops, have ample stocks of layer feed.

The list of ingredients and content percentages of protein, ash, fiber, oils, and vitamins figures prominently in most high-quality feed available in the market. Certain feeds contain add-ons such as grit or oyster shell, a good source of calcium. If no calcium is added, you should consider adding it in the hens’ diet.

Beware, chooks have a tendency to be greedy, hens eat a lot, and you should be able determine how much they consume in a regular meal, and don’t feed them more.

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Galvanized bins are the ideal storage facility for feeds, which needs to be used up within three months from the date they are bought and stocked in.

Grit

Utmost consideration should be given in supplying or adding grit in the feed or providing your hens the direct access to a source. Stored in the fowl’s gizzard, grit is needed for the normal functioning of the hens’ digestive system. It helps them grind and breakdown the food they eat every day.

Corn isn’t required

Using corn maize as part of the hens’ diet may be considered optional, especially when have bought a mash that already provides a complete nutritional combination. You may include it in the feed as a once-in-a-while treat, for which hens often go for it like mad eaters.

High protein in chick crumble

Although the high-protein diet of chick crumb is usually given to chicks, there are periods in a hen’s life when this should be considerably added. When your hens are molting, or if the pen grounds can no longer provide natural worms and other protein-rich creatures during winter and long frosty weather, chick crumbs are recommended to keep the birds tip-top healthy.

Consider variety in diet

The best way to bring variety in your hens’ died is to provide treats every once in a while. This means that the frequency depends on occasion (when in your judgment their lays are commendable) and the time of the year. During summer and late spring, when grubs and green leaves are abundant, you may grant a few treats. Hens run the risk of becoming overweight, off laid, and out of condition if you spoil them with too much treats. When you offer them treats, dish them out late in the day after they had their routine fill of mash to ensure that they have ingested the essential nutrients already.

Chook Treats

Among the suggested, practical treats you may give are:

 Green, leafy vegetables, such as spinach, broccoli, kale, and lettuce, which help give good color to the yolk

Sweet corn can be chopped off into chunks from corn cob, popped onto a skewer, and then driven into the ground. A tricky treat such as this keeps your hens preoccupied for hours and prevents them from getting bored by their end-of-day routines.

Fruits, such as grapes and oranges, may as well do down with your own supply

Pasta (noodle leftovers) and rice

Bread (white should be avoided)

Potatoes (must always be cooked) and other root vegetables

Cake

Cheese

Porridge (particularly good in winter on those bitterly cold days)

Peanuts can be another good treat during winter. You may blitz your own consumable peanuts up in the blender, add a little butter, and dish them like a special blend

Live worms, which can be bought online

 Warning: Avoid meat and fish scraps as treats because they raise the risk of salmonella in the eggs.

Water

Up to 200ml of water per day is required for a hen, but this quantity on supply should be increased during the hotter periods of the year. Moreover, hens almost always need access to clean, fresh water. Dehydration easily kicks in and metabolism and affect their lays within a couple of hours they lacked water. Whenever possible, add a splash of poultry tonic to keep the hens in good mood and administer other treatments through water.

Here’s a few things to think about when it comes to feeding and watering chickens

Of course you have to feed your chickens. So let’s talk about feeding and watering chooks for a moment.

Like every pet, and let’s face it your chooks are really just pets, you need to pay some attention to feeding and watering. We do know someone who has chickens which free range around his garden every day, and he doesn’t feed them at all because he figures that they found enough bugs in the garden to satisfy their needs. But we think that’s a bit tough, you do need to feed your chooks even if they free range during the day, we do.

So in your chicken coop you need some facilities for feeding and watering.

There are feeders is available from pet shops, or if you live in a country like we do from your regional rural store. There are hoppers which take, if you buy a big one, considerable quantities of chicken pellets and allow a small amount to dribble out the bottom for the chooks to eat, and as they eat more comes out.

The advantage of buying a big one is that you can then go away for a few days and your chooks have plenty to eat. In fact the hopper that we have in our chicken house is big enough to hold enough food to feed 14 chickens for over a week.

However if you prefer you may just leave a bowl of food in the chicken coop. But there are disadvantages to this. If the bowl sits on the floor of the coop there is a good chance the chooks will stand on it and tip it over. Rather you are better to fix the feeding bowl to the wall of the chicken coop somehow about 3 or 4 inches above the ground, or in some other way secure it. We have secured ours by hanging it on a rope from the roof of the henhouse.

It is also possible to get automatic watering bowls. If you run some simple plastic pipe to the bowl it will refill by means of a float as necessary. Having water on demand also means that you can go away on holidays while knowing that your chickens are both fed and watered.

However going away for a period of time is a little risky if you simply rely on an automatic watering bowl. A blockage in the pipe, the water stops, and you come home to dead chooks.

We have got around that by using a full-size bath tub with timber planks to allow the chickens to walk up the planks to get to the top of the bath. There are then more planks inside the bath that they can stand on to drink.

However if you do this it’s important to make sure that that chickens cannot fall in the water, because they will drown if they do so. We have done this by putting some chicken wire just below the surface of the water so that if they fall in they will land on the chicken wire. Read the rest of this entry