Feeding Show Quality Chickens

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Crowing
5 Years
Apr 25, 2015
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Yesterday I bought 2 standard sized Blue Cochins.
They are about 4 months old, and one of them(the rooster) is a frizzle.
They are show quality cochins' and I want to make sure they are receiving the proper dietary needs. And also to ensure proper feather quality

I am wondering what feed I should give them.
My other birds get whole corn and oats, but they free range all day while it's light out. So I can't feed that to the Cochins.

Any advice or help is greatly appreciated!
 
I need to know ASAP too, since I'm rarely in the nearest town that has actual chicken feed for sale, and I'm there today
 
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You need a complete feed. Corn and oats won't do the trick.
ANY complete feed will be better than corn and oats. Not enough essential amino acids, vitamins and minerals.
 
You need a complete feed. Corn and oats won't do the trick.
ANY complete feed will be better than corn and oats. Not enough essential amino acids, vitamins and minerals.

Its actually better, especially when I get the corn locally, and it's whole corn.
They also get access to a scratch block and free range from 6am-9pm right now.
I was told by many experienced poultry people and vets that it is fine.
And its for my other birds not my show quality
 
Are you saying that local whole corn is better than a complete chicken feed?

I'm sure the experienced poultrymen and vets didn't know that made up the bulk of the diet when they said it was fine.

Even mature roosters need a minimum of 13% crude protein. Hens need at least 16%. Chicks need 18-20% Molting birds can benefit from the same amount..
Corn is anywhere from 8-10%.
Apparently your birds haven't been on a corn/oat diet a long time.

To help you out, here's a list of the nutrients chickens need.
http://extension.missouri.edu/p/G8352
Many of those vitamins, minerals and most importantly - amino acids - will be deficient or missing completely in a corn/oat diet.

As omnivores, chickens cannot get the essential amino acids they need from grain or any other vegetative sources.
 
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As omnivores, chickens cannot get the essential amino acids they need from grain or any other vegetative sources.


They can get all the essential amino acids from a non-meat diet but it's a lot harder to get them in the proper balance, thus the reason most commercial all veggy feeds (a lot of commercial feeds are animal protein free) have synthetic lysine & methionine added...

Either way corn/oats and scratch block diet is not going to cut it, and is far from a balanced diet especially for a show bird...
 
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Oats have about 12% protein, at least the stuff I'm getting from the local elevator, and corn has. 8-10 so that's at least 20%

And I buy my chicks chick feed.
And the vets and experienced poultry owners knew that's what they were getting fed
So please stop making assumptions

****they free range, they get grass hoppers, mice, frogs, ECT*****
 
You said it. They cannot get enough lysine and methionine from vegetative sources without synthetics.


They could get it without synthetic versions, but the synthetic version are incredibly cost effective and easy to obtain...

Pumpkin seeds, squash seeds, peanuts, pistachios, wheat germ all have very high levels of lysine... Same with methionine, seaweed, pumpkin leaves, turnip greens, sweet potato, and spinach all have high levels of methionine, but none of the previous are as cost effective or easy as a pinch of synthetic...
 

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