Feed questions from a new member!

[kenp719]

Hi, Michelle, and welcome!

I feed my chickens a non-organic all-flock feed supplemented with oyster shell, egg shells and grit that are always available for the birds' free choice. I also give them daily treats of kitchen scraps and shredded cabbage (too many predators for my flock to forage green stuff for themselves) and occasional treats of black oil sunflower seeds or scratch that they have the same freedom to choose as the oyster/egg shells and grit. But you won't be doing that until your chicks are feathered out and grown.

Mine are all healthy and seemingly happy and I always reason that free ranging birds don't have nutritionists "balancing" their intake and yet seem to thrive around the world in all kinds of harsh and unforgiving environments.

I think we have an absolute obligation to take good and empathetic care of our flocks but also that we're capable of overthinking things sometimes. I also want to encourage you that chickens are easy to provide for and you'll do a good job and have birds that are able to live a good life in return for your family's efforts on their behalf.

As for the brands of supplies available, I think most of us choose from what the local feed stores have available. The ones near me have one brand of grit, one brand of oyster shell. There isn't a lot of comparative shopping to do (other than prices offered by different feed supplies). And I don't think it's really necessary. As for feed there are some choices:

• pellet, crumbles or mash -- all essentially the same nutrition just different forms
• medicated or unmedicated -- a personal preference
• organic or non-organic -- another personal preference
• starter (first 6-8 weeks), grower (until they begin laying), layer (15-18% protein, 3-4% calcium) and all-flock (20% protein, 0% calcium) -- choose what's age appropriate and skip the calcium in the feed if you're feeding roosters

You're going to do fine and, I hope, have a lot of fun along with your delicious fresh eggs!

Thank you so much for the

Hi, welcome to the forum, Glad you joined.

It probably won't take you long to realize you can get some really differing opinions on here. We keep them for so many different goals, different climates, different management techniques, different facilities, different flock make-ups, the list goes on and on. and so many different things work. It's not surprising we have different experiences and different opinions. It's not like there is only one way to do something and all other ways are wrong, but that so many can be right. I think that is one of the problems on this forum, you have so many different options that can work but you have to pick one out. For some of us certain things work better than others, but with no experience how do you know which is right for you? It can be challenging and confusing.

Commercial operations have determined a fairly standard feeding regimen for chicks that will become a laying flock. You will see that printed on many bags of commercial chicken feeds. In general it involves a high protein feed (18% to 20%) the first month or so to get them feathered out and give them a good start, then they cut back to a lower protein feed (maybe 16%) to slow their growth a bit so the skeleton and internal organs can keep up. Then at around 3 months they cut back a bit more (15%) to help control that maturation process. Then a little before they are ready for them to start to lay, they change the feed to a bit higher protein (16%) and increase the calcium content since they will need the extra calcium for egg shells.

You don't need to do that. Commercial operations use special bred hybrid chickens bred for heavy laying. Your breeds are not those. Commercial operations manage when they start to lay, partly by diet but to a large extent by managing light. With their specially bred hens they could start to lay really young, maybe young enough to hurt themselves if their body is not ready. Again, you don't have to worry about that.

People that raise chickens for show do not follow this feed regimen. They feed their chickens a much richer diet as they grow so they will grow bigger. Again, these are specially bred birds. Yours are not. Chickens raised for meat are also fed differently.

I'm going through all this to say you have a lot of freedom in how you feed your chickens, especially in regard to protein. My chicks get an 18% protein Starter for the first month. After that the entire flock gets a 15% Finisher/Developer with oyster shell offered on the side for the ones that need the calcium for their egg shell. But mine forage for a lot of their food so I've lost the ability to micromanage their every bite.

If you are providing practically everything they eat it is a good idea for their feed to make up at least 90% of what they eat. Standard chicken feed provides a balanced diet of the many different nutrients they need. It's not just protein and calcium but fats, fiber, minerals, and vitamins among others. You can provide other food such as, scratch, kitchen wastes, garden wastes, bugs, or green stuff, but the general recommendation is to keep that total to 10% or less of their daily diet. If you can come up with a way to do that and cut feed costs more power to you.

And that's my opinion.

Thank you so much! I quickly realized that there is not one way to raise a chicken! But I'm getting so many great tidbits of advice to pick and choose what will be best for us! I am grateful for the advice and am willing to learn. These will be used for eggs only as they are now a part of our family and in the end, we want a happy and healthy flock to enjoy

 

[Percheron chick]

Start with your feed store. What brands do they offer? My issue with Big R type stores is they offer national brands and nothing locally milled. Feed is milled outside the state and trucked in great distances. Feed, especially higher priced ones, do not turn over quickly and is often old. The co op will carry local mill inventory and should be receptive to special feed requests.
I'm a fan of Ranchway products out of Fort Collins. They do have an organic line and they run about $27/50#. Double their conventional feeds.

 

[IamRainey]

I remember being new and thinking everything I did had the potential to make my chickens the healthiest and happiest anywhere or plunge them into despair and desperation. Truth is chickens are very easy to care for and EXTREMELY good at being chickens all by themselves so long as we keep them in feed and water and provide a safe enclosure for them.

You'll do fine and I hope you have a lot of fun having these wonderful, quirky, noisy, social animals in your environment! Meanwhile, everyone's here to provide answers and support.

 

[kenp719]

I remember being new and thinking everything I did had the potential to make my chickens the healthiest and happiest anywhere or plunge them into despair and desperation. Truth is chickens are very easy to care for and EXTREMELY good at being chickens all by themselves so long as we keep them in feed and water and provide a safe enclosure for them.

You'll do fine and I hope you have a lot of fun having these wonderful, quirky, noisy, social animals in your environment! Meanwhile, everyone's here to provide answers and support.

!
I am definitely an over thinker! I have to tell myself to take a chill pill sometimes


I swear I wasn't this bad with my own kids when they were babies!! hahahahaha!!

 

[IamRainey]

It's gonna be good! You'll give those chicks a good life. They'll give you eggs. ....eventually!

 

[West Bend]

I I feed mine fermented layer pellets but also have dry ones free choice(they eat less dry when they get fermented). I have grit free choice and oyster shells & egg shells mixed free choice. I also ferment scratch grains and give that to them instead of dry. I can't figure out the 10%, they'd only get one small stalk of broccoli or other stuff, if that was the case. I use the water from the fermented grain for moistening the pellets which I call MASH but I don't know what's in what other people call MASH when they say- pellets, crumbles & mash are the same nutritionally. I received some mash(what she called it) from a friend who no longer raises chickens and it just looks like smashed up scratch grains with some powdery stuff in it. I asked but she didn't tell me where they got it from so I could inquire. Sorry for my long winded reply.

 

[West Bend]

I I feed mine fermented layer pellets but also have dry ones free choice(they eat less dry when they get fermented). I have grit free choice and oyster shells & egg shells mixed free choice. I also ferment scratch grains and give that to them instead of dry. I can't figure out the 10%, they'd only get one small stalk of broccoli or other stuff, if that was the case. I use the water from the fermented grain for moistening the pellets which I call MASH but I don't know what's in what other people call MASH when they say- pellets, crumbles & mash are the same nutritionally. I received some mash(what she called it) from a friend who no longer raises chickens and it just looks like smashed up scratch grains with some powdery stuff in it. I asked but she didn't tell me where they got it from so I could inquire. Sorry for my long winded reply.

Also when you ferment the pellets or crumbles whichever you decide to use you can use up the powder that's at the bottom of the bag it doesn't go to waste

 

[IamRainey]

I don't know what's in what other people call MASH

I hear ya, West Bend! It can get confusing.

I'm a baker and I make bread from spent grain mash. That particular "mash" is the soaked or cooked soft and fermented grains you're familiar with. But, with respect specifically to commercial chicken feed, "mash" means something else. It means grains that have been "mashed up" into the smallest particles.

This link has a good picture of the difference between pellets, crumbles and mash. I'm sure no one here is going to go out and buy their own feed milling machine but the illustrations are particularly clear I think. It also makes clear that it's all the same stuff just shaped differently in processing.

If you don't care to follow the link, the feed above is mash on the left, crumbles in the middle and pellets on the right.

 

[Ridgerunner]

To make regular chicken feed, (not scratch) they gather the ingredients and grind them into a powder. That's called Mash. To make pellets they wet the mash with water and make a paste, extrude it through a die, then flash dry that. To make crumble they gently crush pellets. They have different recipes for Starter, Grower, Developer, Finisher, Layer, All-Flock, Flock Raiser, and all the others, you can see that on the label. But the form (Mash,Pellets, or Crumbles) is just how they make it.

Mash is usually fed wet and mixed into a paste commercially. The different ingredients can separate by specific gravity so they don't always get a balanced diet if it is not mixed. Pellet and crumble form keeps it from separating.

One reason they make the different forms is the different equipment the commercial operations use to feed their flocks can handle different forms better. If the commercial operations trim their hen's beaks to keep them from eating each other they can't handle pellets or crumble well so they use a wet mash. Baby chicks would have trouble with pellets but crumble works well for them. There are reasons for the different forms of feed, but the form really doesn't tell you anything about the analysis.

 

[aart]

but the form really doesn't tell you anything about the analysis.

Ditto Dat^^^

Learn to read the nutrition percentages tag...and also the mill or manufacturing date.