I want to free feed my chickens uncooked rice.

[Nhoj4782]

Hello,
I want to try an experiment with some of my older hens that don't lay regularly. I want to free feed them a diet of uncooked rice. The goal in this experiment is to get an egg with a white yolk. I have had them in Tanzania. They taste the same but look strange. I also want to raise an egg my friend can eat without getting a migraine headache.
I have read that chickens will eat uncooked rice. My problem is not knowing what sort of supplements I will need to add to complete their daily requirements. If I grind the rice will that make a difference.
They will be free to run around the pen to get fresh air and whatever bugs are in the area. The will not be gaged up but they will be segregated away from the rest of the flock.
I am just thinking this over and I figured I might as well ask this group for some opinion/ideas.
So what does the group have to offer?
Thanks
John

 

[Red Mangrove]

Chickens are predators. I would never feed them starch as a primary food source

 

[nuthatched]

Hi there, Why does your friend get migranes from eggs? Pale egg yolks is a sign of a lack of nutrition of the yolk, from a poor diet, your birds will become ill and die from a diet of pure starch and almost zero nutritional value. Anything you add to keep the birds alive will make the yolks darker, if they continue laying at all

 

[Stravager]

Going off of some quick research and digging through multiple articles I found out that Tanzanians feed Sorghum grain to their chickens which lack the yellow pigments that North American yellow pigment-based diets have. To quote an article I just read North Americans use "lutein as an additive, though yellow maize, soybeans, carrots and alfafa powder will also do the trick" to get yellow yolks.
So it's not likely that the yellow pigment is causing migraines unless your friend has an extreme sensitivity... maybe it has something to do with the protein content of the egg. If you know exactly what protein is the issue then you might be able to adjust the nutritional value of the egg, but in any case going by all the articles I read I wouldn't feed uncooked rice in any sort of high volume (over 20% of their diet) since that can cause diarrhea and poor egg production which is the exact opposite of what you want.
Hope that helps a little.

 

[BarnyardChaos]

Hello,
I want to try an experiment with some of my older hens that don't lay regularly. I want to free feed them a diet of uncooked rice. The goal in this experiment is to get an egg with a white yolk. I have had them in Tanzania. They taste the same but look strange. I also want to raise an egg my friend can eat without getting a migraine headache.
I have read that chickens will eat uncooked rice. My problem is not knowing what sort of supplements I will need to add to complete their daily requirements. If I grind the rice will that make a difference.
They will be free to run around the pen to get fresh air and whatever bugs are in the area. The will not be gaged up but they will be segregated away from the rest of the flock.
I am just thinking this over and I figured I might as well ask this group for some opinion/ideas.
So what does the group have to offer?
Thanks
John

Hello John, welcome!
I have reservations about your plans, though I'm not educated much in the nutritional needs of chickens. I do know from experience that lack of one nutrient or another can play havoc in the flock with all sorts of problems for the birds and for any chicks you may wish to hatch from them. If you are serious about this, please please please check with some poultry livestock experts (maybe even contact someone in Tanzania for specific guidance), or an avian veterinarian.

 

[Geena]

It's not going to work unless you control everything that they eat, even insects and greens contain beta carotene which will turn the yolks yellow.
As to what you'd have to add to rice to form a complete feed... a lot. Rice is lacking in the protein, fat, amino acids, calcium and vitamins that your chickens need to survive.

 

[NatJ]

I have read that chickens will eat uncooked rice. My problem is not knowing what sort of supplements I will need to add to complete their daily requirements. If I grind the rice will that make a difference.

Trying to feed mostly rice with just a small amount of supplement is not going to work well at all. I don't think grinding the rice will make much difference, as long as the chickens have plenty of grit for their gizzards.

I found a post from last year, were someone was asking about trying to make a homemade diet based on rice, and was given this answer by a knowledgeable poster here:

So, I sat down with the calculator. 48# of rice. 24# of roasted soybeans. 24# of wheat (soft). 1# of dried seaweed for trace minerals, 3# of your calcium source (oyster shell?).

Based on published AVERAGES (your ingredients could be better, or worse, and could vary from season to season, field to field) that should (after correction for moisture content) be about 16.5% protein, 2.3% fiber (lower than target, if some rice hulls get in there, ITS FINE. Soybean hulls too, as long as they are roasted), 6% fat (higher than I want - blame the numbers I have for roasted soybeans, and DO NOT add BOSS), with a very good amino acid profile (so if your soy is lowere protein than average, its not as concerning). Your dried seaweed (depending on what type) should provide phosphorus and a host of needed vitamins and minerals.

*IF* the zombie apocalypes begins, start there, and adjust based on experience. If you can grow hard/winter/red wheat (the higher protein stuff) its an across the board improvement on the recipe. If you don't have a great calcium source, trade with your non-zombie neighbors for fish bones, roast they with your soybeans before inclusion in the recipe.

The first paragraph of that quote has the main points, with the next two paragraphs discussing various details.

As you can see, that particular recipe would only be about half rice, with the other half being other ingredients that are important to make it work.

 

[Chris2018]

A couple of things, rice is not a staple food of poultry. It lacks a lot of nutrients for poultry to be healthy.

Most people that get migraines from poultry eggs are sensitive to proteins found in eggs. Eating eggs can also cause blood levels of sodium to rise too high or too low, which can lead to headaches.
The color of an egg yolk is determined by carotenoids (fat-soluble compounds) not proteins so attempting to lighten the egg yolk probably isn't going to help your friend.

 

[U_Stormcrow]

As the guy who calculated the rice recipe for one of our posters in Japan, who grew his own rice and was planning against potential shortages, let me make clear:

1) I used the rice largely as a carb substitute for corn. It is not the primary nutritional source in this feed. In fact, 1/4 of the feed was soft wheat, not terrible, but a LOT better than rice, and 1/4 of the feed was roasted soybean to compensate mostly for the protein deficiencies in rice.

2) The target was a "layer formulation" - nutritionally bare minimum feed quality. This wasn't a recipe I'd suggest for raising hatchlings, or supporting any sort of meat bird.

3) there was NO consideration for vitamins and minerals in that - its not necessarily a complete/balanced feed, it merely targets the big four and their subcategories. (CA ; P and the top 4 aminos).

4) It was a plan against a potential shortage, not intended as a long term feed regimen. I think I later commented in the thread words to the effect of "start there, monitor your flock, and adjust as needed."

 

[Jaybird916]

Hello,
I want to try an experiment with some of my older hens that don't lay regularly. I want to free feed them a diet of uncooked rice. The goal in this experiment is to get an egg with a white yolk. I have had them in Tanzania. They taste the same but look strange. I also want to raise an egg my friend can eat without getting a migraine headache.
I have read that chickens will eat uncooked rice. My problem is not knowing what sort of supplements I will need to add to complete their daily requirements. If I grind the rice will that make a difference.
They will be free to run around the pen to get fresh air and whatever bugs are in the area. The will not be gaged up but they will be segregated away from the rest of the flock.
I am just thinking this over and I figured I might as well ask this group for some opinion/ideas.
So what does the group have to offer?
Thanks
John

I was under the impression that rice was no longer thrown at weddings because the wild birds would ingest it and the rice would swell when the bird drank water, leading to ruptured crops and death.
If this has any semblance of truth, I would be concerned that uncooked rice might pose a similar risk when fed to chickens.
Just thinking out loud…