Just feeding chickens scratch feed & cracked corn.

[bledsoe95]

Scratch feed & cracked corn is all i feed my chickens will this be ok?

 

[The Moonshiner]

I suspect it's not actually food but compressed sawdust or something.

You didn't accidentally buy some of that new fangled pellet bedding instead of feed, did you?
I think that stuff is made of wood and would explain why they wouldn't eat it.

 

[Geena]

why are food producers so poor at producing an attractive tasting nutritionally balanced food with all their "scientifically designed" nonsense.

Mainly because they are trying to produce a nutritional but economical product that is commensurate with the value of the animal that is being fed. Most people don't want to pay $50 a bag just for chicken feed. But if you want to they certainly have perhaps tastier feeds that range from $50 to almost a $100 a bag.

I get not wanting to feed pellets, nothing wrong with that at all, but I don't see why some people feel the need to vilify them. Obviously the vast majority of chickens raised are fed commercial diets and are perfectly happy and healthy.

 

[nuthatched]

Actually this thread came to the top of my search engine when I queried "why not feed them all scratch" or something like that.

Search engine looks for word matches, not dates.
An all scratch diet will slowly kill most birds. Feed them the pelleted feed, no healthy birds will refuse to eat. They're just spoiled with the tasty junk food.

 

[Geena]

I suspect it's not actually food but compressed sawdust or something.

LOL, that's just absurd.

If your birds are free ranging all day over a large area with good forage they're not going to want to eat that many pellets. Depending on where you are located, come fall a lot of those food resources are going to dry up and then they will for sure need a more complete feed. Scratch is far from complete and is lacking in many important nutrients that your chickens need to survive and be healthy.

If you look on your bag of scratch, it usually has a disclaimer on there stating that it is not a complete feed and should only comprise 10% or less of their daily diet.

If you have laying hens I would suggest that you at least have oyster shell available for them.

 

[NatJ]

I'm curious why scratch would "slowly kill them." What nutrient is it lacking? Or better still what nutrient is scratch lacking that could not easily be compensated for by grazing for grass and bugs 2-4 hours a day? What evidence do you have that scratch will actually kill a bird? Are there any studies regarding this or is it just one of those opinions passed down by word of mouth with no hard evidence supporting it?

What nutrients are lacking? Protein is one of the most obvious ones. Check the bag for the percent protein in the scratch.

There has been a lot of research into what percent protein is needed by chickens. Protein is one of the most expensive things in chicken feed, so all the big companies want to know how little they can get away with. The general consensus seems to be about 18% minimum for chicks, 15% minimum for layers, with higher numbers in some specific cases.

Protein is made of amino acids. Chickens need certain ones in particular ratios. If there is not enough of one, all the rest go to waste because they cannot be used correctly. There is plenty of research on that too. Methionine and Lysine are the two that are most likely to run short first, so they tend to have individual listings on bags of chicken food, but I'm not sure whether they would be listed on the scratch grains bag. In Europe, chicken foods tend to have lower overall protein than in the USA, but they are more careful about making sure all the amino acids are properly balanced so the chickens can use it effectively. Scratch grains alone does not have the right balance to get away with lower total protein amounts.

Can free ranging for 2-4 hours each day make up the difference? That depends on what they find while ranging. A plain grassy lawn, or a piece of barren desert, is not going to have what they need. I don't know how many bugs and worms are enough for each chicken each day, and I don't know what it takes to let the bugs and worms reproduce faster than the chickens eat them, so I cannot evaluate whether your specific property can produce what they need or not.

What evidence do you have that scratch will actually kill a bird? Are there any studies regarding this or is it just one of those opinions passed down by word of mouth with no hard evidence supporting it?

There are lots of studies about protein levels in chicken diets, going back about a hundred years. Here is one example:

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/7178002/
"The effect of low protein pullet growing diets on performance of laying hens housed in the fall," with authors R B Christmas, C R Douglas, L W Kalch, R H Harms
It was published in 1982.

Two quotes:
"A total of 6000 layer-type pullet chicks were fed either a low protein (9.1%) or a high protein (15.4%) diet from 8 through 18 weeks of the growing period"

"Pullets fed the low protein grower diet had higher mortality during the growing period, greater feed intake during the laying period, eggs with higher Haugh unit values, and reduced egg production in the laying house."

 

[21hens-incharge]

Have you tried moistening some of the feed with plain water?

Many birds that are picky will eat the layer ration if it is wetted and the consistency of cooked oatmeal.

If you are fine with your birds eating scratch and whatever they forage that's up to you.

Fatty liver disease is a real thing and for some birds there are no warning signs. They just keel over from blood vessels in the liver rupturing.

The pellet feed is not defective. Your birds are spoiled by all the high calorie, high fat treats.

 

[ranchhand]

How old are your chickens? Do they free range?

For what you are spending on scratch and cracked corn you could get a balanced, appropriate feed for their age. Corn is a snack, not a nutritious feed. Generally corn and other treats shouldn't be more than 10% of their diet.

I buy feed and only give corn or scratch every week or so. Usually when I want to round them up early!

 

[Pet Duck Boy]

Quote:
What's ironic is my grandmother is the same. During the last visit at her house, me and her talked about my chickens since she used to keep a lot back in the day for eggs and meat. She asked me what I fed them, I replied chicken layer, which costs 16$ for a 25 lb bag in the suburbs here. She was astounded since she grew her own corn and dried it for almost free. Apparently, she fed hers a "great" diet of dried corn and as a rare treat gave them leftover chicken carcasses. When I mentioned it was an unhealthy diet, she stated that her layers lived to "An amazing 2 1/2 years" until they died of "old age". She didn't believe that a chicken could live past 5 years. I'll get back to her when mine are 3 years old, and she needs to touch the computer for once, lol.

 

[jjthink]

Unfortunately a lot of feed stores to this day tell people that scratch is what they should buy to feed as the mainstay of their chickens diet. Shameful, considering it is only okay as a snack food. I wish all folks considering getting chickens or who already have them could somehow know to research well beyond their local feed store when determining how to best care for their birds. Until the average intelligence level in feed store staff goes WAY up, innocent lives are paying the price of bad information given to their guardians. And that price is malnutrition, or worse.

JJ