What can I temporarily sub for chicken feed?

[drangle]

oh wow, I had wondered, didnt know it was that bad. how long can a chicken live on grains before they start to decline?

 

[U_Stormcrow]

oh wow, I had wondered, didnt know it was that bad. how long can a chicken live on grains before they start to decline?

That's a complicated question with no easy answers.
The short outiline is that modern birds have been bred to "perform" much better than the birds of even a hundred years ago, and their dietary needs have increased accordingly.

Subpar diet means subpar performance. I often use as example the males of North and South Korea as example of the effects of poor diet. Closely related genetically, similar geography, divided by politics for just a couple generations - yet the difference between a subsistance diet (North Korea) and a modern diet with excess (South Korea) is obvious in height, weight, disease resistance. That's the broad brush.

For chickens, it comes down to breed, climate, conditions - what grains they are being fed, and what they can scavenge from the missed feed of other animals, spilled grains in the fields, native weeds, and of course native bugs. The more we control their conditions (i.e. small runs/cages) the more they are vulnerable to our choices. The flip side - free ranging as I do - ensures variety (because I have deliberately seeded my fields with variety) but also variability - we give up control and increasingly must rely on the birds having the needed choices available to them. As insurance, I feed my birds a very high nutritional quality feed to help buffer seasonal variations.

Where you choose to fall along the spectrum from completely kept birds on nothing but commercial feed to completely feral birds with no feed whatsoever - is a measure of your risk tolerance and your expectations of yoru birds.

 

[3KillerBs]

We know how they did. They did very poorly.

I was shocked when I read the .pdf in this thread https://www.backyardchickens.com/threads/poultry-for-the-farm-and-home.1443907/ and found that the book was dedicated to teaching famers how to get their flocks up to a profitable 100 eggs per hen per year -- from LEGHORNS.

I had a Brahma, the worst layer in my flock at the time, who did better than that.

 

[citychicks99]

After feeding my chickens rice, eggs, etc. For two days, I only gave them feed this morning and only the cream legbars were eating. The RIRs didn't touch it. They did drink some water. I went out again a few hours later, around 9:30, and they still didn't touch it. Their crops looked empty. Is it possible they're picky now and were waiting for the rice and eggs?

 

[saysfaa]

Yes. As I might if I was looking at the carrots and cabbage that are left to snack on after the cheese crackers and skittles are gone. (Not the best example but I'm on day three of a car trip just now - only about sixty miles to go, yay, after ... hm... 20 hrs of drive time. Actually, cheese crackers don't sound good now either.)

They will eat the feed before they get hungry enough to harm themselves.

 

[U_Stormcrow]

Yes. As I might if I was looking at a carrots and cabbage to snack on after snacking on the cheese crackers and skittles. (Not the best example but I'm on day three of a car trip just now - only about sixty miles to go, ya, after ... hm... 20 hrs of drive time)

They will eat the feed before they get hungry enough to harm themselves.

 

[nuthatched]

My dog just eats rice, chicken and carrots.

That's a really unbalanced diet, do you add mineral/vitamins/other nutrient powder? It's good for short term but not remotely healthy for everyday.

 

[saracarver3]

I read never to feed any part of beans or pea plants - I think uncooked to poultry. Rice cooked of course.

 

[WI chickens]

That's a really unbalanced diet, do you add mineral/vitamins/other nutrient powder? It's good for short term but not remotely healthy for everyday.

Exactly. I'm more concerned about the dog than the chickens. Sounds like the chickens will get chicken food soon. The dog only gets this terribly unbalanced diet it sounds like.

 

[Nommie Bringer-Uvda-Noms]

If I'm only looking at a couple days, mine will get table scraps (only from food made with no onions, and we rarely ever eat legumes, because they aggravate our own inflammation issues) and whatever gains I have on hand, cooked, with a bit of nutri-drench - an emergency goat health booster, I keep on hand (obviously) for my goats. But, my gravity feeder will hold 200# of their usual non-gmo layer feed, so it's a rare necessity.