Alfalfa for chickens...and what about impacted crop?

[Chicks Galore3]

Our chickens have access to our hay mow, with lots of grass/alfalfa mix hay. We have never had a problem with impacted crop, or anything else related to them consuming the hay.


Instead of quick oats, why don't you feed whole oats or rolled oats? Whole oats can be soaked and softened if you're concerned about your chooks eating them. Rolled oats are the livestock version of oatmeal, and can be prepared in the same way. Both are a lot cheaper, too. Whole oats are about $12 for a 50 pound bag, and last way longer than the small containers you get in the store. I don't know about the price of rolled oats, I haven't fed them in a long time.

My mom and i were thinking about that to......We thought it better to pay a little more on healthy less proccesed oats. Question------My mom gets fifty pound bags of wheat berries to make bread, would a handful of those now and then hurt them?

 

[Smiles-N-Sunshine]

I think wheat berries would be a fine treat for chickens. Personally, I prefer not to give too many grains, because then they eat less of their feed crumbles with all the vitamins and minerals in them.

 

[Chicks Galore3]

good point. But still for a treat.

 

[Den in Penn]

Whole corn, wheat and oats are the grains found most in the "dreaded" scratch. Nothing wrong in giving them some. Just the balanced diet thing to worry about.

 

[Erica]

Grit has nothing to do with processing anything in the crop. Grit is stored in the gizzard (which is way past the crop in the digestive tract) to grind seeds and other coarse materials.

A slight quibble with this, hope you don't mind KDK1.

When the gizzard stops processing (e.g. blocked up with fibrous material) the crop can no longer pass food along the chain. Sometimes what first appears as crop impaction has actually begun in the gizzard.

Perhaps they eat more hard, fibrous material when there's no grit available. Whatever the case, lack of grit can definitely cause crop impaction.

regards

Erica

 

[karlamaria]

Cubes? Where does one get these? I bought horse alfalfa cubes and there was stems etc and they never softened up, it was like a pile of sticks in a bowl how does one get leaves of alfalfa ? Other then getting a bale of the stuff, how can i get alfalfa for my girls?