Alfalfa pellets for my chickens?

[Davaroo]

Quote:
Ahhh, theres a trick. Withhold all other feed when you give them the greens. Make the green feed their midday feeding, and remove all other feed from them for several hours prior.

 

[swtamour]

Thanks, I didn't think of taking away their normal feed for awhile. I'll try that tomorrow and see what happens.

 

[txredneckmedic]

mine have never had a problem taking other food before their pellets

 

[purpletree23]

I really wouldn't advise taking away their food or getting trimming from vegetables from the grocery store. Chickens need to have constant access to food and water. The grocery greens and other things might not be fresh and most likely sprayed with chemicals.

How big of a grass area do you have? If it is not sprayed with chemicals let them free range. They know what is best for them to eat.

 

[keljonma]

Thanks for the suggestion but I have tried giving them lettuce, cabbage, carrots, pears, etc and they don't care for it. I've tried several times and no luck. Also, I just bought a pound of alfalfa pellets and soaks them in water. I gave it to them and no takers either. I'm going to keep trying for the next few days and hopefully they'll like it soon. If not, I'll probably have to consider growing comfrey for them.

There is some controversy these days about feeding comfrey to livestock. Some say it is better not to use it as feed.

If you are going to grow comfrey, try planting some clovers, dandelions, Swiss chard, plantain, purslane, timothy or alfalfa instead.

Also, if your birds aren't used to the store greens, try chopping them up.

ETA: Carrots and winter squashes like pumpkin, are full of beta carotene (vitamin A) and make for very beautiful orange yolks.​

 

[SallyF]

I had a small bale of dried alfalfa left over when the hamster died, so I put it in the chickens nest boxes. They ate all of it.

 

[Davaroo]

Quote:
This business about continuous feed availability has filtered down to us from the commercial business, mostly. Most people do not even know of this origin.

Chickens in tight confinement need to be hand fed, essentially, since they have no other way to obtain sustenance.
As a convenience to the keeper, and to ensure the birds get a controlled intake, keeping the feeder full meets the need.
(When you think about it, confinement rearing is the ultimate form of stewardship, since the creatures every need is catered to by the keeper.)

By contrast, it was common practice a hundred years ago to offer main feedings in the early morning, midday and afternoon. The rest of the time, the birds were on their own. The people who raised chickens this way, did so with great success. There are those today who still do.

To make it easier, we are told by today's gurus to keep the feeder full at all times, and there is nothing wrong with that. If you work, have a family, go to school and/or have other facets of your life besides tending to chickens (gasp!!

) then it is a satisfactory solution.

But it is not the only way. Water, on the other hand, is an essential and should be always available.

AS for supermarket greens, your point about chemicals is a good one. As for freshness, most of the stuff I see trimmed off produce is rejected on appearance, and is fine for chickens. Cut off the bruised or unsightly portions and they are fine. Whether any but the outermost portions are laden with chemicals is for you to decide, I suppose.
Sure seems a good way to utilize a resource that otherwise would go to rot.

 

[knightie]

The "trick" to getting them to eat it is mix it with their feed! I soak it and put their crumble in and the scarf it all down.

I ferment my feed now and I just put it all in and ferment and you had nested move when you put that feed down... The ducks will run you over and the chickens will climb a over you! (G)

 

[coloredcoat]

The experiment was to feed whole corn, and let them get what else they want from the yard. This works from April to October when there is a lot of green stuff plus insects. Now that everything is brown and insects are gone, I am feeding them the cattle cubes to supplement protein and greens. Similar to what has already been said on here, I take about a pound of them every evening when I gather eggs and pour water on them in the trough and let them soak overnight. The hens love it, and usually clean the alfalfa mash up every day. If they don't, no big deal. I just put in a little less next evening when I soak another batch in the trough.

I doubted the whole corn diet might not be optimal since, you know, chickens must be fed 16% crude protein formulated feed from a bag. Well that nonsense is debunked right now. Not only do the chickens thrive on whole corn; bugs, grass, and alfalfa is plenty of extra protein. Egg laying and pullet growth is as good as can be expected. I get between 6 and 8 eggs a day from 8 hens. Mine aren't the fast growing breeds, so I don't care that the rooster fryers seem to hang around a little longer. Hanging around is exactly the point since they do a terrific job keeping the grasshoppers down. They will still taste fine in a few weeks now that bug season is over.

I wish I would have known this chicken diet and money saving method decades ago. That 16% formulated feed is not only ridiculously expensive($15 for 50#) but it also contains soy for the majority of the additional crude protein(hence the high price). I'm not all that excited about feeding my chickens soy. I buy one bag of chick starter crumbles after the eggs hatch, and that bag lasts until 15 chickens grow big enough to start eating whole corn, bugs, grass, or alfalfa mash at around 6 weeks. I don't buy any other bag of feed except for the alfalfa cubes then. I get corn by the 55 gallon drum at the elevator for something less than $9 a hundred pounds as of last time. A drum holds something like 350 pounds. My current rate of feeding is about a gallon of corn a day for 30 grown chickens. This fluctuated lower in summer.

Anyway, this might have been a better post for a different thread, but those are my most current experiments. I am saving a ton of money with this feeding arrangement, the eggs keep coming, the chickens look and act healthy, and I couldn't be happier with the results.

 

[Hubert Cumberdale]

Ours go mental for baby spinach