Apple slices

[Bryce Thomas]

The chickens just don't want apple slices. How do I get them to try to eat them? I know chickens have a habit of not wanting to eat something then once they start they cannot stop but mine just don't seem interested in apple slices? Any ideas?

 

[21hens-incharge]

WOW this thread derailed a bit.

I limit the quantities of treats but that said mine get things from the garden as they are available.
Apples are enjoyed by all my chickens but approximately half don't like bell peppers.
Each chicken has their own preferences.

My advice is to enjoy your birds and limit the treats so they eat the balanced feed.

 

[U_Stormcrow]

I think you've covered it adequately. The most important thing a bird can get from us is a balanced feed, and the chances of a backyard owner having the knowledge, inclination, resources, time and testing to make a complete feed are near zero. Best they can usually do is copy the works of another in hopes of ending up with what is, on average, a decent, balanced feed - but for every person choosing to copy J Rhodes, there seems to be several copying "Garden Betty", whose website is slick with feel good words.

The NUTRTITON matters.

"Raw" is not necessarily a benefit. For the health of your chickens, all legumes need to be heat treated to break down some anti-nutritional elements.

"Gluten-free"? Great - chickens are gluten free already, gluten is broken down by chicken's digestion then reassembled as different proteins useful to them in their own bodies. Depriving them of gluten-containing grains makes it that much harder to provide them a complete feed. Wheat, particularly, is a high protein source with some key amino acids in decent quantity, though the overall ratios are sub-optimal

"Soy-free"? While there are alternative legumes (see "Raw", above), soy is one of the most readily available sources of a nearly complete amino acid profile for your birds. You can build a complete feed w/o it, but its harder to source and often more expensive. You are going to have a hard time finding Methionine.

"Vegan" - without meat proteins, its hard to reach desired levels of certain critical amino acids. It can be done of course - peas and lentils are decent "green" sources for Lysine and Threonine, but poor source for Methionine. See soy-free, above, to get you closer.

"Organic"? Fine. Do you know its so hard to find adequate Methionine in green growing things that "Organic" certified feeds are allowed to add a small amount of synthetic Methionine (dl-Methionine) into their mixes, and even then, they usually just hit the low end of recommended amounts - better reach for those meat proteins, assuming you can find organic Porcine blood meal, or organic Fish Meal.

"Pre- and Pro-Biotics". Which ones? Without knowing whether or not they will survive the trip to chicken's gut, and what diegestion they are supposed to aid, its anyone's guess whether or not they are actually beneficial.

I could go on, but punching holes in the offerings of people offering glittering sounding "health" words with no knowledge, or worse, engaging in magical thinking without even the benefit of a consistent magical system is too easy to be entertaining.

 

[3KillerBs]

So the egg laying production may be not the highest but who cares

Anyone who keeps livestock rather than pets cares.

While, realistically, keeping any chickens costs a lot more than buying the 60-egg boxes for $7.99 US from Walmart, production is the difference between chickens as an affordable hobby that *might* even break even with the sale of hatching or eating eggs and chickens as expensive pets.

they live the lives they were designed for by nature

The lives they were designed for by nature are short, brutal lives in the jungles of southeast Asia. Just moving them out of that environment is largely taking nature out of the equation.

Additionally, unless you're raising Jungle Fowl or, at least, small, light, gamefowl of the type that have managed to establish feral populations in some highly-forgiving environments such as the Hawaii, Louisiana, and parts of Florida, they're not the birds nature designed either.

They are livestock, bred to suit human purposes for nearly as long as humans have kept domestic animals.

Most backyard chicken keepers do not have the biodiversity or space to have sustainable biodiversity to successfully free range the flock without having the main feed be a processed balanced feed. That being in summer. Snow covered range is even more problematic.

Right.

I think that the key to knowing if you can see a major decline in feed consumption through the use of range is whether or not the area is capable of supporting a popultion of feral chickens.

Pasture is a valuable supplement but can't substitute for primary feed anywhere that feral chickens can't survive.

manage chickens the same as their parents and granparents used to

We neither live our grandparents' lives -- great-grandparents for a lot of us -- on a diversified farm where chickens were able to scavenge spilled feed from other livestock, pick undigested feed and bugs out of other livestock's manure, and forage in a diversely-planted acreage -- nor raise our grandparents' chickens.

Add to that the fact todays chickens are bred to produce larger eggs in greater quantity than the chickens of old which means their nutritional needs are much different than chickens that were around 100+ years ago living on the farm.

What struck me most about reading old books on poultry keeping was the incredibly-low levels of production expected. Poultry for the Farm and Home, International Havester 1921 (pdf available here), was advising farmers on how to achieve a profitable 100 eggs per hen per year from LEGHORNS.

The Brahma in my avatar, the worst layer in my flock who *ought* to have been culled except for the sentimental fact that she's my granddaughter's favorite, did better than that.

if you are running a separate freezer for their high protein "treats".

That is an inconceivable luxury for anyone but the truly well-to-do -- especially if your flock consists of more than a handful of pets.

It's not wrong if you can afford it -- it's your wealth and you have ever right to use it as you choose -- but I have enough trouble feeding my family sufficient fruits and vegetables thoughout even my green and mild winters to waste freezer space on food for livestock. They get weeds pulled from the areas were I'm developing garden space on fresh land and trimmings from the preparation of our meals.

I am planning on growing extra storage squash this summer with the intent of having enough to give the flock a squash per week for vitamin A to keep the yolks an attractive yellow -- given that I'm trying to develop egg sales.

If provided only the best grower or layer pellet, they will go on a hunger strike. Invariably, I give in before they do.

No healthy animal will starve itself in the presence of food. Fill the feeder. Walk away. They'll eat what they're given when they are hungry enough.

but it is a surprisingly good basic overview

I certainly hope so because Rob Ludlow is our site founder here.

 

[3KillerBs]

On principle, I don't give my chickens people food. They don't get sliced apples, but they do get apple peels, apple cores, and the spotty apples that didn't get eaten in time.

I throw it into the run. They eat what they eat and the rest becomes one with the litter.

Limited quantities for a small flock, more generous for a larger flock.

 

[cherrynberry]

yes, it also much easier to feed from the bag, and for achieving good productivity, but not necessarily the healthiest choice for the hens or for the best quality eggs.

just saying that some people have taken it few steps further (just as feeding their dog/cat pets raw vs just feeding them balanced dry food from the bag).

nobody says about feeding them veggies alone, but if you give them free choice, they are well capable in balancing their own diet. It is a matter of stating that vitamins/minerals in the live veggies are better than those in dry feed (even when there is no big ag scientist to mix them in perfect proportions). Similarly the live protein of worms/insects is better that dehydrated and possibly somewhat rancid one from the bag.

the reasons the chickens can't just live off of grass is
1) they are not equipped with a ruminant digestive tracts to extract all the goodness from the grasses, so they only eat grasses for vitamins/minerals/digestion fiber as find needed.
2) they would have to eat like bucket a day to get that protein or carbs they need.
again nobody said about feed them greens alone

The problem with providing treats EVEN IF they have free-choice feed is that they will prefer treats. They don't know better. Its true that they can regulate their feed intake amount and their calcium intake, BUT they don't know the quality of their feed. Its a huge reason why whole grain is not the most ideal. Chickens will choose what they want to eat, not always what they need. I know this because I used to feed whole grain

 

[21hens-incharge]

I will offer this....

Most backyard chicken keepers do not have the biodiversity or space to have sustainable biodiversity to successfully free range the flock without having the main feed be a processed balanced feed. That being in summer. Snow covered range is even more problematic.
That means they eat what we give them including "treats". If those treats are all low protein the balance is thrown off with undesired results.
Add to that the fact todays chickens are bred to produce larger eggs in greater quantity than the chickens of old which means their nutritional needs are much different than chickens that were around 100+ years ago living on the farm.

 

[U_Stormcrow]

Where do you learn all that chicken nutrition info? I would love to study and learn about it more : )

The Internet. Many, many studies are published. The easiest way is to go to a known good source of decent info, like your local extension office or USDA/NRCS, give it a good read thru, make sure you get the gist of it, then look to the bibliography, and start following links. You can also look to developing countries to see if their research reaches similar conclusions, and how incorporation of local ingredients affect their feed recipes.

Once you've got a handle on the basics, troll the feed forums on BYC, see who is saying what, and what evidence they cite to back their opinions. If you are confident, jump in with your own input, be ready to defend your position. You can also look to professional/educational powerpoints as a way of testing yourself. If someone handed you the deck, and asked you to put on a presentation with it, can you? Try researching the answers to questions you don't know the answer to, as well. Its a good way of identifying what you don't know, and uncovering information you haven't previously reviewed.

You can also look for old books on poultry nutrition - many are free to read. You'd be surprised how many books from the 40s, 60s, and even early 80s highlighted ingredients and offered that they didn't understand WHY a particular ingredient was of benefit or problematic, because testing had not yet identified the cause, but experiments had repeatedly shown some noteable effect. Those books are also good sources for identifying assumptions present in old management styles which might not be applicable today.

Several of our members have made Articles or Threads capturing a host of useful resources.
Here's LauraVonSmurf's Thread (multiple topics)
Here's Casportpony's Thread (multiple topics)
Numerous Sources for "The Business Hen"
etc.

Additionally, you need a good source for information on individual ingredients. I recommend Feedipedia - not because its perfect, but because its database is quite large. If all your info comes from the same source, you can't find yourself "cherry picking" data to support your position - like this helpful offering from a pro-Barley trade group. Of course, Feedipedia.Org requires a good amount of knowledge to use properly, and as their own data discloses, there is WIDE variety in the nutritional value of many ingredients (VERY wide in some cases). If your ingredient comes with a guaranteed Nutrition label, use it.

Finally, you can ask - expect lots of answers. Evaluate the information offered, and decide for yourself. The people with more to their knowledge than mere anecdote are easy to identify, you will become familiar with BYC's best qualified posters on a given topic pretty quickly.

Hope that helps. I'm actually quite new to the whole BYC thing - not even two years into my chicken keeping journey. I started researching feed maybe 8 months ago?

 

[U_Stormcrow]

for some reason you are talking about formulating feed (mixing dozens of ingredients in correct proportions like feed companies do) and giving your birds no other choice but eating that feed.

The original discussions was about giving the birds free choice access to fruits/veggies instead of considering them harmful and "in moderation as treats only"

I'm talking about formulating feed, because offering treats "free choice" is exactly what you are doing. The equivalent of placing an ice cream bar, a chips and dip tray, and a cooler full of beer in front of a frat boys at the football game, then expecting them to eat a whole-grain starch, some green leafy veg, and a lean protein as a complete meal afterwards.

BYC is littered with people feeding very expensive, "healthy-sounding word"-heavy feeds, then finding their birds have nutrition problems because their hens are picking out favorites in accordance with flock order, and disregarding the rest - to their nutritional detriment. Plenty of poster offering too much scratch, BOSS, meal worms, etc - and they have no reference with which to judge the effects on their birds.

Offering a treat or two, in whatever quantity the birds want does two things.

1) It ensures they will displace part of their complete feed in their diet to eat the desired goody.

2) It ensures the total daily nutrition of the bird will be imbalanced in a way directly related to the nutritional makeup of the treat in question.

Even offering a range of treats is more problematic than not - at best, you are in the same situation as the owner offering those whole grain feeds, their birds playing favorites. At worse, your range of options fails to even offer the balance. Birds can't eat what they aren't given. If your treats are all legumes, you end up with one sort of imbalance. All seeds, you end up with a different sort of imbalance. All grains, yet another sort of imbalance. Read up on "protein complimentation" - there is surprising overlap in the theory of feeding humans and feeding chickens, on that particular subject.

Its part of why I've worked so hard at offering my free-ranging birds a host of options, all times of the year, in their pasture. Grasses, grains, seeds, legumes, forbs. Which I use as a suppliment to a complete feed. and I stick my hands in their guts almost weekly, looking for evidence of dietary problems which might escape external visual inspection.

Since you don't know what you are doing - clearly - the thumb rule is that treats be limited to not more than 10% of the daily diet, by weight, daily. and that treats be rotated periodically. That's to help those who don't care to understand the science from doing damage to their birds in their ignorance. No guarantees of course, the figure is quite conservative - but it fits the majority of situations, and thus has some utility.

 

[Cynthia12]

My chickens use to free feed in my back yard. I had apple trees out there, and a pear, and a cherry. They would eat some of them all, but especially liked the cherries. . In the winter, I would go out with veggies and .. mostly spinach, a d fruit at times. Not every day, but a few times a week. They ate their feed really well. We get snow!