Arkansas folks speak up.........

[Ridgerunner]

Also glad to have you aboard. Welcome home.

 

[ChickenOnaChain]

HATCH DAY 21!

 

[Greg88]

HATCH DAY 21!

ditto.
had 3 hatched when I left for work!!

 

[Greg88]

welcome Dymandchick and kbrown

 

[draye]

Hello from Booneville Ar

Hello and welcome aboard the Arkansas thread. From Mabelvale, AR.

 

[iTyrizzle]

What is the proper feeding schedule for chickens regarding their life stage of development? I have read many different things online. Some say to just feed them chick starter until they begin laying eggs, then switch to a layers feed. Others say to quit the chick starter at 3 months of age, switch to a pellet feed, and eventually to a layers feed. What do you do? I would like for my chickens to receive optimum health benefits from their food because it ultimately ends up in the eggs they produce, and my chickens being pets not future pieces of grilled chicken, I'd like for them to remain as healthy as possible throughout their lifetime to be able to continue laying eggs for years to come.

 

[draye]

What is the proper feeding schedule for chickens regarding their life stage of development? I have read many different things online. Some say to just feed them chick starter until they begin laying eggs, then switch to a layers feed. Others say to quit the chick starter at 3 months of age, switch to a pellet feed, and eventually to a layers feed. What do you do? I would like for my chickens to receive optimum health benefits from their food because it ultimately ends up in the eggs they produce, and my chickens being pets not future pieces of grilled chicken, I'd like for them to remain as healthy as possible throughout their lifetime to be able to continue laying eggs for years to come.

Feed Chick starter/grower until they are 16 or 17 weeks old. Mine depends on when I run out if the starter @ either 16 or 17 weeks. Then I switch them to layer. Bern doing chickens off and on for 40 years or so. Been at it for 6 years straight this time around.

 

[Ridgerunner]

What is the proper feeding schedule for chickens regarding their life stage of development? I have read many different things online. Some say to just feed them chick starter until they begin laying eggs, then switch to a layers feed. Others say to quit the chick starter at 3 months of age, switch to a pellet feed, and eventually to a layers feed. What do you do? I would like for my chickens to receive optimum health benefits from their food because it ultimately ends up in the eggs they produce, and my chickens being pets not future pieces of grilled chicken, I'd like for them to remain as healthy as possible throughout their lifetime to be able to continue laying eggs for years to come.

You can get a lot of different opinions on this. I’ll give you some of my opinions.

If you look on the feed bag it probably gives a feeding schedule. That is developed for the commercial hybrid egg layers managed like commercial hybrid egg layers. They control how much each chicken eats, control when they will start laying (partly by what they eat but mostly by controlling lights), and they do not feed anything other than the commercial feed, no foraging or treats. We generally don’t have the commercial hybrids and we don’t manage them that way.

That feeding schedule gives them a high protein start so they get off to a good start and feather out faster, then cuts back to a lower protein feed. They want to slow their growth some, give their internal organs and skeletons a chance to grow and develop more in line with how their body develops and grows. They also want to delay when the pullets start to lay a bit. They have fewer weird pullet eggs if laying is delayed and the eggs are larger when they start laying, so they are worth more. Those hybrid pullets lay large eggs to start anyway which might cause medical problems to small immature pullets. That general feeding schedule will work with ours but we don’t need to be anywhere as rigid as they are. We don’t have those highly specialized hybrid pullets. And we usually feed them treats or let them forage which I think is good.

The more treats you feed them or the more they forage the less important what commercial feed you feed them really is, depending some on what and how much those treats are or your quality of forage. What they need is a balanced diet where they are getting enough fats, fiber, minerals, protein and all that without going overboard in any of them. There is a fairly wide range in how much of these they eat that will work. I don’t try to micromanage each bite that goes into them. I try to not feed them a lot of one thing. To me a balanced diet means some of all of these, not a concentration of one thing. When I’m cleaning old cabbage plants out of the garden they may get a lot of cabbage for a day or two, but they don’t get a lot of cabbage (or broccoli or cauliflower leaves either) for a while after that. An occasional excess won’t hurt them, it’s when you keep that excess going for several days at a time that it upsets their balanced diet.

To me a hen does not reach her genetic potential when she lays a huge number of unusually large eggs or beefs up to the chicken version of a sumo wrestler. To me a hen has reached her genetic potential when she lays a reasonable number of eggs a normal size for her and has a reasonably athletic body, not too fat and not too skinny. I just think they are healthier this way. Less prolapse, internal laying, or egg bound. Less risk of fatty liver syndrome.

So what does all this man about how you should feed them? I think you have a lot of freedom in how you feed them. You can use the feeding schedule on the feed bag, you can use Draye’s method. You can come up with your own. I think they do fine on a 16% feed after they get past those first few weeks on a higher protein starter. Sometimes I use a 15% protein feed. I think they do fine on a higher protein feed, though I limit mine to a maximum of 20% protein. I think that’s plenty. If yours forage a lot they will balance it out pretty well by themselves. If you feed treats don’t go overboard on those and vary them so you are not always feeding the same type of treats in large quantities. Scratch one day, cabbage the next, then maybe cooked beets or defective tomatoes from your garden, whatever. Or a mixture of different of small amounts of different things like most kitchen scraps. Don’t overstress about it and don’t go to extremes. If you feed a lot of low protein treats you might be better off with a higher protein feed.

In my opinion one of the best things you can do to have healthy chickens is to start off strengthening their immune system as soon as you get them. Don’t try to keep them in a sterile environment. They are going to have to meet their environment at some point, I think they can handle that better as chicks in a brooder where you can monitor them better and control things. This does not mean letting the brooder get filthy and wet and they absolutely need clean water. Keep the brooder pretty dry.

I feed mine dirt from the run where the adults are a couple of days after they go into the brooder then every few days after that. This gives them grit, it introduces any probiotics the adults have (you won’t get that benefit the first time since you don’t have adults), and it starts them on developing any immunities they may need. Since you want pets, take them outside where they can eat dirt, eat some green stuff, and maybe even chase bugs. Stay with them so you can socialize them. They will take care of all this without you feeding them a little dirt.

As I said all this is mostly opinion. There are people on this forum that will have different opinions on practically everything I said. I believe you have a lot of freedom in how you feed them as long as you don’t go to extremes.

 

[Greg88]

Had a conversation yesterday with a poultry etension specialist at the UofA.
I was inquiring about vaccinating for Marek's.

He stated that there were no negatives to vaccinating, and could if I wanted, but there is a low incidence of Marek's in our area and was not necessarily a huge concern.

Towards the end of the conversation he brought up Fowl Pox.
He stated that Fowl Pox is a SIGNIFICANT concern in our area (spread by mosquitoes) and highly recommended vaccinating against Fowl Pox.
Just wanted to pass it along.
Greg

 

[ChickenOnaChain]

Had a conversation yesterday with a poultry etension specialist at the UofA.
I was inquiring about vaccinating for Marek's.

He stated that there were no negatives to vaccinating, and could if I wanted, but there is a low incidence of Marek's in our area and was not necessarily a huge concern.

Towards the end of the conversation he brought up Fowl Pox.
He stated that Fowl Pox is a SIGNIFICANT concern in our area (spread by mosquitoes) and highly recommended vaccinating against Fowl Pox.
Just wanted to pass it along.
Greg

Thanks for the info. The skeeters here will snatch you of your horse! By the way how did your hatch go? We had 15 of 20 e