Buckeye Breed Thread

[muddstopper]

There are at least three things I have seen to lead to picking. Low protien, over crowding, and to much heat. I have also noticed that my birds dont lay as well if I use a all plant protien based layer feed. Sometimes my feed store runs out of the animal protien based feed and I will go ahead and purchase something else. Almost immediantly, the egg production drops.

 

[vmdanielsen]

ok, my buckeyes are pecking each other 's backs (near the tail) I'm still a newbie. Which feeds (Brand names please) put animal protein in their feed? also if I supplement with ground beef, how much and how often? Thanks!!

 

[BetterHensandGardens]

Pathfinders, Echoinghills, and Muddstopper - thank you for the replies on the feather picking. I'm thinking that we had some concurrent issues that led to the feather picking; the birds are getting bigger and more crowded, they are getting bored, and we changed feeds to both lower and non-animal protein.

Trying to stop this behavior, we have opened the door to the outside so they can free-range, added cat food to their food for increased protein/animal protein, and started throwing corn cobs in their pen to give them something else to pick on.

They seemed to be responding well, last night I didn't see any feather picking. But about the cat food (I read on another thread about feeding cat food and tried to do a search on this thread but didn't get anything to come up), am I doing something wrong by feeding them the cat food? And are there preferred cat foods I should be using? This said 30% protein and animal - so I got it.

Also, we will be going back to the grain mill on Friday, if they don't have turkey or game bird starter again, any suggestions on what to buy? Obviously not the 24% organic feed for the buckeyes - at 13 weeks what's best to be feeding them? Also, once they start laying, what's it best to feed them - the layers feed is not really high in protein either - or do they just need higher protein while they're growing up?

 

[cgmccary]

I feed my Buckeye Chicks Purina Game Bird Chow Startena for the first 8-10 weeks (30%). After that, I feed them the Game Bird Chow Conditioner (19%) until the pullets are laying when I switch them to the Game Bird Chow Layena (20%).

Unlike Purina's Sunfresh series of feeds (Startena; Layena & Flock Raiser) which only contain plant (soy) protein, Purina's Game Bird Chow series of feeds all contain both animal and plant protein.

 

[punky rooster]

all my pullets have this.
my boy

 

[OSUman]

I forgot to add the pics of the bantam buckeyes that I took.

 

[cgmccary]

Hey OSUman:

Thanks for the great pictures. I didn't get to go this year and am happy to see these pictures.

Chris

 

[OSUman]

Quote:
Yep no problem.

 

[punky rooster]

Nice pics OSUman!

 

[OSUman]

I forgot to add that none of those birds were mine ( I wish) but they were just the ones that were being shown at the ON.