can you give them TOO many oats?

[clayb226]

Quote:
I have one of those $10 Walmart coffee grinders that I run my egg shells through. turns it into a fine powder that the chickens really like.

Good idea, thanks for the info. I was going to put them in the oven until they are dry, then crush them with a rolling pin, or coffee can or something of the likes. I will most likely be looking into this soon.

 

[SheilaTheBrave]

Clayb226 - what do you do w/ the powdered egg shells? Just sprinkle it on top of their feed?

 

[ChickensAreSweet]

http://www.fao.org/DOCREP/003/X6930E/X6930E05.htm

http://www.gov.mb.ca/agriculture/livestock/poultry/bba01s20.html

I have read somewhere that you shouldn't exceed 15% for oats alone (of the total feed) but I cannot find the link....

 

[clayb226]

Quote:
I have never ground them to dust, the way I was going to do it was crumble the shells up. Then it will go on food, in a separate feeder, or on the ground. Just so the chicken eat it for calcium.

 

[Delmar]

Quote:
You could.
I just put it in a separate feeder.

 

[Delmar]

Quote:
I have never ground them to dust, the way I was going to do it was crumble the shells up. Then it will go on food, in a separate feeder, or on the ground. Just so the chicken eat it for calcium.

You probably don't need to grind it that fine. In fact if you don't grind it so fine you could just throw it on the ground. I'm just a little paranoid about leaving it in a form that is recognizable as egg shells. I don't want to create egg eaters.

 

[clayb226]

It also helps, for sustainability. Why not recycle what would be thrown away, toss them table scraps, and all.

 

[SycolinWoodsChickens]

Ummmm.... are oats considered scratch?

I thought scratch grains were cracked corn and a little bit of oats and other grains. We mix whole oats with our flock raiser to feed our flock of ducks and chickens. They get a handful of scratch grains a few times a week and we free feed grit and oyster shell in other feeders.

Isn't corn the biggest nutritional problem with chickens? And most commercial scratch grain mixes are mostly cracked corn?

If you search through the posts here there are folks that feed their chooks oatmeal every day?!??!

I'm confused.