Chicken food chart idea....

[3peeps]

As I was reading through other posts I had an idea for this site: how about a page where foods are listed alphabetically in subcatagories. It could be updated in chart form whenever anyone has an idea. There could be categories for good foods for anytime, foods to feed sparingly, and foods never to give, and then a line or space next to the food with any comments, such as high in calcium, or causes diarrhea, etc. Forgive any mistakes I make here...I'm relatively new to chickens.

Example:

Good foods: Cheerios - dry or in liquid
Lettuce - wilted OK but not moldy
Oatmeal - cooked or raw
Zillywilly Plant - freshly hulled

Sometimes foods:
Garlic - if they have a cold
Meat scraps - well-cooked, not spicey
Spinach - too much causes problems

Never: Eggshells not broken up - can cause egg eating
Potato peels - toxic (?)
Onions - makes eggs taste funny
etc., etc. - reasons why

 

[Varisha]

good idea

 

[Buff Hooligans]

I think Peeps has a great idea. Can we give her suggestions from other threads that she can gradually add to her list under the proper categories?

Greens: carrot leaves

 

[Nifty-Chicken]

A good idea, but I've got a way to make it even better:

Someone volunteer to be the organizer of this information and create a BYC "Personal Page" called "Chicken Food Chart".

Have everyone gather and send the information to that person and they can update the page, then we'll add it to the BYC site.

<BTW, this is part of the whole idea of the BYC Personal pages tool... allow all the members to contribute to the site>

 

[Wynette]

Has anyone started this chart yet? I think it's a fantastic idea, and I'd be happy to volunteer to put it together...except I tried to do my own personal page and flopped at it! If someone could help me with that, I'd be happy to take this on and search for strings on food!

 

[Buff Hooligans]

I could create a chart or table on Word or WordPerfect. Would it "translate" to a Personal Page?
I was thinking of starting that project this morning, then realized that so much of it has already been written, just in various threads. So this project is to unite all the food/treat info into one place?

 

[SandraChick]

Don't mean to burst your bubble.....it's an overall great idea.

However...there will be disagreements.
For example- My chickens get raw meat all the time (especially after a good hunt---mine got fresh deer meat this morning) and eat a lot of spicy food. As a matter of fact hot pepper, cayene, and the like are known to be good for chickens.

Sandra

 

[3peeps]

I think this is also something good to consider(disagreements)...could there be an "undecided" section? Or something of that nature. I'd hate to scrap the idea because of disagreements. There must be some way we could communicate that certain members have had luck with certain foods. Maybe links could be included with articles or posts so that readers could decide for themselves. Although, I wouldn't want to do a lot of that, because then the list would lose credibility or become too confusing to be worth the effort.

I like the idea of doing something more organized and professional-looking, but I have relatively little computer experience. In my mind, I am picturing an easy-to-read page with columns and sections...maybe color coded.

To start the project, perhaps there could be a sticky thread put in the forum somewhere where people could submit foods and comments. From there, it could be organized into a page with all the contents. It could be accessed either through the forum or on the home page under the learning center.

What do you think?

 

[Wynette]

3peeps, what about an Excel sheet? I'm pretty familiar with Excel. I'm not sure what a "sticky thread" is. I like your idea of somehow color coding it. Is there any way to put an Excel sheet maybe in the Learning Center?

I REALLY REALLY like this idea, as I've wondered about so many food items (if they're okay to feed or not) - I feel like this would be very useful!

 

[3peeps]

Quote:
Wynette...a "sticky thread" or post is one that's marked so it stays at the top of all the other topics. For example, they used it for the community coop design project.

I would think Excel would work, although I haven't used it for years!