When speaking of corn, are you just talking about the hard, dried corn in scratch specifically or does regular corn also count, such as, fresh, frozen or canned?? I mean in reference to "making them hot", which from what I've read above doesn't make them hot at all in fact anyways?? I give my hen, a BR, a piece of frozen corn on the cob which I sit in water a couple minutes to soften it some so she can peck it and it is still nice and cold for her and she tears it up. She not only loves it, but I use it also as a means to help keep her cool here in Florida heat!! Is there anything wrong with doing this?? She has one every morning and at the moment, I'm using it more also just to get something with some form of nutrition in her as she is barely eating any of the Layena layer feed I feed her lately?? I honestly think it's cause of the terrible heat here in summer as I remember last year about this time the same thing happened?? I'm mainly just keeping her going with vitamins, poly vi sol without iron baby vitamins, and Nutri Drench about once a week and I feed her various lettuce greens which she loves, with usually canned or frozen veggies and fresh fruits, and I'll add a little cooked rice, potatoes or pasta as well as a little ground beef and or shrimp alot of days also. I've been boiling the shrimp so as to get a little broth out of it and then have been trying to make her a wet mash with that broth and her regular feed and then chop the shrimp up very finely and add it to the wet mash in an effort to get her to eat more of her feed. She usually manages however to pick out all the pieces of shrimp though no matter how fine I chop it!! She LOVES shrimp AND gr meat as well actually and lettuce is her next favorite thing!!
So she's really only eating a whole lot.. to where her crop is distended way out.. when I give her that big bowl with all the things I mentioned in it, in the early evening just before she goes up to roost??!! The rest of the day, except for the corn on the cob she picks apart and eats along with some dried mealworms I'll toss down for her, I don't see her eat anything else?? I mean she'll peck a few times every now and then in her feed bowl.. but she's not really eating cause it's not going down barely?? She also has oyster shell always available to her and I HAVE seen her eating LOTS of that lately though?? That's really odd too cause she has never been much of an oyster shell eater and she's already 2 1/2!!!!
Can any of you nutritionists in here tell me if I can keep her going like this until she starts eating her feed normally again?? Or any other advice or ideas please?? This was how she made it thru last summer but I still worry that she's not eating her feed much.
Thank you!!