Daily carb and protein requirement per bird

I'm rethinking my feeding and trying to move away from feeding pelleted feed for my egglayers. I would ultimatedly like to feed a mix based more on whole grains with a high protein supplement to round it out nutritionally. In the process of researching my options, I'm finding lots of info on how much processed rations (ie egglayer pellets or mash) a layer should eat a day, but it doesn't translate to the type of feeding I'd like to do. Does anyone know the carb and protein requirement per bird? I'm not talking the percentage, I know that should be in the mid to upper teens, but I'm trying to find about how much energy they need, so I know about what the proper ration would be per day per bird.

 

Trouble is the kind of feed they are talking about is generally commercial, prepared feeds and thats what I am trying to move away from. I don't want to waste feed, and I want to encourage them to glean as much as they can from the pasture and forage. In the past I have offered free choice commercial ration all day. This has amounted to lots of waste. The dust left in the bowl after they have finished is incredible. As I try to move to a whole grain/seed/legume ration I was going to switch to feeding twice a day, each time serving them half their ration for the day. I have found some old fashioned feed formulas for 15 hens for 30 days, so maybe I'll adapt those figures. Most importantly, I want to make sure I am meeting their nutritional needs.

 

I find too that on the days they are out to free range, they eat next to nothing. When I moved my chickens from the hen house with a confined yard to the chicken tractor with non-stop access to fresh grass, their food consumption dropped 50%. It goes down even more when I let them out to free range for several hours in the afternoon/evening. The weather and my availability to keep an eye on them (we're in town, with no fence) keeps me from allowing them free range all the time, so I feel like the chicken tractor is the next best thing.

I'm currently weening my girls off the pellets and mash and mixing it in with grains and a high protein supplement, and I'm finding that they are just picking out the corn and the oats and throwing the rest aside. I'm wondering what the best strategy is to get them to "finish their plates" so to speak. Thats one reason why I don't want to offer a 24/7 buffet, I'm afraid they will eat only the grains and not be getting all their nutrients.

Weighing the food morning and evening, even just for a few weeks, sounds like a good way to figure out a baseline for how much they need.

 

Quote:That's exactly what I'm looking for!!! I spent hours on google getting nowhere. Thanks for the link!

 

Quote:Si, capisco! Grazie milletante!!!

Thanks for the specific figures. So the extra carbs in the winter are to help them keep warm, makes sense. That's why they say not to feed scratch in the summer if I'm not mistaken.