Does anyone feed chickens "the old fashioned" way?

[Wifezilla]

I'm more interested in the reduction of processed food, including processed pet food.

That is my eventual goal

For now I am using commercial feed with a high protein content and giving them lots of greens and kitchen scraps. Once we aren't buried under snow, my ducks will have more options.​

 

[redhen]

Quote:
hi...at the top of the page it says Index.....click it...it will take you to all the different sections/themes here..such as: Coop building...hatching eggs....etc...then when you click on the section you want....there will be a little yellow button on the right side it will say.."post topic"..or something like that..lol...good luck, sorry i'm not much real help!

 

[CMB]

My hens are pretty much raised the "old fashioned" way? They stay in the coop all night long and I let em out in the morning. They forage (yes even in the winter on snow covered ground) in the hay stack, they follow the horses and goats around scratching through the droppings looking for hidden goodies and they seem to do just fine. I also (mostly for my pleasure in doing so) scatter cracked corn for them in the morning when I let them out sometimes. I do also feed them left overs and kitchen scraps including crushed egg shells. No commercial feed at all. I have 18 hens and get anywhere from 13 to 17 eggs a day.

 

[lalyswishytail]

For CMB!!!!

PLEASE say more about what you do--you sound like an expert, (at least to me)!!! Maybe you could give advice to those of us without other animals around.

 

[Mac in Wisco]

Quote:
Most layer feed isn't made of the odds and ends and by products from human food manufacturing that cat and dog food and such is made of. It is generally whole grains mixed in proportion to provide the correct amount of protein and energy, run through a mill to crack the grains, mixed with some mineral supplements and extruded into a pellet to make a whole ration. It is not the chemically engineered conglomeration that most human food has become.

If you were to prepare a proper ration from grains that you grew yourself, milled at home with a small grain mill, and supplemented with the proper minerals, you would end up with much the same thing, albeit not in a pellet form.

 

[digitS']

Well, it is exactly 100 years old and James Dryden was a "modern" expert at that time. He was a poultry scientist at what became Oregon State University. Dryden was the first with a 300 egg a year hen and the first with a lifetime 1,000 egg hen. He gave us the California Grey breed.

His 1909 booklet "Feeding for Eggs" can be downloaded at this OSU site. It is only 24 pages so doesn't take too long to download.

Dryden knew what he was talking about even tho' this is 100 years ago. He worked out rations using ground and whole wheat, corn, oats, bran, middlings, linseed meal, skim milk, cut bones, beef scrap, alfalfa, clover, and kale.

I have some University of Idaho publications from the 1930's on feed formulas but Dryden's seem to make more sense to me.

Steve

 

[Cottage Rose]

Great reference...thanks!

 

[CMB]

I wish I were and expert? This is my second attempt with chickens and I'm just getting started (my first attempt about 3 years ago our dog ate all my chickens and then went to the pound). I bought a mixed load from McMurray and am really enjoying the benefits. I'm just learning and am here hoping to learn more and I'll be glad to share what I learn along the way.

 

[LadyChickLover]

No one wants Hybrid birds

 

[LadyChickLover]

You can't keep hatching Hybrid chickens. They are not good