feed formulations heritage breeds originally developed to perform on

[cybercat]

I am totally free range here no pen on coop. I have pics on blog. I feed egg balancer with scratch in the winter. This is a meat protien feed. My chickens are out all day and locked up at night. There is no feed in coop unless it is half a squash or their is deep snow and they must stay in then they get fed in coop. Scratch is only fed in winter here so other time. Other than that the rest of the year they will get left over like corn cobs, peelings ect. We have not harvested yet any of our chickens do to heavy loss from fox last year. This year we shall our extra cockerals from spring breeding.

 

[HaikuHeritageFarm]

Regarding "Old Fashion" diets:

Before I had to get rid of the birds, they were on a blend of locally available grains and dry COB and fishmeal as the central part of their diet, plus various supplements and whatever they gathered up foraging plus kitchen and garden scraps. They were doing well. When I get them again, it will be much the same, plus the leafy bits of alfalfa that shakes out of the hay when I feed the rabbits.

I believe an "Old Fashioned" diet would be one of opportunity—use what you can get your hands on when it's available. The constant change in seasonal availability insures a good variety which avoids deficiency like feeding the same thing all the time can open the door for. I also wanted to get away from milled feeds as we've been having so many problems with them and I have found that milled feeds are generally in very poor shape by the time they get to AK.

 

[centrarchid]

Gonna tackle this piecemeal.

My grandfather used to use a lot of SOAKED OATS when feeding his games. He had at least a couple hundred roosters each in its own movable pen that was sorta like a little chicken tractor. I know he used a lot of soaked oats but I was never taught details in its preparation. Things like temperature, nature of water, and duration of soaking and how long it can b used after feeding phase began are not known to me. Are their benefit differences between soaked and sprouted oats?

 

[sjarvis00]

Quote:
I allow some of our young wyandottes to run the yard and find that thise birds do grow and mature better. However due to a combination of predators and dogs it is only the color culls and excess cockrells that get that priviledge.

 

[centrarchid]

Quote:
I allow some of our young wyandottes to run the yard and find that thise birds do grow and mature better. However due to a combination of predators and dogs it is only the color culls and excess cockrells that get that priviledge.

I do it with dominiques but a livestock guarding dog is to prevent losses to predators.

Using an incomplete supplement with dominiques results in birds that put on frame and feathers but muscle deposition is slow. American games and red jungle fowl x American games are rock solid under same conditions.

 

[centrarchid]

CHARCOAL FROM BURNT WOOD

In my families game chickens mix, charcoal is added. With free ranged juveniles we also had burnt brush piles almost all the time during summer that birds consumed regularly. Some say the minerals are more available or some anit-parasite action is going on but I am thinking the toxin might absorb toxins associated with intake of some plants. The charcoal might neutralize or bind some toxins making it possible to acquire nutrients from otherwise toxic plants. Today I will be burning some cherry moulding that is partially buried. We will then see if they go after it.