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kenp719
In the Brooder
- Feb 21, 2020
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Thank you so much for theHi, Michelle, and welcome!
I feed my chickens a non-organic all-flock feed supplemented with oyster shell, egg shells and grit that are always available for the birds' free choice. I also give them daily treats of kitchen scraps and shredded cabbage (too many predators for my flock to forage green stuff for themselves) and occasional treats of black oil sunflower seeds or scratch that they have the same freedom to choose as the oyster/egg shells and grit. But you won't be doing that until your chicks are feathered out and grown.
Mine are all healthy and seemingly happy and I always reason that free ranging birds don't have nutritionists "balancing" their intake and yet seem to thrive around the world in all kinds of harsh and unforgiving environments.
I think we have an absolute obligation to take good and empathetic care of our flocks but also that we're capable of overthinking things sometimes. I also want to encourage you that chickens are easy to provide for and you'll do a good job and have birds that are able to live a good life in return for your family's efforts on their behalf.
As for the brands of supplies available, I think most of us choose from what the local feed stores have available. The ones near me have one brand of grit, one brand of oyster shell. There isn't a lot of comparative shopping to do (other than prices offered by different feed supplies). And I don't think it's really necessary. As for feed there are some choices:
• pellet, crumbles or mash -- all essentially the same nutrition just different forms
• medicated or unmedicated -- a personal preference
• organic or non-organic -- another personal preference
• starter (first 6-8 weeks), grower (until they begin laying), layer (15-18% protein, 3-4% calcium) and all-flock (20% protein, 0% calcium) -- choose what's age appropriate and skip the calcium in the feed if you're feeding roosters
You're going to do fine and, I hope, have a lot of fun along with your delicious fresh eggs!
Thank you so much! I quickly realized that there is not one way to raise a chicken! But I'm getting so many great tidbits of advice to pick and choose what will be best for us! I am grateful for the advice and am willing to learn. These will be used for eggs only as they are now a part of our family and in the end, we want a happy and healthy flock to enjoyHi, welcome to the forum, Glad you joined.
It probably won't take you long to realize you can get some really differing opinions on here. We keep them for so many different goals, different climates, different management techniques, different facilities, different flock make-ups, the list goes on and on. and so many different things work. It's not surprising we have different experiences and different opinions. It's not like there is only one way to do something and all other ways are wrong, but that so many can be right. I think that is one of the problems on this forum, you have so many different options that can work but you have to pick one out. For some of us certain things work better than others, but with no experience how do you know which is right for you? It can be challenging and confusing.
Commercial operations have determined a fairly standard feeding regimen for chicks that will become a laying flock. You will see that printed on many bags of commercial chicken feeds. In general it involves a high protein feed (18% to 20%) the first month or so to get them feathered out and give them a good start, then they cut back to a lower protein feed (maybe 16%) to slow their growth a bit so the skeleton and internal organs can keep up. Then at around 3 months they cut back a bit more (15%) to help control that maturation process. Then a little before they are ready for them to start to lay, they change the feed to a bit higher protein (16%) and increase the calcium content since they will need the extra calcium for egg shells.
You don't need to do that. Commercial operations use special bred hybrid chickens bred for heavy laying. Your breeds are not those. Commercial operations manage when they start to lay, partly by diet but to a large extent by managing light. With their specially bred hens they could start to lay really young, maybe young enough to hurt themselves if their body is not ready. Again, you don't have to worry about that.
People that raise chickens for show do not follow this feed regimen. They feed their chickens a much richer diet as they grow so they will grow bigger. Again, these are specially bred birds. Yours are not. Chickens raised for meat are also fed differently.
I'm going through all this to say you have a lot of freedom in how you feed your chickens, especially in regard to protein. My chicks get an 18% protein Starter for the first month. After that the entire flock gets a 15% Finisher/Developer with oyster shell offered on the side for the ones that need the calcium for their egg shell. But mine forage for a lot of their food so I've lost the ability to micromanage their every bite.
If you are providing practically everything they eat it is a good idea for their feed to make up at least 90% of what they eat. Standard chicken feed provides a balanced diet of the many different nutrients they need. It's not just protein and calcium but fats, fiber, minerals, and vitamins among others. You can provide other food such as, scratch, kitchen wastes, garden wastes, bugs, or green stuff, but the general recommendation is to keep that total to 10% or less of their daily diet. If you can come up with a way to do that and cut feed costs more power to you.
And that's my opinion.