Feeding chickens corn and layer pellets

[Weehopper]

They don't really need corn especially during the summer months. It generates heat in their bodies.

 

[Cindy in PA]

They can have corn all year round, after all it is a main ingredient in most feeds. Just don't mix with feed as they will pick through it & give it in moderation.

 

[Donna R Raybon]

Get someone who is knowledgeable to show you how to body condition score a chicken. Turn them over and examine keel. Birds should feel really dense when you pick them up and not lite, frail, boney.
What you are aiming for is adequate nutrition balanced to needs of birds based on stage of life/production. Corn is lower in protein than good layer pellets. For example if corn is nine percent protein and layer pellet is eighteen percent feeding a pound of each lowers your ration to only thirteen and a half percent.
There is good info out there about animal nutrition. As someone suggested get best you can afford to feed. Stick with a brand or mill that you can rely upon to always have quality product. Once peeps are three or four weeks old I go to feeding them all they will eat in say thirty minutes at least three times a day. In between they can clean up what they spill. Same for my adult birds, I don't leave feed out, but feed at least twice a day. Leaving feed out at night just feeds rats and mice. If temperature is below freezing they get fed more, especially fed well when going to roost and when coming off roost. And water, clean enough for me to drink twenty four seven three sixty four. Water is probably most neglected nutrient in a nutritional program.

 

[ADuckOnQuack]

Thanks everyone for the advice

 

[unbaked pegga]

I leave Crumble in a feeder all day. To keep them from scattering feed everywhere I put the feeder inside of a (clean) car oil pan. The scattered seed is caught in the pan and I just pour it back in the feeder. Unbelievable how much food is saved. I dont give corn or table scraps. Usually oatmeal or dried meal worms which they love and I minimize those (really). I have only had my girls 2 years and it is a steep learning curve for me

 

[Donna R Raybon]

Well, I am nearly sixty years old and have never ceased to be amazed and confounded by critters. Very first were chickens gifted to me at Eoster when I was two and a half. A day rarely goes by that one of the chicens, cows, goats, dogs, etc don't do something that makes me shake my head and go 'I'll be dag gone!' IMVHO me as a human is pretty dumb and low on order of creation compared to rest of living world.