Feeding the "Old fashioned way"

[ChickenCanoe]

curtisbirds, I agree with everything you said - except mixing oyster shell with layer pellets. Layer is already 4% calcium. deemed about right for actively laying birds.
Oyster shell is about 98% calcium. If you mix the two, the hens don't get to choose whether to eat it and can be overwhelmed.
Providing oyster shell is a good idea for its large particle and quality. However, it needs to be in a separate container from the feed.

http://www.poultryindustrycouncil.ca/pdfs/factsheets/fs_133.pdf

http://www.scielo.br/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S1516-14392012000200006

 

[Den in Penn]

In bed thinking about it last night I realized that the chicken house my great grand father used didn't have a pop door in it. My grandfather left his pullets free range in the orchard until POL. I assume he was following his father and other local farmers methods. So even in the late nineteenth century they were penning up the layers and giving them as good a feed as they could. Yes There were feed mills back then. My Grandfather's first job off the farm was a a local mill in the 1910s.

 

[curtisbirds]

ChickenCanoe you are correct about the oyster shell, I was only stating what I do in these four chickens situation. The vet has me add a cup per five pounds due to health conditions acquired from only being fed scratch for a year. It caused weakness in the bones and other things, imagine a human with severe vitamin deficiancy and malnutrition. It has been a unique experience for me and that's why I call it an adventure. I was never one to even pay a vet bill for a chicken before now, I treated myself or they got culled, but the smaller hen was my eleven year old niece's and she was innocent in the whole thing, and all she had to do was bat her eyes and ask me to save her chicken. Six vet bills later,

, and her chicken came out with the least issues. Big Mama has a deformed chest cavity (ribs), Red and Blondie had developmental and hormonal issues, Blondie's feet never corrected so they are deformed twisty toes and some lameness, all three have lack of scaley skin on there feet with sensitive skin instead. I burnt through some petro jelly this past winter. Henny Penny just some delayed egg development and a little small in stature, and her personality matches her name, but that's just her.

 

[pdirt]

@curtisbirds

Wow, kudos for you taking such pity and care for these poor birds. Thanks for clarifying why you mixed oyster shell with layer feed, as this is not something most people should do with relatively healthy chickens. Thanks for showing that just feeding scratch can be dangerous to chickens.

 

[chickengeorgeto]

I forgot to mention that the feed you buy at the feed store, i.e. Purina, Nutrena, etc. contain no hormones or antibiotics.

Commercial broiler and egg companies operate their own feed mills, making feed just for their chickens. Most of those DO contain antibiotics because of the intensive housing. Many also use arsenic both as a cheaper substitute for antibiotics and to increase growth.


While legal for beef and dairy cattle, hormones have not been allowed in poultry for over 50 years as they were banned by the FDA in 1959 and are now illegal in meat and eggs. It was used briefly as and experiment in the 1940s. Since then they've been disallowed in most countries.

http://msucares.com/pubs/publications/p2767.pdf

https://www.uaex.edu/publications/PDF/FSA-8007.pdf

https://www.poultryventilation.com/tips/vol24/n4

http://gactaern.org/Resources/Class_Starters_Enders/Hormones in Chickens_Class Starter and Ender.pdf

http://www.quora.com/Which-hormones...kens-in-a-few-countries-to-speed-their-growth

This is not posted to make fun of, argue with, or ridicule anyone. This is posted to encourage people to do the one thing that only humans are capable of doing, reasoned though. So don't believe anything that your hear, and only 10% of what you read. In other words, don't take life too seriously my friend, you'll never get out of it alive.

Strychnine as well as Arsenic is used in poultry feed. Arsenic is a proven carcinogenic and is also used to treat some kinds of human cancers, besides being used to prevent and or treat Coccidiosis.

Meanwhile Strychnine is an avian tonic. One source of Strychnine in chickens' diets is fruit and fruit seeds or stones available only to free range chickens.

Free range chickens also can and do pickup considerable INORGANIC other wise known as THE EVIL heavy metallic or elemental Arsenic from the air, dust, food, earth, water, and grit in their diet and environment.

To a chicken, eating Strychnine is like you or me eating a shrimp cocktail, or like the advice of Saint Paul to Timothy, "Take a little wine for thy stomach's sake." By the way, that's why my Gramps born 1844 died 1936 called the Bible the "Good Book." More about wine later.

Strychnine is also in pet bird feed along with denatured (killed) marihuana seeds, to put the joy in your canary's song and loosen your parakeet's tongue. In short strychnine is to your chickens what THC, or alcohol is to some of us.

The rooster struts into the singles bar and tells the bar keep, "Sam, 12 year old Strychnine up straight and neat please, you better make it a double, Henny Penny locked me out of the coop again!" In short Strychnine is a chickens joy of living, their morning cup of coffee, a fowls' days of wine and roses.

Speaking of wine, California Wine Grapes are grown in soil that is high in INORGANIC elemental arsenic, the bad kind of arsenic. In fact because of this there is MORE elemental or inorganic arsenic in many cheep California wines than is allowed in the Golden State's tap water. And you people thought that your hangover was alcohol induced.

Think about THAT the next time you're tempted to pick up a box of "Two Buck Chuck" at Trader Joe's.

http://www.rodalesorganiclife.com/food/foods-contain-arsenic
Uh oh, it seems that Diatomaceous Earth, that's used to filter your beer and wine also harbors Inorganic Arsenic, what's a poor thirsty boy or girl going too do? You think that the Arsenic in Diatomaceous Earth could be killing all those mites that the wee diatoms claim credit for? Arsenic after all is a component in many insecticides along with Dihydrogen Monoxide, a chemical that kills thousands if not millions of humans every year, just saying.

Remember that chickens swallow their food whole or without the benefit of chewing. Therefor there is not just a world but an entire UNIVERSE of difference between the physiology of domestic chickens and the human animal. If you attempted to eat the most natural, free trade, organic, pesticide free, non GMO, heritage verities, of sustainable whole grains on Earth, like a chicken is capable of doing by swallowing the kernels whole, I seriously doubt that you would live a week. At least not live without wishing that you were dead. I also doubt that many human females could in effect deliver 200 - 300 babies a year (like a hen lays eggs) without suffering debilitating effects. But a hen is perfectly capable of preforming this feat without any noticeable ill effects, in fact she seems to enjoy it. Enjoy your poultry, not because they are little people dressed up in a gaudy feather boa, but because they are so different from you and me.

To get you and your chickens started on the path to a happier healthier life through the miracle of Strychnine, here is a listing for 100% pure Strychnine powder. And as an added bonus, this Strychnine is FOOD grade HERBAL Strychnine. What can possibly go wrong with sprinkling FOOD GRADE HERBAL STRYCHNINE ON YOUR WHEATIES?

100% Pure Strychnine Powder

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Port: Tianjin,Shanghai Port or Xi'an airport
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Quick Details

Type:
Herbal Extract
Variety:
Strychnine Powder
Form:
Powder
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Seed
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Solvent Extraction
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[ChickenCanoe]

All true. Arsenic has been used in feed for commercially raised poultry for most of the last century. Not in retail feed in my lifetime. Nor hormones for most of my lifetime.

 

[curtisbirds]

I'm sorry but the rooster in the bar is just hilarious on a personal level because I have a hen named Henny Penny and her and my rooster Blondie are having disagreements lately, so I could just see it in my head while I read it, lol.

 

[chickengeorgeto]

I'm sorry but the rooster in the bar is just hilarious on a personal level because I have a hen named Henny Penny and her and my rooster Blondie are having disagreements lately, so I could just see it in my head while I read it, lol.

Glad I made you laugh! Some things in life are their own joy. Laughter is one of them.

 

[Fentress]

I'm starting my fourth season. I use electro-net and movable coops for a flock of 30-40. In my second year, I started letting the flock out to range my entire 3 acres during the day, that includes some very enjoyable ditches and woods. Feed consumption decreased by about 40%, not quite half. After 6 months, I took a hit from a predator during the day and had also grown weary of the flock tearing up my property. So back into the protected yard they went. Although, I have about 7,000 square feet inside the e-net, feed consumption went back up. They really needed a very large area with a diversity of resources to make a dent in feed consumption. So, I can see that back in the day on a small farm with a plethara of resources, combined with low input chickens that it would be possible to avoid having to buy feed.

 

[curtisbirds]

I understand your point of it taking allot of space per chicken to effect feed requirements, I have four full grown chickens and nine chicks on five acres of various mini eco systems, woods, wild flower field, pond, grassy areas, and their favorite under the bushes especially the black berry bushes. So with so few chickens and so many resources does greatly benefit my feed budget. I'm going to stick with my baker's dozen because the chickens of today do greatly lay in larger amounts then even when I was younger. I remember going out to fifty to one hundred chickens as a child and getting maybe a couple dozen a day. I only have two laying hens and get two eggs a day, and with it being just me and my husband now that's plenty, we only eat eggs twice a week. The only reason we got the chicks, hopefully all female had them sexed but you know, was because they talked about eggs going up to four dollars a dozen in our area because of the casualities from the bird flu last year. We have allot of young parents and fixed income people in our family and we felt it best to help out. We have one older couple that eat nothing but egg dishes because they can't afford to buy meat on their income, at four dollars a dozen they won't be able to afford that either, so if we can help that's just what we'll do. Plus I get the soil remediation and help in my compost pile, they also weed my vegetable garden and eat all the bugs that eat my plants. Deer ticks are really bad in our area and since we rescued the big birds WE have not had a tick problem and our neighbor has noticed a significant decline in her tick population, and she's a dog rescuer, now just down the road at our daughter's she almost lost a dog to anemia over night because it followed her husband in the shed and accidentally got locked in there. We're discussing her getting her own chickens

.