Fermenting Feed for Meat Birds

[armorfirelady]

I'm sorry if this has already been addressed, but at what age can you begin feeding FF only once a day?
Mine are 3 weeks old and I'm still feeding twice daily.

I just got some new chicks, 8 weeks, 6 week & 5 weeks. I fill up their food enough in the am to get them thru the day. It hasnt dried out & that way they can eat throughout the day. They don't consume vast amount but the do eat a lot of little portions all day

 

[RedRidge]

Well, you could give them twice as much and only feed once per day. Unless you have forage for them, you'll probably have to feed twice a day for as long as they live.

Nah.... My chicks get fed twice a day until they are about 5-6 weeks old, mostly because I like to check on them and really monitor how they are doing, how much they are eating, etc.
My chicks have never had anything but FF.
I have 4 groups of chicks right now, and once they are moved to the "teenage" area at about 5-6 weeks they get fed each morning... enough to still have some left in the evenings but not so much that there is much left the next morning.

I don't mind feeding twice a day when I have chicks under 6 weeks or puppies under a year... but after that, everyone gets fed once a day... even in the dead of winter when they don't free range.
Now... that said...
Everyone gets fed their FF or grains or whatever type feed... but then everyone (except the dogs

) have hay to eat (and sometimes play in and rummage through) in the dead of winter... even the chickens - they love it and it gives them something to do all day when it's too nasty or frozen to get outside.

 

[Costa Rica Art]

I'm sorry if this has already been addressed, but at what age can you begin feeding FF only once a day?
Mine are 3 weeks old and I'm still feeding twice daily.

I start feeding FF from day one all day. I try to fill the troughs so there is some left over for in the morning. After I turn the flock out I start draining a new batch while they clean up yesterdays leftovers. By the time they have cleaned that up, usually in 30 minutes or so the next batch has drained and can be put out. The flock's free range is the yard and they can pick at the FF till about mid afternoon when I ready the second batch and put that out so they are full when they go to roost. I do not think of the cost but of the size and quality of the eggs. Our layers give us a nice extra large egg every day. The color of the yoke and how it stands up when fried is what is important to me, I think the taste is much better as well. The meat chicks that grow up in the flock are much better too, the meat looks and feels better during processing plus the meaties have the run of the yard, none have gone down with bad legs. We have one broody hen that starts setting on one egg, either we add eggs to make her a clutch or when the one chick hatches we sneak in 6 or so day old meat chicks. I think this practice with the store bought meat chicks allows whatever meds they have in them to flush out of their systems and gives us a better meat. The other plus is we have all the meat in the freezer we need.

 

[SunnysMama]

I have about 140 birds now and they are fed about 6oz of feed each per day (about 53 lbs per day). I have to feed in the mornings because of mice getting into their feeders at night. I guess I don't know how you force them to free range.

 

[Beekissed]

Because a hungry bird is a foraging bird. If the first thing they want each morning is food and there is very little or none in the feeder, they have to hunt for food to assuage that hunger. CX are even more hungry than the typical chicken, so that drive to find food is heightened considerably in this breed....they will walk every ounce of fat off just trying to find food. Give them a good place to forage and you will be amazed at how they out-forage any other breed of chicken, hands down!

Trust me, if you don't feed them until evening, there won't be a speck left for the mice if you only feed what they can eat in those evening hours. Any scraps left over until morning they will finish off before they leave the coop.

Try trough style feeders in which you can gauge how much your birds will consume in one sitting then just make adjustments as their feed needs fluctuate according to their growth, needs and the available forage.

As with any developing animal or human, exercise is important for proper bone and muscle development, as is the uptake of calcium from the blood stream to the bone matrix that happens when weight bearing exercise is performed. If you feed calcium to birds that never move, that calcium in their blood stream can inhibit renal function...give the same birds feed with calcium and then make them exercise and that calcium gets turned into strong bones instead of kidney problems. Strong bones means good mobility, no leg problems.

The heart is a muscle. Muscles need to exercise to perform properly...if your birds never move except to the feeder and waterer, then when they have to bear more and more weight and exert more effort on their cardiovascular system just to walk or to withstand rising temps and humidity, it results in "flip" and ascites as they go into heart failure.

I've read so many posts on this forum and others about people who put their CX out on pasture and all the while also provide continuous feed...and then complain they are too lazy to forage. Got to be smarter than the average CX...take away the food and watch them scoot boot all over that pasture!!! All chickens are opportunistic feeders and CX are like a typical chicken on overdrive..they eat what they have in front of them as long as it is in front of them and need never step foot any further if the food is there when they walk past it.

Start them young on free range, feed them light, confine them and feed them a little heavier(more protein) at the end to lay on some fat under their skin and soften those free range muscles and you will have a fine, healthy and cheaply raised bird in the end.

 

[Triple Willow]

Because a hungry bird is a foraging bird.  If the first thing they want each morning is food and there is very little or none in the feeder, they have to hunt for food to assuage that hunger.  CX are even more hungry than the typical chicken, so that drive to find food is heightened considerably in this breed....they will walk every ounce of fat off just trying to find food.  Give them a good place to forage and you will be amazed at how they out-forage any other breed of chicken, hands down! 

Trust me, if you don't feed them until evening, there won't be a speck left for the mice if you only feed what they can eat in those evening hours.  Any scraps left over until morning they will finish off before they leave the coop. 

Try trough style feeders in which you can gauge how much your birds will consume in one sitting then just make adjustments as their feed needs fluctuate according to their growth, needs and the available forage. 

As with any developing animal or human, exercise is important for proper bone and muscle development, as is the uptake of calcium from the blood stream to the bone matrix that happens when weight bearing exercise is performed.  If you feed calcium to birds that never move, that calcium in their blood stream can inhibit renal function...give the same birds feed with calcium and then make them exercise and that calcium gets turned into strong bones instead of kidney problems.  Strong bones means good mobility, no leg problems. 

The heart is a muscle.  Muscles need to exercise to perform properly...if your birds never move except to the feeder and waterer, then when they have to bear more and more weight and exert more effort on their cardiovascular system just to walk or to withstand rising temps and humidity, it results in "flip" and ascites as they go into heart failure. 

I've read so many posts on this forum and others about people who put their CX out on pasture and all the while also provide continuous feed...and then complain they are too lazy to forage.  Got to be smarter than the average CX...take away the food and watch them scoot boot all over that pasture!!!   All chickens are opportunistic feeders and CX are like a typical chicken on overdrive..they eat what they have in front of them as long as it is in front of them and need never step foot any further if the food is there when they walk past it. 

Start them young on free range, feed them light, confine them and feed them a little heavier(more protein) at the end to lay on some fat under their skin and soften those free range muscles and you will have a fine, healthy and cheaply raised bird in the end. 

 

Have you noticed a difference in taste between CX that are finished on pasture as compared to only feed? What about texture? I like your method. I suppose you have a LGD with your birds all day? If so what kind and I'd love to hear about it. I am going to see about one today.

 

[Beekissed]

Have you noticed a difference in taste between CX that are finished on pasture as compared to only feed? What about texture? I like your method. I suppose you have a LGD with your birds all day? If so what kind and I'd love to hear about it. I am going to see about one today.

Because I can raise them for a longer period, they have more flavor and more texture..much like a DP bird, only more meat. I do have a farm dog that runs in the same territory as the birds, though his boundaries do not cover more than a little over half an acre. The birds range far out from that area but the combination of a murder of crows in residence, the presence of the dog and humans outside working in the yard seems to keep the birds pretty safe. A local grey fox tries to get a nip now and again on his scheduled route past the meadow but the vigilance of the birds and the dog seem to keep him in check.

He is not a LGD breed, just a chocolate lab/border collie mutt that was raised with a LGD breed and took up her habits of running off low flying, large birds and killing any preds smaller than him...except that quick fox. He hasn't gotten any birds yet, nor have the local coyote pack and black bears, so Jake must be sufficient to protect the birds. I don't lock or shut any pop doors on my coop..this is open 24/7. We are surrounded by woods miles deep, so preds are aplenty but they don't take a chance on Jake.

Stray dogs are eliminated if they cannot be caught and returned to their owners. If they return to the property after being returned to the owners, they are then eliminated for good.

 

[TipihlowLadies]

I have 47 crx a tractor coop run I move it every morning the birds instantly start eating the grass and everything then I feed ff but they still eat a lot about 25# a day is that to much.

 

[sanmar4chickens]

Because I can raise them for a longer period, they have more flavor and more texture..much like a DP bird, only more meat. I do have a farm dog that runs in the same territory as the birds, though his boundaries do not cover more than a little over half an acre. The birds range far out from that area but the combination of a murder of crows in residence, the presence of the dog and humans outside working in the yard seems to keep the birds pretty safe. A local grey fox tries to get a nip now and again on his scheduled route past the meadow but the vigilance of the birds and the dog seem to keep him in check.

He is not a LGD breed, just a chocolate lab/border collie mutt that was raised with a LGD breed and took up her habits of running off low flying, large birds and killing any preds smaller than him...except that quick fox. He hasn't gotten any birds yet, nor have the local coyote pack and black bears, so Jake must be sufficient to protect the birds. I don't lock or shut any pop doors on my coop..this is open 24/7. We are surrounded by woods miles deep, so preds are aplenty but they don't take a chance on Jake.

Stray dogs are eliminated if they cannot be caught and returned to their owners. If they return to the property after being returned to the owners, they are then eliminated for good.

At what age should you feed 1 a day for CX? _______

At what age should you feed 1 a day for layers/DP? ______

 

[Beekissed]

For the meaties I think I went to once a day around 3 wks but can't remember exactly. For DPs I go to once a day around the same age. With the free ranging they get to supplement their grain based diet with the correct kind of protein from their foraging so they actually get to eat all day long if they hunt for it...and they do, quite vigorously. They all seem to grow into strong adult birds with good health and fitness, with longevity of lay for the DP breeds.