Field trip to the feed store

[thndrdancr]

He just eats the game bird feed. I usually let them all free range and they get a lot of supplemental stuff that way but I have them shut since this started cold weather! Tomorrow is going to be deadly!

He usually doesn't go in the coop but that last blast of 16 with 40 mph convinced him! I always give leftovers, kale, pumpkin, beans, etc but he rarely noses in for it.
Come to think of it, WL never fought to get to food either, he would wait til everyone else had finished. My experience with whites and silver pieds is that they are shyer than the blues? Or is it just way they are raised?

 

[Garden Peas]

He just eats the game bird feed. I usually let them all free range and they get a lot of supplemental stuff that way but I have them shut since this started cold weather! Tomorrow is going to be deadly!

He usually doesn't go in the coop but that last blast of 16 with 40 mph convinced him! I always give leftovers, kale, pumpkin, beans, etc but he rarely noses in for it.
Come to think of it, WL never fought to get to food either, he would wait til everyone else had finished. My experience with whites and silver pieds is that they are shyer than the blues? Or is it just way they are raised?

So do you put a pan or pans of food in there? Where is his food? Is there "stuff" (like anything visually differet) or just gamebird feed that's top dressed with supplements?

 

[thndrdancr]

I have about 5 different bowls of food I put in everday. They are housed with my chickens but it's a super tall shed so they love the rafters. Normally they free range and just go in at night if they want.

 

[Garden Peas]

Well, what I'm suggesting is that you can teach him to eat treats by example of the other birds. But there need to be enough bowls spread far enough apart that he can get a chance to get some of the treats without having to wait until all the good stuff is gone.

No idea how many chickens you are talking aibout here...

I would put some treats on top of the food in the bowls, and maybe bury a few -- pieces of bread would work fine -- then spread the bowls really far apart. You want him to SEE the other birds eat the treats, and to get a chance to EAT some treats himself. That way he recognizes it is food and he wants it.

You can work on the same skill by making sure that you spread the treats over a wide space when you hand feed them. Toss some in one direction, toss some in another, toss some in front of a bird... Eventually he will catch on.

Once you have trained him to like bread and/or whatever treat you choose, then it's not that hard to get the safeguard into him.

The wee peas wouldn't touch anything but crumble when they got here... now they think bread treats are the bomb! If you have to spike the bread with something to make it palatable, try juice from tuna fish, or catfood or something...

 

[thndrdancr]

I plan on working on him come a little warmer weather. Good idea to distract the others. All my babies will eat right out of my hand, or my hand itself! Ha. Pete is my main ib cock and he has been teaching Angel about treats. It's a slow process. If I sbsolutely need to catch my birds, I have a big dog cage and if I put cat food in there they will just walk in. Usually how I catch the youngsters to sell. Angel I think has bad associations with people so I been to earn his trust. Project for spring.

All my peas get various scraps, cabbage from garden, pumpkin, cat food, shrimp tails, and all the veggie leftovers we don't use.

 

[DylansMom]

He just eats the game bird feed. I usually let them all free range and they get a lot of supplemental stuff that way but I have them shut since this started cold weather! Tomorrow is going to be deadly!

He usually doesn't go in the coop but that last blast of 16 with 40 mph convinced him! I always give leftovers, kale, pumpkin, beans, etc but he rarely noses in for it.
Come to think of it, WL never fought to get to food either, he would wait til everyone else had finished. My experience with whites and silver pieds is that they are shyer than the blues? Or is it just way they are raised?

I would have said the same thing until I raised this guy. Roger will stand at the front of the pen and raise one leg scraping his foot down across the wire while I feed trying to get my attention.

He is very definitely the boldest most in your face white I've ever had.

 

[thndrdancr]

Very sweet, dylansmom. I just can't say as my white and my silver pied I bought as adults. My blue pieds I raised vfrom babies were a little shy of me but let the other birds be dominant as well.

Cherokee would peck on my kitchen window and demand scrambled eggs with cheese. I was going to bring him with me here, but stupid stupid man that was buying house target practiced on our land a week before we left, and never havingbheard a gun before at close range Cherokee spooked about a mile away and a coyote must have been watching. I still cry when I think of losing him, he was a real character.

 

[Trefoil]

I see that flock fuel is a mannapro product. I am curious about trying some of the manna food for poultry since I read lots of amazing reviews about their feed. That is neat I think we have a Miller's feed somewhere around here. There is a feed store right down the road from me, but their prices are higher than TSC so I don't go there often. Also right near the feed store is a feed store with mainly horse feed and horse supplies. They are not doing so well, and recently my dad said they have been bought by a great feed store owner that used to be too far away from us so I couldn't get feed from there. I am really excited I would love to be able to have a really good feed store just down the road from me.

What do you guys think about feed with soy in it? I know some people try to avoid feeding their birds soy. On Read Mountain Peafowl's facebook he once made a comment that to get better breeding success he was going to try not feeding his birds anything with soy.

Nearly the only way to get a food with protein over 20% is soybean meal. Some layer mixes are corn as the only grain with a bunch of soybean meal to get to 18%. The only soybean meal I feed is what is in the calf manna that I add to my fermented, not because I have anything against it, I just prefer to ferment whole grains for the most part. adding veggies,calf manna, brewers yeast, and whatever else is around or I see at the store that sounds good. Feeding cat food- you're probably feeding soybean meal. Except for the peas who all get free choice 22% gamebird as well. I don't think soybean meal per say is bad, I also don't think feeding 50% soybean meal or even approaching that is a good idea. corn is about 9% protein- you do the math.
Is manna pro a purina company?

 

[Trefoil]

Had to go pick up more game bird crumble yesterday evening, and found some interesting things at the feed store. I just love this little, independent feed store...

When was the last time your counter help was the owner, and you got a hand-written receipt?



I saw this anti-pick juice and thought of @DylansMom :



Sorry, I was hoping the label was in better focus so we could see what was in it. I'm looking at the photo on my phone, and I can't read what the second ingredient is (after water), but after that, I think it says Tea Tree Oil, Calendula and Aloe Vera. (But my eyes aren't so great

and photo is out of focus). I turned the bottle around at the store, and there's not any more labels on the other side.

I bought a bottle of Flock Fuel (I think I have also seen it at TSC) because I am tired of squeezing out the little vitamin E capsules, so I thought I would try it:







I guess I need to do some research on Vitamin E (and also toxicity, since I think overdoing it is bad), as I have no clue what is an appropriate dose. The Flock Fuel has 250 IU of Vitamin E per lb, according to the label. Since the whole bottle is probably less than 1 lb (it contains 16 fluid oz, but oil is lighter than water, so presumably a bit less than one lb), it probably contains about 2.5 IU of Vitamin E or less per teaspoon. But has lots of good Omega oils.

The Vitamin E capsules I've been using (squeezed onto bread treats) contain 400 IU per softgel. (So there's more Vitamin E in one softgel -- in fact almost twice as much -- as in the entire bottle of Flock Fuel

)

So as a Vitamin E supplement... maybe not so much, but again, overdose and toxicity is something I need to look into... I'm also thinking I could squeeze a few softgels into the bottle, and it would be easy to put on bread/mash/food.

I also had a nice chat with the owner about other gamebird feeds. He sells a couple of local feed mill products designed for roosters, so a lower protein content that layer pellets and gamebird crumble. I looked at the ingredients lists and they had so much interesting stuff in them (like three different kinds of peas) that I almost wanted to buy some just to make cookies for the birds

Anyway, I thought it was pretty cool that a local feed mill makes such a great mix and markets it through local independent feed stores. The ownder also carries a bunch of specialty bird diets and seeds for cage birds, in addition to horse stuff, dog stuff, and a great assortment of poultry stuff. I could spend all day in there!

Not only that, he's reasonably priced. What a great find.

 

[KsKingBee]

Not only that, he's reasonably priced. What a great find.

I dunno, that bag of feed is more than six dollars higher than I normally pay...