Food for de-beaked chickens

[KristinLLB]

Hi y'all, this is my first posting!

2 weeks ago I got 3 chickens rescued from a factory farm. They have been debeaked, and I think that is why they seem to enjoy different things than I see posted on here. It's disappointing, because I really wanted to give them fun treats like fruit and veggies, but they peck at them a bit and then ignore. I don't think they can get to them.

But here's my question. I bought my first bag of feed with the help of a couple of chicken friends. They recommended at 22% layer feed. It is true that the chickens have gotten a LOT healthier looking in just 2 weeks on this food. And after a week and a half, they started laying pretty regularly. I got two eggs today, and that's the first time we've gotten more than one in a day.

But there seems to be a lot of leftover mushy/powdery stuff in the bottom of the feeder each day. is this normal? Or can my chickens just not eat that part because they can't pick it up?

Is there a better "form" of food for them, do you think?

Thanks!

 

[brahmabreeder]

Welcome from Ashtabula county Ohio

 

[marlo1968]

Hi y'all, this is my first posting!

2 weeks ago I got 3 chickens rescued from a factory farm. They have been debeaked, and I think that is why they seem to enjoy different things than I see posted on here. It's disappointing, because I really wanted to give them fun treats like fruit and veggies, but they peck at them a bit and then ignore. I don't think they can get to them.

But here's my question. I bought my first bag of feed with the help of a couple of chicken friends. They recommended at 22% layer feed. It is true that the chickens have gotten a LOT healthier looking in just 2 weeks on this food. And after a week and a half, they started laying pretty regularly. I got two eggs today, and that's the first time we've gotten more than one in a day.

But there seems to be a lot of leftover mushy/powdery stuff in the bottom of the feeder each day. is this normal? Or can my chickens just not eat that part because they can't pick it up?

Is there a better "form" of food for them, do you think?

Thanks!

Sorry, but what do you mean by "de-beaked"? I am fairly new to chickens and don't quite understand, did the prior owners just cut the beak off completely? And why on earth would someone de-beak a chicken?

 

[animallover505]

Sorry, but what do you mean by "de-beaked"? I am fairly new to chickens and don't quite understand, did the prior owners just cut the beak off completely? And why on earth would someone de-beak a chicken?

"De-beaking" is where the cut most of the beak off. They were at a factory, probably laying hen, farm, where they are crammed into tiny cages, and will peck at each other out of boredom.

 

[KristinLLB]

The tip of their beaks are cut off, especially the top part. Apparently this is a common practice in the production farms to keep them from pecking . hurting each other.

It sounds awful to me too, but their beaks don't look as bad as I thought they were going to when I first heard about it.

The practice is one of the reasons I wanted rescued chickens rather than raising my own....I want them to have at least a little bit of a good life.

 

[marlo1968]

Sounds awful, I just don't understand altering an animal unless its for the betterment of the animal or keeping the animal. Such as neutering a dog or gelding a horse. I just don't see the point in de-beaking a chicken, let them roam like a chicken should so they don't get bored. So glad I have my own chickens to provide eggs for me and a few customers, at least that's a few less in the market where chickens are treated wrong.

About taking resuce chickens....how does that work? Where do you find out about this?

 

[KristinLLB]

Hi there, the organization is in Canton, GA (north of Atlanta), it's called CHURP. They take commercial hens who were on their way to the slaughterhouse for whatever reason, and find backyard homes for them. I got 3. 2 of them lay every day, but the other one is molting and not laying. They are very sweet birds.

 

[sweety13]

Hi there, the organization is in Canton, GA (north of Atlanta), it's called CHURP. They take commercial hens who were on their way to the slaughterhouse for whatever reason, and find backyard homes for them. I got 3. 2 of them lay every day, but the other one is molting and not laying. They are very sweet birds.

Aww, lucky birds they are!

 

[KristinLLB]

So, I switched to a crumble-style food and the girls clean it all up. No idea why they can clean up those tiny crumbles, but not the crumbs from the pellets, but they can.

 

[ChickChickChicky]

I have 5 de-beaked birds (in addition to 12 "regular" birds). The de-beaked ones are at a disadvantage with food (I would compare it to a person trying to pick up small objects after having half of each finger lopped off) because they just don't have the fine motor skills to pick up and hold small objects. On alot of the de-beaked chickens, the tips of their beak don't even come together so there is a hole, and on some of them their tongue is left hanging out. What works best for the de-beaked girls is to put the food in deeper containers where the food is more "concentrated" rather than spread out. Just time and practice will help as well... they've spent their entire lives picking crumbles out of a conveyor belt and new foods like tomatoes and such will take some practice. Try chopping the fruits/veggies into smaller pieces and placing into a deep bowl, then once they figure out how to pick those up and that they're good to eat, you can progress on to bigger, more spread out things. They will eventually get the hang of it.

Wanted to add also, is the reason they do better with small pieces is that a regular chicken shakes and tears it's food into pieces it can swallow, but when the de-beaked hen tries this the food usually goes flying. Try feeding your de-beaked girls by hand and you'll see the mechanics involved.