Help - I've broken my chickens!!

[Crofterwannabe]

Hi,

I have 4 bantams which are 7 weeks and I'm soooo excited about them.

I was feeding them chick crumbs until about 2 weeks ago when I ran out of food and found myself without my car quite unexpectedly.

Having read through pages and pages of blogs about chicken feed I managed to make do with the following: sprouted wheat (I had made this for our family bread), rolled oats, cooked potato, lots and lots of kitchen scraps, dried mealworms, and some homemade yoghurt.

Having finally got my car back and purchased some more shop feed I fed my little girls - they wouldn't touch the stuff!! I tried wetting it, mixing it with yoghurt, crumbling it a bit more - nothing. They took one long and came back to me screaming for any food other than that.

I'm thinking that maybe I should just carry on with the homemade stuff but I'm worried they won't have enough nutrients and that it isn't a precise enough mix for them. I'm in the UK and unfortunately don't have a big garden for them to range as much as I would like. I do give them all the greens, gradd and weeds from my allotment which they relish.

Also, I have noticed that they seem to leave the wheat, won't touch the oats unless wet and aren't too fussed with black sunflower seeds that I bought.

What should I do please?? Is the homemade stuff good enough??

 

[Habibs Hens]

if you follow home made feed properly adding the correct ratios then its fine

or you can re wean them back onto pellets from store

 

[Crofterwannabe]

Thanks for reply Habibs Hens.

Is it ok if they pick out the bits they like best and leave the rest?

They tend to leave the grains quite a bit and go for all the veggie material (plus the mealworms). I try and wet the grains as they seem to prefer that but they still don't eat many of them.

Am I just overthinking this?

Many thanks.

 

[Habibs Hens]

Thanks for reply Habibs Hens.

Is it ok if they pick out the bits they like best and leave the rest?

They tend to leave the grains quite a bit and go for all the veggie material (plus the mealworms). I try and wet the grains as they seem to prefer that but they still don't eat many of them.

Am I just overthinking this?

Many thanks.

chicken tend to pick at food and what we call kicking or side sweeping

veg, bread, fruit, corn, wheat, mealworms all good should really be given as a treat and layers food given as staple diet

I think what your doing is mixing it so they are picking and choosing

give them only layers pellets in the morning and let them eat their fill don't give them anything else


then late afternoon if they been good you can toss in some treats as mentioned above


they will soon get the idea of eating pellets as a normal diet


one thing not to do is allow them to be picky but learn to eat what's given and if they kick it or side sweep it away then don't give them anything else until they clean up and eat what they spilt