Help with chicken feed! ASAP!

[mstricer]

Quote:
No layer for the roos.

You can feed layer to roos. Its kinda hard not to if their in the same pen. Seriously do you go out there and tell the roo dont eat that, heres yours, or tell hens stay away from that. No you dont they can eat the layer it is fine.

 

[Ridgerunner]

Most people feed the layer to the whole flock including the rooster. The way I understand it (and I could be wrong) excess calcium hurts the growing chicks more than grown adults. Not that it is especially good for an adult chicken to eat more than they need, but the additional calcium in the layer seems to not have much of a harmful effect on the rooster.

With that said, this is still the reason I do not recommend mixing oyster shell with the feed but offering it free choice if you feel you need to give them extra. The layer probably has all the extra calcium the hens need for the egg shells. (If the shells are hard without feeding oyster shells, they are getting enough calcium) If you mix extra calcium with the feed and they don't need it, you are forcing the laying hens to eat more than they need and the rooster to eat way more than he needs. The adults seem to be better able to handle excess calcium, but why force any of them to eat too much of anything. If you offer oyster shell free choice instead of mixing it with the feed, they are less likely to overindulge in calcium. Now I'll get off my soap box.

This Oregon State site gives pretty good information on what to feed and when. I gave mine the combined starter/grower until first egg at 18 weeks, then switched them all to layer.

Oregon State Feeding Chickens
http://extension.oregonstate.edu/catalog/html/pnw/pnw477/#anchor1132074

 

[mstricer]

Quote:
I only give extra oyster shell if I get soft or shell less eggs and then only scatter it on the ground. I had a few eggs that where shell less, and maybe it I'm wrong but our water softner guys had come out and due to the hardness in our water increased the amount of salt it rinses our water with, so much that everything had salt on it. my humidifer quit working due to the salt build up. we recently stopped adding salt to it because I thought our animals were getting to much salt, since doing that I have not gotten any more shell less eggs, unless someone out there are eatting them.

 

[Mandalina]

My roo eats layer and he is a healthy happy boy