Home Feeding Ideas and Solutions Discussion Thread

[Arielle]

Quote: Oh my layers get their share of it too-- and they steal from the fermentation buckets.

 

[Lacy Blues]

I have a question...

During these horribly hot days we're having, my birds will hardly eat anything at all at dinner time.

Does anybody know a "super food" for chickens that they love and will eat and still have their needs met?

Also, something I've been wondering, do the cereal grains (oats, wheat, milo and barley) cause heat in the chicken's body? I'm trying to get my birds to eat more in the summer, they scare me at how little they eat at their evening feed and am wondering if the food they get might cause heat, you know, like oats to a horse.

 

[Arielle]

My 2 cents--
Have you checked their crops to see if they are full?? Knowing you, you have already done this.

We just experienced 6 straight days of 95 heat and egg production dropped like a rock. My assumption is they did not eat as much as usual, but certainly drank a lot of water. I suspect this is nature's way of coping with a heat wave. ( My crew free ranges a lot so I can't always go by what is left in the grain hopper.)

ALL food digestion requires the release of heat. THe HI. Heat Index. I'm not convinced there is a huge difference in HI between the typical grains.

Sorry I"m not much help here.

 

[Lacy Blues]

Crops are pretty much empty. Our heat has been about 105 - 110 over the last couple weeks. Egg production has definitely dropped here too. I have no free range here... nothing to eat out there

except maybe some sage brush!

I realize digestion of foods causes heat but what I'm wondering is if some of the grains cause their body's temperature to go up more than others. Any ideas where I might research this or what words I would use in a search?

 

[echosrevenge]

The old farmer's adage is that corn creates warmth, but I dont know how actually factual that is.

My birds are eating a LOT more now that the heat wave has broken here...i know I didn't want to eat much the last few days either, so I can't really blame them. Maybe try some chilled greens or fruit? I hear a lot about how much chooks love cold watermelon, but they never get anything but the rind around here. My husband considers it blasphemous to "waste" good watermelon by feeding it to the birds.

 

[Zanna]

Crops are pretty much empty. Our heat has been about 105 - 110 over the last couple weeks. Egg production has definitely dropped here too. I have no free range here... nothing to eat out there

except maybe some sage brush!

I realize digestion of foods causes heat but what I'm wondering is if some of the grains cause their body's temperature to go up more than others. Any ideas where I might research this or what words I would use in a search?

Uncle in Law raised champion game cocks for over 40 years. He tells me they fed whole corn in the winter as it keeps the birds warmer because it takes more energy for them to grind/digest it, cracked corn in the summer, less energy/less heat. The softer grains like wheat, oats, millet were fed whole year round, no concerns with heat. He raised his birds here in Oregon but they flew with them all over the country and also into Mexico. We don't usually get up over 100 F. but 90's are pretty normal for a couple of months each summer.

 

[TwoCrows]

Hi all. I am having some trouble and need some advice. Now, I am slowly reading thru this entire thread, but was hoping for some insight on my situation as well as some information about mixing feed.

First off, I live in the middle of nowhere and do not have different brands of feed available to me, nor do I have access to all the products needed to mix my own. And ordering 50 pound bags of feed on line is not feasible.

There are two brands of feed available to me here, Purina's Layena and Manna Pro's Egg Maker. The Purina is the only chicken feed sold at my local feed store, (not TSC) and the Manna Pro is sold at the super Walmart in our tiny town.

When I started with chickens several years ago, I raised them on Hy-Pro chick starter. Having raised livestock all my life and feeding Hy-Pro feeds on all of them, I always felt that it is a superior feed to most, if you choose to feed processed feeds. When the pullets were old enough to need layer feed, I switched over to the Hy-Pro layer feed. However found that it not only was complete powder and at the time they refused to eat it, (now they love powdery mash food), but because it was not a popular feed, the bags were often old and stale.

So, I started them on Purina's Layena. I have NEVER been a fan of Purina anything, but I do know the importance of needing to feed a properly mixed feed for good health and had no idea how to mix my own. Ok...on the Layena...a few weeks later, one of the pullets comes down with a wicked case of sour crop that not even a poultry vet could cure. But to make a long story short about this, 2 months later, she did pull thru and it seemed to correlate when I switched them over to the Walmart Manna Pro Egg Maker. As a matter of fact, all of the flock was getting the runs, although only one of them had the sour crop.

Ok...so everybody is enjoying the Manna Pro. But over the past few years, I notice some bags the birds will not eat, sometimes the bags smell as if they have gone rancid from possible improper storage, I was pitching out full bags, and half the time, Walmart is out of stock of this feed. I am just not satisfied. Now sometime during this past year, the feed store stopped carrying the Hy-Pro due to the fact that not enough people use it and having to order tons of it, it only goes bad in the stock room.

So 2 weeks ago, after waiting on Walmart for 3 weeks to get the feed in, I had no choice but to switch back to Layena. Well....wouldn't you know, this same bird has turned up with a SOUR CROP!!! OY! I am convinced that it is related to Layena. Nothing has changed in this birds diet, others have diarrhea as well just as before, the birds can't free range and I am freaking out over this dang Layena!

This feed situation has been and is still tormenting me. What do I do? I have done some research into what is needed as far as grains, some of them I can get at the feed store, others not. But as far as the vitamins, minerals, salts, calcium, I am at a loss as to not only how much to add, but where do I get the proper vitamin mixes to add?

I make a mix right now of chicken scratch, a good parrot seed, fruit and nut mix that does have the necessary salts and vitamins/minerals already added, along with wild birds seeds and hulled sunflower seeds. The protein percent is somewhere around 13% or 14%. I am wondering if I could take this mix, add some alfalfa pellets to the mix, some powdered calcium and maybe this would work?

I need a recipe QUICK like. I need to get them off this crappy Layena and on to something today. This hen can not take months of sour crop due to this crappy feed. All I would have to purchase is the alfalfa pellets. I do have alfalfa hay bales and I could always just let them graze off them and eat this mix. Would this supply them with enough nutrients to stay healthy???

Help!

Update: Ok...this is what I did this morning. I took approx. 1/4 cup each...chicken scratch, millet, hulled sunflower seeds, steel cut oats, cockatiel fruit and nut mix, cockatiel molting seed mix, calcium powder for mixing in reptile food (1 tablespoon),along with Farmers Helper Chick Kibble (1/4 cup). Put all this into the grinder and ground. Boy, it smelled good enough to eat myself! LOL I put it out and they ate it like pyranhas. LOL I think they assume it is a treat, so for right now, I only put out a few handfuls for a test.

Is this going to be enough to sustain them? It has high protein, mainly from the Kibble, calcium powder, vitamins and minerals again from the kibble and good fresh grains. ???

 

[Lacy Blues]

Two Crows, I can't answer all of your questions but two things come to mind while reading your post. How quickly did you change their feed over to Layena and the diarrhea can be caused by this lovely heat wave we're all having. They drink a lot of water and it goes through them quickly... it's a method of cooling.

Your mix you're making now sounds good to me, I'm not sure if it has enough of the vitamins etc., but adding the alfalfa and calcium sounds good. Where do you get powdered calcium? Oyster shell is generally readily available and is fairly cheap. As for the alfalfa pellets, my birds don't like them but if yours do, go for it. I use the alfalfa cubes and soak them overnight to soften the hay and my birds clean that right up. Some people use Calf Manna by Manna Pro, I have seen this at Walmart, but it is soy based... don't know if you're concerned about that or not.

One thing you might consider is fermenting your dry feeds. There is a thread on BYC for fermenting feed for meatbirds, but it has evolved to include all back yard poultry, as well as some other species. I'll have to go get the link for you and then I'll add it here.

Here you go: https://www.backyardchickens.com/t/644300/fermenting-feed-for-meat-birds/6200#post_11693964

 

[TwoCrows]

Two Crows, I can't answer all of your questions but two things come to mind while reading your post. How quickly did you change their feed over to Layena and the diarrhea can be caused by this lovely heat wave we're all having. They drink a lot of water and it goes through them quickly... it's a method of cooling.

Your mix you're making now sounds good to me, I'm not sure if it has enough of the vitamins etc., but adding the alfalfa and calcium sounds good. Where do you get powdered calcium? Oyster shell is generally readily available and is fairly cheap. As for the alfalfa pellets, my birds don't like them but if yours do, go for it. I use the alfalfa cubes and soak them overnight to soften the hay and my birds clean that right up. Some people use Calf Manna by Manna Pro, I have seen this at Walmart, but it is soy based... don't know if you're concerned about that or not.

One thing you might consider is fermenting your dry feeds. There is a thread on BYC for fermenting feed for meatbirds, but it has evolved to include all back yard poultry, as well as some other species. I'll have to go get the link for you and then I'll add it here.

Here you go: https://www.backyardchickens.com/t/644300/fermenting-feed-for-meat-birds/6200#post_11693964

Thanks Lacy! That is a very interesting article about fermenting feed. Actually I was considering this avenue as well, and now that I am reading thru that thread, it has sparked my interest more.

As for the calcium powder, the reason I want to add it is due to a couple of reasons...a while back I switched to a chick starter from Manna Pro that they seemed to enjoy, however having oyster shell on the side was not enough for hard egg shells. And the other reason is that I have a hen that without adding calcium powder to her feed, she will lay shell less or very thin egg shells. I tried different types of calcium on her and found that powdered Cuttlebone calcium really allows her to put on a hard shell. So I have to be careful when mixing feed that I need to add some sort of calcium. And she really needs everything to mixed just right so that the minerals that need to be in proportion with the calcium are balanced so that she can absorb the calcium.

What about DE? I know that it does have calcium, but how much would I add to say a pound of feed to bring the calcium level up?

 

[Lacy Blues]

This is from the fermenting feeds thread I just mentioned... there is currently a discussion going on about using older canned goods to supplement your feed so that is the subject matter.

"This is absolutely perfect food for BSF - Black Soldier Flies
They are very high is protein and calcium.
I would use the BSF as a good go between for old foods and then you will have awesome animal protein after the conversion.
That's what I do. Although because I free range in the summer, I freeze all my BSF in the summer and then feed them in the winter.
I have many gallon size bags full already that I've accumulated this summer.
This is a great way to assure quality animal protein year round."

I thought of you when reading this and figured I would share it. There are also mealworms that you could raise... they're not difficult. There's another link for that. https://www.backyardchickens.com/t/492636/mealworm-farming/6130#post_11690474