how much do i feed chicken scratch?

[Fluffy Lambs]

Well, I searched around for feeds that ostensibly offer sufficient levels of at least those two essential aminos, and about the closest I could find was Purina Flockraiser: 1.1% methionine & .55 lysine, along with 20% protein (no fat % spec'd).

Small Pet Select Chicken Layer was close, at 1%, .5, 18; but SPS Certified Organic, strangely enough, had things backward: 0.4% methionine & .8% lysine, as did Manna Pro's Gamebird/Showbird Crumbles @.45 & 1.2 and Organic Layer Pellets. Strange that so many mfrs seem to reverse the UDA's numbers. Can you point me to a primary source for those figures?

Anyway, it looks like Flockraiser is what I'll be trying next. Yesterday, I started supplementing the roo's diet with diced, cooked shrimp & chicken, and he flipped out, did his little "I found something delicious" dance, and gobbled it down. You'd think he'd found a grub! He's moulting right now, which I understands increases his protein requirements, so if he'll tolerate meat and shellfish, I'll try to supplement his plant-based diet with a little each day.

Your feeding him chicken? Wouldn't that be considered cannibalism?

 

[U_Stormcrow]

Your feeding him chicken? Wouldn't that be considered cannibalism?

cannibalism is common in nature.

i feed my birds bits of the organs i don't keep for myself when i process a bird. Not the gall bladder (jokingly, its "radioactive" - remove VERY carefully and dispose promptly) or the brain (no known prion diseases in poultry, but if there were, that's where it would be concentrated, and besides, it would be more work to crack into it) , but they get everything else i don't eat.

 

[3KillerBs]

Your feeding him chicken? Wouldn't that be considered cannibalism?

Chickens are happy cannibals. I always give them the picked carcasses of roast chicken, freezer-burned pieces (cooked), the stuff I strain out of the soup stock, etc.

Chickens eat anything that doesn't eat them first.

 

[Lavender Wraps]

Hello everyone, I know it's pretty weird of my-self to ask how much chicken scratch should i feed to my chickens but I really want to feed them the best/desired amount. I bought a bag of Dumor 6 grain chicken scratch at my local TSC (LINK to chicken scratch: https://www.tractorsupply.com/tsc/product/dumor-non-gmo-6-grain-scratch-10lb-spbgn9991?cm_vc=-10015) and I was wondering how often I should feed this to my 4 chickens and how much? Should I also separate it from their daily chicken feed or put it with the feed?


Thanks,
Valerie

I like to spread it around the chicken yard or in the hen house with it's bad weather out. They are grazer and love to roam and eat as they please. If you put it in with their regular feed they'll scratch it out and pick out what they like. There is no limit, since I free feed my chickens I gauge the amount to give them by what's left at the end of the day, adjust as needed. One problem with the chicken scratch that my local feed store carries, lots of cracked corn. My chickens don't the hard cracked corn so it's wasted.

 

[cundare]

The recognition means a lot, thank you Don. I figure if someone shows up here asking for help earnestly, least I can do (if its a subject I can help with - plenty of forums here I rarely dip my toes into) is offer them the respect of a nuanced answer, and provide some basis for my opinions.

There's no other good way to determine whether an anonymous source on the internet is actually knowledgeable/helpful or merely entertaining (as reflected in their accumulation of "likes")

/edit and in the interest of full disclosure, I don't actually feed my own flock in accordance with the general "backyard flock recommend" I typically offer here - but neither my flock size nor my management practice is typical of backyard flocks, and I'm knowingly taking some risks I would not recommend for persons keeping individual birds over longer time frames than I do.

Well, my Flock Raiser arrived and El Exigente refuses to eat it. All he wants is junk food. I tried giving him nothing other than the FR, and he walks over to it, eats a few grains (as he's obligated to do when I, the alpha, find food for him), then stands there and whines. We've spoiled him too long with millet and scratch, I think.

 

[U_Stormcrow]

...and now, you wait him out. A healthy chicken won't starve itself to death. When El Exigente realizes its that or nothing, that will be jus fine, thank you. You could wet it down some, to oatmeal like consistency. Sometimes they prefer it that way, sometimes not.

 

[45lk9p459gm-w]

I'm a little late to the party but here is my two cents ....

When it comes to chicken wrangling I rank just under the village idiot …. So don’t take this post as expert advice.

I live in a high heat/humidity area and was worried about my birds over heating. One of the members, here, suggested tossing a handful of scratch to the birds to see if they were spunky or lethargic if I was concerned. So I started tossing a small handful of scratch to them every morning and evening to make sure that they were all very active and not showing any sign of over heating.

Then one morning I noticed what looked like some reddish poop while I was scooping the poop boards. Thinking this might not be a good thing I gave the birds a small amount of scratch, as usual, and witnessed nine of the ten birds start frantically scratching and pecking as usual … but one bird just looked at the rest of them and slowly made her way back inside the coop. On advice from others, it was agreed that this was probably cocciiosis and I started Corid treatment immediately for all ten birds. As a result of the early detection I only had the one bird show any symptoms and she was much better the next day. If I had not noticed the symptoms, being new to this, it could have ended badly.

From that experience I am now a firm believer in a small amount of scratch morning and evening just to judge the condition of the birds. This makes me feel better anyway ....

 

[cundare]

...and now, you wait him out. A healthy chicken won't starve itself to death. When El Exigente realizes its that or nothing, that will be jus fine, thank you. You could wet it down some, to oatmeal like consistency. Sometimes they prefer it that way, sometimes not.

Actually, his name is Junior. I was referring tongue-in-cheek to the coffee commercial, because, around here, when he smiles, the whole village rejoices.

 

[3KillerBs]

...and now, you wait him out. A healthy chicken won't starve itself to death. When El Exigente realizes its that or nothing, that will be jus fine, thank you. You could wet it down some, to oatmeal like consistency. Sometimes they prefer it that way, sometimes not.

'
This. Exactly.

 

[U_Stormcrow]

I'm a little late to the party but here is my two cents ....

When it comes to chicken wrangling I rank just under the village idiot …. So don’t take this post as expert advice.

I live in a high heat/humidity area and was worried about my birds over heating. One of the members, here, suggested tossing a handful of scratch to the birds to see if they were spunky or lethargic if I was concerned. So I started tossing a small handful of scratch to them every morning and evening to make sure that they were all very active and not showing any sign of over heating.

Then one morning I noticed what looked like some reddish poop while I was scooping the poop boards. Thinking this might not be a good thing I gave the birds a small amount of scratch, as usual, and witnessed nine of the ten birds start frantically scratching and pecking as usual … but one bird just looked at the rest of them and slowly made her way back inside the coop. On advice from others, it was agreed that this was probably cocciiosis and I started Corid treatment immediately for all ten birds. As a result of the early detection I only had the one bird show any symptoms and she was much better the next day. If I had not noticed the symptoms, being new to this, it could have ended badly.

From that experience I am now a firm believer in a small amount of scratch morning and evening just to judge the condition of the birds. This makes me feel better anyway ....

I free range, my birds are fed by me once daily with a nutritionally complete commercial feed, in the evening. I use that "free" feed opportunity for observation, just as you do. We all have to find a management practice that works for us and our circumstances.