How much is too much ? (Greens)

[SA gardener]

How much greens could I include in a chickens diet without affecting laying ?

I grew sprouting broccoli and romanesco cauliflower this year and after harvesting them I'm left with a whole lot of leaves. The leaves and leaf stems are edible but my mom can't use it all in cooking (i have kale too, prefer that). So I've been chopping it up into tint pieces and feeding it to my chickens. I give my 10 hyline silvers about 200 grams to share between them. At a wastage of 10% that equals about 18 grams per bird. Wastage is low because of just how much time i spend cutting it into small pieces. I think they could eat twice as much if i gave them .They just started laying on Monday last week and I wouldn't know what effect it has on them. So my question is, how much is too much? I could compost the plants but it feels like such a waste (6 months of growth for the romanesco). I read somewhere that goats cannot eat too much brassicas as it can be toxic in large amounts. So I'm a little concerned of the effect specifically of brassicas on chickens too

I believe that Hyline silvers should be eating about 110 grams of food per day

 

[Silexian]

I let my chickens out to roam every evening. I put all the garden leftovers in my compost pile. Which the chickens have access to. So they eat what they want in the quantities they want. Some days it is quite a lot. I have not seen any decrease in egg production from the amount of green material they eat.

 

[Acre4Me]

Generally, 10% max treats bc it dilutes their balanced nutrition. So, you are at max amount.

My chickens love brassica leaves too!

 

[CaliforniaMountainChicks]

I give them however much I have during the day. The greens consist of squash leaves, Asian greens, Swiss chard, purslane, in fall/winter/early spring it’s tons of brassica leaves and more. Mine also have wheatgrass grazing boxes in the run that they graze on throughout the day and I sprinkle rye grass seed in the run which gets eaten up as it sprouts. So mine eat a lot of greens and I haven’t noticed any drop in egg production, they consistently lay every day to every other day, even my 3 year olds, and everyone is a healthy weight. The only thing I notice is green tinted poop lol.

 

[Weeg]

You can’t over do greens. You certainly can over do anything thing nagged and dried like mealworms, but I never worry about greens.

They have lots of bioavailable nutrients, vitamins, omega 3’s, and antioxidants. All things that are not in, or aren’t bioavailable in chicken feed. What they dilute they make up for.

 

[raingarden]

I believe that Hyline silvers should be eating about 110 grams of food per day

You cannot compare the weight of fresh green vegetables to the weight of dry feed. The green stuff is probably less than 25% dry matter.