How much t feed?

[thegreatpiscato]

Hi everyone,

I hope you and your chicks are surviving this heat. (It's going to be 90 here in Michigan, starting tomorrow!) My chicks have shade, and an unlimited supply of water. My question is, how much to feed them? I give my 18 chickens (Five months old,) a mixture of eight pounds of cracked corn and "scratch" twice a day, which totals 16 pounds. Plus, a small local grocery is nice enough to save all of his old "greens" for me, so long as I pick them up every three days. You should see how crazy those chicks go for them!

Am I "over-feeding" them? "Cuz right now, (Just like my brother-in-law, his wife, and their four kids,) they're eating me out of house and home! Any advice you could offer would be much appreciated...

With every good wish, I remain,

Senior Master Chief
Paul Anderson
U.S. Navy, Retired

 

[griffinchicken]

mine don't get any feed until night... they free range all day

 

[ChickensAreSweet]

Your chickens should be eating more like 5 or 6 lb a day of feed (this is based upon "a lighter weight hen eats about 4 oz of feed a day").

So I think you are feeding some rodents or wild birds, or nighttime wandering animals.

However, I wouldn't decrease what you give them (because whatever is eating it may leave them nothing to eat).

I'd try to make it rodent or wild bird proof and give them feed during the day that sits there available for them. You can build a treadle feeder, or put the food inside the coop to make it less accessible to wild birds and rodents. You can make strips of vinyl clear shower curtain liner to cover the pop door to keep the birds out but let the chickens pass through. Only 1/2 inch hardware cloth will keep out rats and weasels which kill chickens, and likewise will keep out mice.

They need layer feed- don't mess with scratch except as a treat in my opinion. They need the protein. You can buy organic feed if you are worried about GMO.

Corn only has about 7-9% protein and scratch about 10%. Layer feed has 16% protein (at 5 months you can go ahead and put them on layer). They will be laying any day. They need the protein to make feathers and eggs, and to be healthy.

For chicks there is 20% protein (starter feed) until they get to be about 8 weeks of age, then 17% protein (grower feed). But now that they are going to lay, then they need 16% protein.

You can give your cracked corn and scratch too but I'd throw out about 4-5 handfuls a day for your number of chickens.

If you want, you can use your scratch and cracked corn as a base and mix your own feed- all you need is a good protein source and some more variety. I'd include some clabbered milk (from a dairy animal, has to be raw!), meat scraps, roasted soybean meal/grindings, or mealworms. Or fish meal (not too much though, and not the gardening type- has to be feed grade) or cooked fish. You will also need some grit if they aren't free ranging and some oyster shell. They need a little salt too...that's why I buy the Redmond Mineral Conditioner - or you can carefully mix in salt to be less than 1% of the feed- more like 0.5%.

There are other things you can give them too, like black oil sunflower seeds and millet (birdseed), rolled barley or oats, recleaned feed wheat, and split peas.

Go Navy!
Thank you for your service.

 

[ChickensAreSweet]

http://www.lionsgrip.com/chickens.html

http://www2.ca.uky.edu/smallflocks/Feed_ingredients/Grains.html

http://www2.ca.uky.edu/smallflocks/Feed_ingredients/Proteins.html

I love these sites.

 

[thegreatpiscato]

Hi,

Thank you for your reply. My birds are all contained in a large "poultry-wire" run, but it never occurred to me that mice or chipmunks (which I've seen a lot of lately,) might be helping themselves to my "buffet!" Sounds like some hardware cloth is called for. Thanks for your advice.

With every good wish, I remain,

Senior Master Chief
Paul Anderson
U.S. Navy, Retired

 

[ChickensAreSweet]

Hi,

Thank you for your reply. My birds are all contained in a large "poultry-wire" run, but it never occurred to me that mice or chipmunks (which I've seen a lot of lately,) might be helping themselves to my "buffet!" Sounds like some hardware cloth is called for. Thanks for your advice.

With every good wish, I remain,

Senior Master Chief
Paul Anderson
U.S. Navy, Retired

You are welcome!

If you would like to make your run digging predator-resistant, a hardware cloth apron is also good:
https://www.backyardchickens.com/t/670830/the-shed-is-here-omg-now-what/20
See post #26 for an example of a hardware cloth apron- you don't even have to bury it...just put rocks on it or lightly sprinkle some dirt on it and the grass will grow up and through it- keeps diggers like dogs from getting your chickens.

You can close the coop up for the night and just keep chicken wire everywhere else, but if you are letting the pop door remain open then hardware cloth is excellent, even on the roof of the run (raccoons can rip through chicken wire as if it isn't even there and they climb).

I don't have a predator proof run (just a fenced in large area) but close up the shed at night. This is cheaper (the food is kept inside the coop).