@castrbl , is there some reason why you are not offering a complete ration formulated for the age and gender of your chicken? Why are you mixing scratch into a complete feed? Why is your 13 week old chicken on a starter instead of a grower formula?
There are no heat & sweet indicators in chicken mouth so they won't feel heat & sweet
They probably liking the spicy food due to variety lol
Sometimes spicy food is good for worms as they will go out but Not much
Because spicy food can hurt their lining of the gut
They probably liking the spicy food due to variety lol
Sometimes spicy food is good for worms as they will go out but Not much
Because spicy food can hurt their lining of the gut
I think some common sense needs to be applied here.
There is a difference between spicy and hot.
While chickens may not be able to detect spicy with their taste receptors, their stomachs will detect chilli type hot with the associated consequences.
I would be fairly cautious about giving chickens food with certain spices in and wouldn’t give them anything containing chillies entirely based on what chillies do to my stomach.
There is a difference between spicy and hot.
While chickens may not be able to detect spicy with their taste receptors, their stomachs will detect chilli type hot with the associated consequences.
I would be fairly cautious about giving chickens food with certain spices in and wouldn’t give them anything containing chillies entirely based on what chillies do to my stomach.
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castrbl
Chirping
i dont fully trust commercial pellets. i give her proper nutrients through natural foods and i was still giving her starter feed because i didnt wanna waste it (we just finished the bag so no more baby feed). sorry for the late reply!
I get using up feed before it goes bad.
Is there a specific reason you don't trust commercial feed?
As long as you check the mill date and only buy fresh feed, it would be nearly impossible to provide as precise of nutritional balance from any other source, especially for the same price as a bag of feed.
What you end up with in pellets is complete nutrition in virtually every bite formulated specifically for the species and age.
Due to the importance of eggs and chicken meat for human consumption, there has been exhaustive research into poultry nutrition for well over a century. Likely more research than that for any other animal. The results of that research is available to everyone and the feed companies use that research to precisely formulate their feeds for various age groups of chickens. The incoming raw ingredients are assayed to determine nutrient content of each and recipes are adjusted to achieve optimal nutrition. Each run is then assayed to insure the feed is balanced for the needs of the bird.
A pellet might not look like a natural product but one would be hard pressed to provide anything close to optimal nutrition through natural foods.
I free range all my birds on organic pasture but I still provide a complete feed for them.
In summer, they eat very little feed. This time of year, consumption skyrockets when they can't find enough bugs, seeds and forbs to eat.
I worked at a Macaw breeding facility in the tropics with over 400 birds we had to feed. We couldn't afford to buy pelleted feed which is what the biologists preferred, so we had to make up their diet from 'natural foods'. Every morning at dawn their feed dishes were filled with gallo pinto (rice and beans) to hold them over till the volunteers arrived to cut up fruits and vegetables we bought from the local market at a discount cause it was overripe and about to go bad. All sorts of tropical fruits and root crops went into the mix but still had to be supplemented with a vitamin/mineral/amino blend mixed in. It took several of us 4 or 5 hours each day to prepare the food. It still didn't provide the nutrition a pelleted feed would have.
Is there a specific reason you don't trust commercial feed?
As long as you check the mill date and only buy fresh feed, it would be nearly impossible to provide as precise of nutritional balance from any other source, especially for the same price as a bag of feed.
What you end up with in pellets is complete nutrition in virtually every bite formulated specifically for the species and age.
Due to the importance of eggs and chicken meat for human consumption, there has been exhaustive research into poultry nutrition for well over a century. Likely more research than that for any other animal. The results of that research is available to everyone and the feed companies use that research to precisely formulate their feeds for various age groups of chickens. The incoming raw ingredients are assayed to determine nutrient content of each and recipes are adjusted to achieve optimal nutrition. Each run is then assayed to insure the feed is balanced for the needs of the bird.
A pellet might not look like a natural product but one would be hard pressed to provide anything close to optimal nutrition through natural foods.
I free range all my birds on organic pasture but I still provide a complete feed for them.
In summer, they eat very little feed. This time of year, consumption skyrockets when they can't find enough bugs, seeds and forbs to eat.
I worked at a Macaw breeding facility in the tropics with over 400 birds we had to feed. We couldn't afford to buy pelleted feed which is what the biologists preferred, so we had to make up their diet from 'natural foods'. Every morning at dawn their feed dishes were filled with gallo pinto (rice and beans) to hold them over till the volunteers arrived to cut up fruits and vegetables we bought from the local market at a discount cause it was overripe and about to go bad. All sorts of tropical fruits and root crops went into the mix but still had to be supplemented with a vitamin/mineral/amino blend mixed in. It took several of us 4 or 5 hours each day to prepare the food. It still didn't provide the nutrition a pelleted feed would have.
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Hi, if you don't trust pellets and you don't have a whole lot of chickens to feed "because this stuff is semi-pricey" you should check out scratch and peck feeds. Very good stuff and none gets wasted so it must taste pretty good. It is what I was feeding before I had so many to feed.
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