Im here to figure out what's wrong with my chicken

[Ryder]

how do you start your own question on here?

 

[Laura the chicken mom]

Awesome. I will get that. I have lovely blue food grade 50 gallon barrels that I store everything in nicely. But for now think I need to change my name to Laura, the bad chicken mom :/

 

[wyoDreamer]

I give a little cracked corn to my birds in the winter - i figure the extra calories will do them good. It has been said that corn is chicken candy - alot of calories, not much nutrition. I know they will pick out all the corn from the scratch before they will eat the oats. My guinea hens will eat their food in this order: corn, sunfower seeds, all-flock pellets and oats go to the floor for the wild rabbits and birds to clean up.

 

[rebrascora]

You are right that too many treats are not good. Layer feed is formulated to provide all the nutrients that hens need to be healthy and lay eggs. Once you start to add extras then they can skew the balance because they will eat the treats in preference to the "boring" everyday food. Scratch is a treat like any other and ideally should be scattered over a large area of deep litter to encourage the birds to scratch and forage and help prevent boredom whilst burning off the excess carbs but it needs to be rationed or not fed at all. Natural yoghurt is useful for replenishing the healthy bacteria in the gut after an intestinal upset but should not be fed on a regular basis. Oyster shell should be in a separate dish so that the hens will take some if they need it but layer feed has an increased calcium content so it should hardly be touched and many people, myself included supply their crushed egg shells to fulfil the same role and they usually are more interested in the egg shells.

As regards grit, if they have a large pen, they may be finding grit in the dirt in order to break down the scratch and any other treats like insects and worms that they find. Some soils contain plenty of such stones and grit whilst other have very little and it needs to be provided. It is peace of mind to provide some rather than hope that they are finding enough. It may also be that what you have is a mixture of both grit and oyster shell and you should be able to tell by looking at it or it will say on the bag label.

 

[rebrascora]

We have all done things on our chicken journey that we wish we had known better with hindsight. It doesn't make us "bad chicken moms" just not well enough informed. Experience is a great teacher and it can be tragic but you often learn most from the hardest lessons and if we are "good chicken moms" that spurs us on to learn to more as you are doing. We are all on that learning journey and we have and will continue to make mistakes, just hopefully not the same ones.

As regards the scratch, treats in general should make up no more than a 10th of their daily intake. So if they eat 9 cups of crumbles a day and don't get any other treats like oatmeal or rice, then a cup of scratch a day would probably still be generous. There is corn in the scratch so don't think about giving them extra corn as that would be worse. It is really all about the protein content. Layer feed is usually about 16% protein. Scratch is about 10% protein. So feeding scratch is diluting their protein intake and increasing their carbohydrates and if they don't burn off the extra carbohydrates they get turned into fat. I know it probably doesn't seem like much of a difference but over the weeks and months and years it can lead to a significant amount of fat in a bird's abdomen and around their organs and in the liver of those birds predisposed to it. I hope I explained that OK and it isn't too confusing.

 

[coach723]

how do you start your own question on here?

Choose the forum you want, ie; emergencies/diseases, predators & pests, incubating & hatching etc. At the top right of that forum, below the top banner is a blue button (I'm on a desktop) that says "Post New Thread". Click on that and it will take you to the page to put in your title for your thread and a box for your question and all pertinent info to be entered.