Is It Ok for Roo to Eat Layer Pellets??

[digitS']

Quote:

Might chewing on a Tums

have the same effect??!

Young growing bodies are different than mature bodies. Kidney problems are not common in mature roosters and in commercial breeder houses, they are eating the same as the hens.

Of course as they get older, they may develop a more diverse range of interests.

Steve

 

[al6517]

Quote:
AAWWW Mama you beat me to it, LOL LOL.

 

[BrahmaMama]

Quote:
AAWWW Mama you beat me to it, LOL LOL.

 

[enola]

I worked in a Commercial Breeder House for Perdue Farms for several summers. The roosters in those houses ate different feed than the hens, a feed especially formulated to keep them lean and fertile. Their feeders were cranked up and down twice a day so they could eat. The roosters were considerably taller than the hens, so the feeders were lowered to a height that the roosters could reach, but not reachable by the hens.

The hens were also fed twice a day, in troughs that ran one half of the house length. The feed was pulled through the entire length of the feeder with a flat chain thingy in the trough bottom. The hen feeders stayed down unless the house was being cleaned. You should see the rush for the feeders when the chain begins running to bring the feed out to the hens.

To keep the roosters from eating the hen's feed there was a grill over the feed trough. The hen's heads fit through easily, but the rooster's heads were too big for them to fit through the grill. Unfortunately, if a rooster managed to get his head through the grill to eat with the hens, he usually could not get it back out and he stayed there until some human came along and got him out. IF the hens didn't peck him to death before the human got there.

The hen's feed was also restricted to keep them from gaining too much weight.

 

[digitS']

Quote:
I realized that there were feed restrictions and other strict controls to keep broiler breeders healthy enuf to mature and reproduce. It hadn't occurred to me that there would be any separate feeding regimen for roosters & hens after they'd reach breeding age.

I was going by something I'd read about breeder flocks by a poultry scientist at the Department Animal and Poultry Science, University of Guelph. "It is also interesting to realize that most roosters today are fed high-calcium breeder diets, which provide 4-6x their calcium needs, yet kidney dysfunction is quite rare in these birds."

An important word that I'd forgotten was "most" - as in "most roosters."

Steve

 

[enola]

Working in a commercial breeder house is quite an experience.....

Chickens will do things to each other that most humans would probably rather not see.....

Some of the roosters are incredibly aggressive to humans.....

I think the rule of thumb in a breeder house is....if it lays still for more than 10 seconds it is fair to eat it....chickens are so heartless sometimes.....

Once blood is showing on a chicken in a breeder house, it is doomed !

Roosters take dislikes to the strangest things, some can't stand certain colors.....for example, reds and oranges will definitely get you flopped !

And just like in back yard houses, sometimes you will see 3 hens in one nest, only it is really funny in this case, because the nests are more than 2/3 of the way filled up when ONE hen gets in there. They are really packed in there !

The eggs roll out of the back of the nests onto a conveyor belt and then are transferred to the "egg" room where they are packed onto trays and loaded onto huge racks that go from the farm into the incubator !

And while working there, I saw some of the strangest shaped eggs, wrinkled eggs, eggs with only enough shell to say it at least had some shell ! Have you ever seen 40 dozen double yolkers in the same day ? I have, because at the end of the laying cycle, they are a very common occurance.

 

[Chickie Mamma]

It must have been some experience to work in a commercial breeder house. I understand that it IS better not to see certain things sometimes. It always bothered me about the conditions that they are brought up in. Thanks for sharing your experiences!

 

[GardenerGal]

Not only do all my chooks get layer pellets regardless of gender, but so do all of my ducks and geese regardless of gender.

But they get supplementary scratch grain (usually the less expensive grocery-store birdseed, which includes corn and sunflower seeds, millet, milo, etc.) and kitchen scraps. Plus any of the weird things they find crawling around in the yard that I don't want to know about.