Is this diet OK for Chickens?

[WhiteLeghorn2]

I'm raising Rhodebar chickens.

They have 1 acre to feed from, at all times. The acre is grass only, so they eat the seeds (bermuda), grass and bugs.

I give them fruits, veggies, and meat from my own food (leftovers... nothing fatty or with oils). Their favorite food, by far, is meat. For example, I may throw out: kale and berries, or a whole watermelon and whole head of cabbage, or a handful of turkey meat and veggies

Their "grain" feed is the following:
Hemp seeds
Millet
Flax seeds
Hulled sunflower seeds
Chia seeds
sesame seeds
seaweed.

Obviously you can tell I don't like to feed my chickens corn, soy, or wheat (on the fence about this one). I'm trying to feed them close to a natural diet of their ancestors, which would be mostly seeds, fruits, vegetation and meat (bugs, dead animals, rodents, etc.).

My question is regarding the seeds I feed them as supplement... are any of the items redundant (not that that would be bad, per say)? Bad for chickens? etc.

Thank you very much for your time.

Seems like a very good and natural diet. I would suspect that you will not get as many eggs as you would with a layer feed, but your egg quality will probably be better. I would recommend giving them some mealworms for protein, because protein is a very important part of their diet. Otherwise, I really like the diet.

 

[pdirt]

The ONLY source of enough methionine is either to feed back the whites back or provide whey. Look up what methionine is and you'll understand. You want to provide a natural source and whey is the only one. In the wild a bird eating lots of different bugs and even pregnant small animals or lizard eggs or whatever would have enough to spare for a dozen eggs - but not for 300!

You can't get enough methionine feeding meat, fat, bugs or produce or seeds. Egg whites are such an incredibly rich source of methionine that you have to go to another super rich source in order to provide it for your hens if you want them to be able to continue laying long-term. When they run out of their stores they just can't lay any more. If you want your hens to be super mutants and lay not only for 1 or 2 years for a lifetime you have to go above and beyond and feed THEM some superfood.

Dorothy - Thank you for sharing your wisdom on these things, from what little I know about nutrition, you know what you're talking about

How many egg whites (per bird) do you feed back to your birds and how do you feed it to them? Everyday, once a week, etc? We love our eggs from them and would find it hard to do if we had to feed back 100% of the egg whites back to them.

What can you tell me about the "unnatural" forms of methionine found in typical chicken feeds...what is it made from and why should it be avoided?

Also, do you ferment your turmeric? I've been fermenting turmeric for my own consumption for a short time now and WOW...powerful stuff. I never thought of feeding it to the chickens, I'll have to make a bigger batch next time! Supposedly much of the antioxidant properties are locked up in the tough woody root called turmeric (even in powdered form) and either 1) slow cooking in a fat or 2) lacto-fermenting will make those much more bioavailable.

Thanks for the most interesting thread.

 

[DorothyH]

My pleasure to share on my old weird hobby.

When it comes to my own eggs I started to raise my hens in the first place and then learned to feed them such an extreme health food diet because I love eating raw egg yolks! Eating the eggs raw doesn't de-nature that wonderful fat for ME! You taste every little thing when you eat the eggs raw. It's easier to experiment and determine what's "right" when you can taste it in the egg yolks so easily. Raw eggs whites however I generally don't like so it's easy for me to give those back to the birds. I eat them here and there but not usually so I've never experimented with the minimum amount of egg white. 1/8 of a teaspoon a day of whey however I did find was a good amount for them. I probably wouldn't go much lower if using whey but I'd be interested in hearing if anyone wanted to experiment with lower. I have power layers though (leghorns and ISA Browns) and old ones at that so they might need more.

At the moment I'm finding it easiest to use soaked and rinsed flax seeds to make layer supplement treats in my dehydrator because I can do that once every month or two and be done with it and then bring the chickens that dried treat each day without having measure or mix. Whenever I eat my eggs I put the eggshells in one container and the egg yolks in another and put them in my dehydrator at 105 degrees. Then when I go to make their treats I grind up the eggshells and mix together those and the dried egg whites and the cayenne and the whey and any other powered good thing I have around for them and then make balls out of it and dehydrate it. I can take out a ball, drop it on the ground, step on it and the chickens get their supplements.

However, I used to soak my seeds and each day put the fresh egg whites I saved in the fridge on top of the soaked seeds along with the cayenne and tumeric and mix that all together in the bowl so that the whey held the herbs onto the seeds. I could even add their meat or veggies in there. It's pretty easy but then I had to wash more bowls and I'm the lazy type.

I've never heard of fermenting tumeric! I love fermenting things and that sounds outrageously good. Using some fresh raw fermented whey I imagine would be wonderful. I can get fresh tumeric (but expensive) and I try to grow it but it doesn't do great here like the cayenne does. Perhaps I have to use a great deal more tumeric in its powered form than I would with fresh fermented tumeric and I might be willing to do that for me (sounds really wonderful) but probably not for the chickens. I have dealt with fresh tumeric and it's messy stuff that stains things. The powder is so darn easy that I think I'd rather give them 4 times the amount of that and have it be that easy. I find that I have to use a tiny fraction of my own cayenne peppers that I dehydrate and grind down compared to the store bought stuff. Fresh home-grown cayenne is potent stuff and I bet it's the same with tumeric. I wouldn't ferment it in cooked fat because I try in general to avoid that because of AGE's and what heat does to fats in general. I was making lots of raw cheese at one point and had lots of fermented whey and now what you said is making me think that I have to get myself some raw milk again just to have some fermented tumeric!

Please share if you would in detail how you ferment your tumeric? How does the fermented tumeric make you feel?
Thanks.

 

[canSttent]

Seems like a very good and natural diet. I would suspect that you will not get as many eggs as you would with a layer feed, but your egg quality will probably be better. I would recommend giving them some mealworms for protein, because protein is a very important part of their diet. Otherwise, I really like the diet.

They get mealworms at least 5 times a week, hand fulls.

In fact, that was the main diet for them as chicks: hard boiled eggs, mealworms, diced up veggies and fruit.

 

[circesfire]

Could you please share your chicken cracker recipe? I'd love to make my own healthy treats for them. Also when you mention whey are you talking about whey powder (like health food stores sell) or liquid whey the byproduct of making cheese?

 

[DorothyH]

In my experience with the diet that you are feeding (along with the whey and herbs) you will get more eggs for longer.

Do you grow your own mealworms? If you do and you don't know about black soldier flies and are in an area of the country where they are native you might really love to learn about those. I raised mealworms but the black soldier flies were so much better that I've been trying to stop the mealworms - but once you get a colony of mealworms going I think the only way to really stop the proliferation is to freeze the whole colony out or something. They just keep coming and coming no matter how many I capture and feed out. I found that the mealworms dehydrated in the bags ruined the flavor of my raw egg yolks big time. Makes sense since I bet those mealworms aren't fed that well whereas my mealworms get organic meal and organic carrots for moisture. Those make the egg yolks taste better. I wish I could just buy them the dehydrated mealworms because they are fairly cheap and very easy - but alas - every corner I try to cut ends up in a lesser egg.

Since I'm about to hatch some babies I'd like to ask you more about what you fed yours. Was there a reason you boiled the eggs? Were the eggs from another source than your own chickens? How small did you have to dice up the fruits and veggies? Weren't the adult mealworms too big for the chicks?

Thanks!

 

[DorothyH]

Could you please share your chicken cracker recipe? I'd love to make my own healthy treats for them. Also when you mention whey are you talking about whey powder (like health food stores sell) or liquid whey the byproduct of making cheese?

Whey is indeed the liquid by-product of making cheese. In fact, that is what you are still buying in the healthfood store - it's just that they dehydrate the whey to make it into a powder. If you have access to raw grass-fed liquid whey that by far is best. I used to use that liquid and when I had too much I would dehydrate it in my own dehydrator at 95 degrees to make my own powdered whey for them. Normally, with any other food, I would not suggest non-grassfed or processed animal foods of any kind but when it comes to methionine it's so important that in my opinion it's better to feed them bad whey than to feed them no methionine source at all. If the rest of their diet is raw species specific and you are providing tumeric and cayenne then their livers and immune systems will likely be strong enough to process out the toxins but without the methionine they will wear themselves out laying eggs filled with it and not have any leftover to be healthy themselves. It's that important.

As far as recipes go circe - I don't do recipes. I kind of do these things by the seat of my pants and just from lots of experience with these sorts of things over the years.

I save all the egg shells and all the egg whites in a jar and when I have too much or run out of the crackers from the last batch I powder up all those shells and egg whites in my high-powered blender, but a food processor or magic bullet would do it too, and add it to soaked and rinsed flax seeds. Flax seeds can be soaked from 2 hours to 12 hours but it's easier to rinse the goopie from them with shorter soaking times. The rinsing is important because that's how you get rid of the enzyme inhibitors. I then mix in all the powder along with cayenne, tumeric and whey powder if you don't have egg whites into the flax seeds. I wear latex throw away gloves because tumeric will stain anything and you better never touch anything with the cayenne because that can seriously burn you - especially my fresh stuff. I then add in other herbs and vegetables and fruits that I've dehydrated and powdered in order not to waste them. That's a nice thing about the treats is that you waste nothing. You can mix it with your hands or mix it with a big spoon. If the mixture doesn't have much powder the treats will come out like crackers - flat. If you have lots of powder they will come out like balls and break apart easily. It takes some practice to get the balls, but those are what I like the most. Enough moisture and flax to keep them together but little enough where I can just step on them outside and it turns into easy to eat bits for the chickens.

Honestly - I have to say that I don't even consider this to be a "treat" but an absolutely vital part of their every day diets. They need those minerals back from their shells and the methionine from their white (or maybe in your case whey) and without the cayenne and tumeric the real old girls have trouble continuing to lay.

I wish you could come over and just make some with me! I'm sorry that I don't have an actual recipe. I just kind of know what they need and how much to add of the powdered things to get the right consistency.

The good thing is that you can't really do it wrong. If you get crackers then you just break them up for your girls. Any amount of this stuff is going to help and after awhile you will get to know what makes a big difference in their health, laying and molting patterns. When your chickens are laying all year (if they are of the prolific laying breeds), not molting, never getting sick and living very long lives while still laying - then you know you got it right. You won't get that btw with just the chicken crackers. That you get with chicken crackers and good raw protein and organic sprouts and free ranging. But even if you just add the crackers that's a big plus for them. The flax seeds also will make their eggs higher in omega 3 fatty acids which is very good for you as the person eating the eggs. The tumeric and cayenne will provide you with healthy carotenoids and the whey will make sure you are getting higher methionine levels in your eggs and methionine is a an unbelievably important thing for humans to eat.

Let me know if I wasn't clear on anything or can explain any part of this more for you.

Good luck!

 

[canSttent]

In my experience with the diet that you are feeding (along with the whey and herbs) you will get more eggs for longer.

Do you grow your own mealworms? If you do and you don't know about black soldier flies and are in an area of the country where they are native you might really love to learn about those. I raised mealworms but the black soldier flies were so much better that I've been trying to stop the mealworms - but once you get a colony of mealworms going I think the only way to really stop the proliferation is to freeze the whole colony out or something. They just keep coming and coming no matter how many I capture and feed out. I found that the mealworms dehydrated in the bags ruined the flavor of my raw egg yolks big time. Makes sense since I bet those mealworms aren't fed that well whereas my mealworms get organic meal and organic carrots for moisture. Those make the egg yolks taste better. I wish I could just buy them the dehydrated mealworms because they are fairly cheap and very easy - but alas - every corner I try to cut ends up in a lesser egg.

Since I'm about to hatch some babies I'd like to ask you more about what you fed yours. Was there a reason you boiled the eggs? Were the eggs from another source than your own chickens? How small did you have to dice up the fruits and veggies? Weren't the adult mealworms too big for the chicks?

Thanks!

I will admit that I'm not ultra-clean with my foods; once I'm a little more settled, everything they get will be from my own farm and organic.

The mealworms were dehydrated and store bought, so no problem with being too big. I could say to myself, "those mealworms are ****! Don't feed them that garbage!" ... but hey, it still beats feeding them corn and soy and calling it a day, right? I hope to have enough land soon so that I don't have to supplement bugs, they will find their own.

The eggs were store bought (Costco) and came hard-boiled. Again, the "why conventional eggs?! Don't you know what those chickens eat?!" ..... still better than corn and soy and garbage "chicken feed"

I would only dice (almost blend, really) the harder veggies; if it was soft fruit or leafy greens, I gave it to them whole and let them figure it out.... and they did. Even as chicks they would peck away at berries, heads of lettuce, etc. Mind you I waited a couple weeks before the big fruits and big veggies... for the first 2 weeks it was pretty much mealworms, eggs, and kale.

I'm in Arizona, I'll have to look up the fly you are talking about

 

[circesfire]

I'm so excited to start making these. I make my own cheese and usually just dump the whey down the sink. Glad I've found a use for it that will benefit the chickens!

 

[chickengeorgeto]

I feed my chickens raw grass-fed ground up cow including the organs. At least an ounce a day per chicken. ...They can't find enough bugs to provide sufficient protein here... and the soaked seeds are only 30% protein... I give them extra raw suet in the summer. Sometimes I through them whole small wild-caught fish and they are a hoot to watch as they tear it apart. Chickens are carnivores and especially layers that need tremendous amounts of quality raw protein...

...Egg whites are one of the very best sources for methionine in the human diet so the chickens absolutely have to have enough in order to lay eggs all the time. ....The only other good source besides feeding the chickens back their own eggs whites ....

Nothing wrong with feeding beef and or beef by products to your chickens, they'll thank you for it.

However I would like a link concerning the 30% protein content of soaked seeds.

I am glad you feed boiled egg whites to your chickens but I am perplexed that you don't feed them the whole boiled egg. What besides the decreased methionine content of egg yoke or yellow is your rational for not feeding whole eggs back to your chickens?