Looking for opinions on how I'm feeding my chickens

[citychicks99]

Hello,
I have a 15-week old cockerel and chicken and it looks like the cockerel is currently molting. I have been giving them chick starter feed but I have started fermenting some of their feed and they love it, especially the cockerel. I give them about 1/2 cup of fermented feed a day while still leaving out dry feed as free choice. I also mix in .5 tsp of Poultry Cell in the fermented feed and make sure the cockerel gets most of it. The chicken gets a little bit of it too because she pecks at everything but I figured it should be fine.

For treats, I like to give them sunflower and pumpkin seeds almost every day. I give them about a tablespoon of yogurt and a quarter of a hard-boiled egg every other day. Right now, I'm wondering if they should get yogurt and eggs every day since it's getting colder and he's molting. I wanted to add a tablespoon of nutritional yeast to their daily feed as well to make sure they get extra protein for the winter but I just read a horror story of chickens dying from the wrong balance of nutrition so I wanted to make sure. My brother also gives them apples every few days and I gave them some pumpkin today. I also mixed in 2% diatomaceous earth into their feed.

Since I only have a chicken and cockerel, in about 3 weeks, I'm going to give them Purina Flock Raiser and leave out oyster shell for the chicken. I saved some oyster shells from a few months ago and boiled them to get rid of bacteria. Would it be okay to crush this and give it to the chicken?

I appreciate any advice on how to best feed these two. Thank you!

 

[3KillerBs]

Welcome to BYC.

The usual guideline is to limit treats to less than 10% of their diet. That's usually just a tablespoon or so.

Where, in general, are you?

If you are in a severe winter area, this article includes tips on feeding chickens that are subject to severe cold: https://www.backyardchickens.com/articles/cold-weather-poultry-housing-and-care.72010/

In a mild or moderate-winter area you need make no changes -- just making sure that they have free access to a good-quality feed at all times.

 

[NatJ]

I have a 15-week old cockerel and chicken and it looks like the cockerel is currently molting. I have been giving them chick starter feed

Chicks molt frequently as they grow.
Chick starter has everything they need for growing AND molting.
There is NO NEED to add extra protein or supplements when a chicken is molting while eating chick starter.

I just read a horror story of chickens dying from the wrong balance of nutrition so I wanted to make sure.

If you want to be really sure, just give them chick starter for their feed.
(I assume they also have unlimited access to water, and will have access to oyster shell or eggshell, and maybe grit as well.)

There are many other things that can be safely fed to chickens (including everything you have listed). In general, small amounts are fine but large amounts can cause nutritional imbalances. If you do not want to fuss with balancing things, you should be fine with the guideline @3KillerBs gave: "limit treats to less than 10% of their diet. That's usually just a tablespoon or so."

Since I only have a chicken and cockerel, in about 3 weeks, I'm going to give them Purina Flock Raiser

It is fine for them to keep eating chick starter, but it is also fine to switch to Flock Raiser. If you want to switch, I suggest you do it when your bag of chick starter is almost gone, so you can mix the last chick starter into the first flock raiser for a few days to help them transition between the feeds.

and leave out oyster shell for the chicken. I saved some oyster shells from a few months ago and boiled them to get rid of bacteria. Would it be okay to crush this and give it to the chicken?

That should be fine.
You can also offer eggshells from eggs you eat. Just squish them a little so they don't look like eggs. There is no need to wash, boil, bake, dry, or grind them. (Exception: if you want to put eggshell into a dish, it should be thoroughly dry so it does not grow bacteria or mold. If you just toss the eggshells on the floor of their pen, it does not matter whether it is wet or dry.)

 

[JacinLarkwell]

I read that it was good prevention for worms.

No. It prevents pests in bagged feed, but that's about it

 

[JacinLarkwell]

There's no reason to put DE in the food.

 

[U_Stormcrow]

The "thumb rule" for feed is 1/4# per bird, per day, dry weight of a nutritionally complete commercial ration. It varies hugely, by bird, by breed, by condition, by age, by life cycle (i.e. molt), and by weather - then is further influenced by their ability (if any) to free range.

THAT is why offering (for all but CornishX, who will sometimes eat themselves to death) free choice feed and ratproofing the area (also all other predators) is the generally preferred option. You can also learn to condition check your birds, picking them up, feeling along the keel bone, and otherwise visually inspecting condition to get an idea of whether or no they are being overfed, but it takes practice *and* feedback. Or what you convince yourself is fine (and we humans have brains good at that) may not be. I, frankly, am no good at it, and barely bother - even though my birds free range all day, and only recieve a single feeding each night, in quantity which varies with the season and their behaviors.

I butcher a bird or two each week on average, and get my hands all up in it, so I can readily see if I have excess fat accumulation around the organs, intruding into the liver, or if my birds muscles seem stressed or undersized. That's my "condition check". Obviously an impractical solution for most.

Recommend reviewing coop and run for an upgrade to your predator protection, a treadle feeder design (I'm not thrilled, honestly, but I have a very wet environment and pretty dusty feed from the local mill with some frequency), or an alternative design which you can close securely in the evenings and reopen upon the morn - like a high (solid) sided wire cage feed tunnel with the food located in a central depression - so when your chickens scratch at it, they don't kick it outside the feed area. Having not actually crafted one of those, that's pure theory, however, based on what I have observed of chicken feeding behaviors.

 

[Thetinyfarm]

I give my poultry crushed soybean, high in protein and they love it. I do soak it overnight as I do with a lot of their grain. I give my girls black sunflower seed, chicken scratch, corn, dried peas and what they love the most is cooked potatoes or just the skins with bran mash. I mix it all up overnight with hot water and they just go nuts over it. I do this about once a week though. Cooked pumpkin they also love. I have exceptionally healthy girls who lay beautiful, hard shelled eggs.

 

[NatJ]

How much food do chickens need per day?

It depends on the chicken: how big it is, whether the chicken is growing or molting or laying eggs, what the weather is like, and how efficiently that particular chicken uses food.

It seems like the popular answer is free choice but we've been having a rat problem so I have to remove their food as soon as they finish eating. I feed the 5 of them about 1-1.5 cup 3x a day.

Do they eat it all, or do they stop at some point?

Are you feeding it dry, wet, or fermented?

I would start by letting them all eat until they stop, no matter how much that takes, at every feeding. After a few days, you should have a fairly good idea of how much they need, although the amount will still change from time to time (growth, egg laying or not, cold weather or hot, etc.)

I found a website that says chickens need about 1/2 cup of feed per day.

I've seen lots of websites that estimate 1/4 to 1/3 pound of dry feed per laying hen per day. I found one place where someone measured, and found that was about 3/4 cup to 1 cup (which might be different for different brands of feed.)

Weighing or measuring feed when it is wet means you are weighing or measuring the water too. Water is heavy, and feed swells a lot when wet, so the measurement is very different even though the amount of actual feed has not changed.

I used to only have 2 and maybe they did eat about that much per day but now that we have 3 extra chickens, it seems like my two earlier birds are fighting for the feed and maybe even overeating.

If "overeating" means eating so much it is bad for them, they are probably not.

If your chickens used to eat both fermented feed and dry feed, and you took away one kind (because of the rats), of course they will be eating more of the kind they still get.

It's tough for me to gauge how much to leave out especially since they pick on the smallest one and kick her away and I'll see her pecking at the empty bowls later. I pour out more food for her and the other ones that I thought were full will come back and keep eating! I feel like I'm overfeeding them but I also want to make sure nobody's hungry.

It would help if they can all eat at once.
That might require more bowls, or maybe a long trough (some people use plastic gutter, like is used on a house to catch rain.)

It might also help if you have a way to keep them from seeing (or noticing) the smallest hen so much as they eat. Maybe you could put bowls in several different corners, so their heads face in different directions as they eat.

Chickens like to eat small amounts all day long, so it's hard to tell whether picking at the empty bowls means she needs more food or not.

You could feel the crop of the small one, or all of them, after they finish eating. A full crop is fine. An enormous bulging crop is probably fine. An empty crop, or one that is almost empty, could indicate a bird that did not get enough (especially if it is the one that gets chased away.)

 

[citychicks99]

I can't be sure because I don't do fermented feed, but I think that means half a cup DRY before you ferment it.

I free-feed, but the figure I've seen is 1/4 pound a day -- weight being more accurate than volume measuring. Again, that's DRY before it's fermented.

What is your fermented feed and how do you make it?

I just fill a glass jar halfway with the feed, fill it up with water, close it, store it in a dark place for about 3 days and that's it. It's funny how much they love it.

I didn't think of that! Good point... So the 3+ cups of feed probably isn't overdoing it like I thought..

I saw the treadle feeders and they make me nervous because I'm afraid it might snap off their neck. It's also too pricey for me anyhow.

So what I did this morning is leave out 3 bowls of fermented feed (one bowl can fit two chickens) and when I see that it's mostly empty, except for one of them with a little bit left, I just hold it out and see who else wants more. Some of them peck at it for a bit but go away shortly. I was looking at their crop yesterday and all of them seem pretty full at the end of the day. I'll try and feel them tonight to make sure.

I've seen the mice just scurry around my garden now, probably looking for food because there isn't any in the coop anymore. I saw one try and pick at scraps around the outside yesterday but it kept going away and coming back because there isn't much for it. I'll have to get some traps and get rid of all my old bushy tomato plants because it looks like they're hiding behind them.

 

[3KillerBs]

I found a website that says chickens need about 1/2 cup of feed per day.

I can't be sure because I don't do fermented feed, but I think that means half a cup DRY before you ferment it.

I free-feed, but the figure I've seen is 1/4 pound a day -- weight being more accurate than volume measuring. Again, that's DRY before it's fermented.