My Hens Are Dying. Can You Help?

[springvalley123]

Very sage advice, thank you.

I have this idealistic vision of my hens, happily free ranging and eating food grown at home.

But I am learning that they have more nutrient requirements than I was aware of.



I read about a home mixture of sprouted wheat berries, peas, oatmeal, along with meal worms and oyster shell.

I can buy 50 pound bags of most of those ingredients.

Does anyone have experience with that?
Or does anyone think that would be insufficient if supplemented with free range?

Also, we are trying to avoid factory farmed meats and any of the by products from that industry and most commercial chicken feed has animal protein.

It just feels wrong for me personally to raise chickens to avoid that industry, yet to feed them what is probably ground up factory chickens.

I'm not being judgemental, these are my priorities. So if anyone can recommend a brand of feed that is affordable and meets this requirement, I would be grateful.

In addition to all the grains, oyster shell, etc, there's the vitamin/mineral packs, so you'd need a supplier specializing in that. Sorry, I can't recall the one I found when I looked into the idea.
Remember, even though you're buying layer feed or all flock, you're not giving your birds the daily antibiotics and you're not packing them into 1-2 sq ft per bird, so even if you're not buying organic feed, you're still giving your birds a much better environment than the meat you buy and the egg laying hens whose eggs you buy in the store. And you get to watch the birds and enjoy them!

 

[SandLapper]

How will you store everything?
How many birds are you planning on?
Are you aware that grains lose nutrients as they age and by 6 months are pretty well depleated?
How much space will you have for ranging the birds?

In the wild birds land, eat, nest, whatever then move on to "greener pastures".
Without that as an option bugs, small mammals like mice and voles become depleted. Those are hard to replace in the range area.

Those are great questions for me to consider as I face this challenge.

I think storage would work about the same as storage of pellets. And I would buy fresh stock and rotate.

They would have access to a garden and woodlands, but you're right, they could wipe that out!

I would supplement meal worms and red worms.

I just wonder...when was formula feed developed?

And how many small farmers around the world have access to bagged pellet feed?

There must be a possibility here for free range or at least a compromise.

I edited my former post to ask about feed with no factory farm by products.

Are you aware of any?

 

[SandLapper]

In addition to all the grains, oyster shell, etc, there's the vitamin/mineral packs, so you'd need a supplier specializing in that. Sorry, I can't recall the one I found when I looked into the idea.
Remember, even though you're buying layer feed or all flock, you're not giving your birds the daily antibiotics and you're not packing them into 1-2 sq ft per bird, so even if you're not buying organic feed, you're still giving your birds a much better environment than the meat you buy and the egg laying hens whose eggs you buy in the store. And you get to watch the birds and enjoy them!

Very true. It is the better of options, and they are fun to watch!

I can't let my standards be the standard of my hens, who have their own unique needs,

 

[Allthefloofs]

Hi, I'm really sorry you lost two birds so close together! I wanted to share the story of our first flock because it's really easy to make this mistake. We had 3 girls, two lovely Buff Orps, and one EE. We delighted in giving them kitchen scraps and the kids would sneak them scratch. At 7 months one BO dropped dead at night. We thought it might be heat stress, so we buried her and were very sad. 3 weeks later our other BO died, this time it presented as a sudden lethargy, sleeping, not eating, drinking a little but sleeping on my lap, wrapped in a towel as I frantically tried to find a vet. She died as I ran her into the waiting room of the vet's office. We had a necropsy. She had died of fatty liver syndrome, her liver had ruptured and she bled out internally. She wasn't incredibly overweight, but it was enough. Neither bird made it to 8 months. It was really hard for us to process that we had in a way killed our chickens. We have gone forward now and feed 95% crumble or more per day. Our vet recommended keeping anything but food to less than 10% of their daily intake so that is what we do. We feed crumble, the girls don't like pellets much, and they can have whatever they free range for the few hours they are out, but crumble or not much else is the rule here now. In the summer they get a slice of watermelon or a corn on the cob to split between 6 chickens and only because it's so hot here that they stay in the run with the swamp cooler so it breaks up the boredom of sitting in the only cool spot.
I ended up doing a lot of reading on food. Most of the commercial ones are pretty similar. Somewhere on the forums there is a really good feed breakdown written by one of the very experienced people on here. We have a couple small flocks and making food would be complicated for us. I did some label reading and found one that I felt was decent and I supplement them with vitamins once per week, twice in the summer and then that's about it. They are happier and healthier now.

 

[21hens-incharge]

Hi, I'm really sorry you lost two birds so close together! I wanted to share the story of our first flock because it's really easy to make this mistake. We had 3 girls, two lovely Buff Orps, and one EE. We delighted in giving them kitchen scraps and the kids would sneak them scratch. At 7 months one BO dropped dead at night. We thought it might be heat stress, so we buried her and were very sad. 3 weeks later our other BO died, this time it presented as a sudden lethargy, sleeping, not eating, drinking a little but sleeping on my lap, wrapped in a towel as I frantically tried to find a vet. She died as I ran her into the waiting room of the vet's office. We had a necropsy. She had died of fatty liver syndrome, her liver had ruptured and she bled out internally. She wasn't incredibly overweight, but it was enough. Neither bird made it to 8 months. It was really hard for us to process that we had in a way killed our chickens. We have gone forward now and feed 95% crumble or more per day. Our vet recommended keeping anything but food to less than 10% of their daily intake so that is what we do. We feed crumble, the girls don't like pellets much, and they can have whatever they free range for the few hours they are out, but crumble or not much else is the rule here now. In the summer they get a slice of watermelon or a corn on the cob to split between 6 chickens and only because it's so hot here that they stay in the run with the swamp cooler so it breaks up the boredom of sitting in the only cool spot.
I ended up doing a lot of reading on food. Most of the commercial ones are pretty similar. Somewhere on the forums there is a really good feed breakdown written by one of the very experienced people on here. We have a couple small flocks and making food would be complicated for us. I did some label reading and found one that I felt was decent and I supplement them with vitamins once per week, twice in the summer and then that's about it. They are happier and healthier now.

Thank you for sharing what was a hard road.

@Kiki can you pop in and link your feed comparison chart please?

 

[Kiki]

Thank you for sharing what was a hard road.

@Kiki can you pop in and link your feed comparison chart please?

Isn't in my sig? I can't see sigs anymore.

 

[Kiki]

Hold. I'll go get it.

 

[Kiki]

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet...Sj3Bt5CUQfX1PlTEhg799sDT-qM/edit?usp=drivesdk

 

[21hens-incharge]

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet...Sj3Bt5CUQfX1PlTEhg799sDT-qM/edit?usp=drivesdk

Thank you very very much!

 

[Kiki]

Op...stop all treats and never feed them again.
I feed zero treats and I have happy healthy almost 5 year old hens who still lay.

Feed only a crumble or pellets layer feed.