Pellets or Crumbles?

[silkielover1731]

which is better? starting a fianace chart and right now my older chicks only get cracked corn and have been so would it mess up their systems if i add layer feed?

 

[rebelcowboysnb]

Pellets waste less... If the older chickens have lots of natural feed (free ranged) an are doing good with just corn stick with it. Layer feed will cost more an is made to be a complete feed for confined birds. Cost is the only real down side to changing them over to layer feed though.

 

[FireTigeris]

I prefer pellets, as there seems to be less waste-

crumbles are tiny and seem to make dust- now if you want you can get pellets and sift the dust out and make mash out of it.

Roosters are not supposed to have layer, all females can have layer as soon as they start giving eggs.

 

[silkielover1731]

i have one rooster.....will it give him heath issues?

 

[FireTigeris]

I have 5 roosters and I give table scraps and scratch in addition to free choice layer feed.

My roosters have no known issues but none of them are old enough to die of old age.

There are varying opinions on this board about if the extra calcium is bad for the roosters or not.

As far as I know the way too much calcium is dangerous, is that the body excretes the extra calcium from the body and harms the kidneys, slowly over time.

The other way is to use 'all flock' and provide extra calcium in the form of crushed oyster shell...

 

[silkielover1731]

i was thinking.........if i do get layer feed.... i can add like half a cup of layer to the cracked corn? that shouldn't hurt would it?

 

[rebelcowboysnb]

They will bill the layer feed out on the ground to get to all the corn.

 

[FireTigeris]

all flock
layer
finisher
starter
grower

are all fully balanced diets, cracked corn is not.

It's like... well enriched bread all the time, if you mix the two (and I do this myself) you are making the calories higher and the nutrition lower.

If they free range you should just do the calcium and corn like people said above.

 

[silkielover1731]

they do free range.

 

[silkielover1731]

so basically if i mix a little corn and layer together with them free ranging it should be fine?