Quote:
Same here. Flockraiser type feed and oyster shell free-choice on the side.
Same here. Flockraiser type feed and oyster shell free-choice on the side.
Roo feed?
- Thread starter Emptywagon2
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- Dec 5, 2010
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No offence Yonaton, but to my understanding the calcium absorption system can easily be damaged by too much calcium too early. If you fed chicks a complete layer feed plus protein, a high proportion of pullets would be unable to form proper eggshells when time came to lay, no matter how much calcium they were fed. By all means share if it's worked differently for you.
I imagine roosters have larger and more effective kidneys than chicks, so perhaps they can excrete the waste a little more easily. I've fed layer feed to roosters in the past without drama, though now I feed all the birds a mix with 1.5% calcium and leave shell grit in a hopper for the hens.
If you're in Australia you could try a product called 'Pullet finisher', I think it's made by Barastoc. To the best of my recollection (apologies if it's faulty) it's lower in calcium than layer, but has layer protein amount, so should be perfectly fine for roosters. Then you could supply shell grit or eggshell in a hopper for the layers.
Or you could go real crazy and mix your own feed based on 1940s recipes, and avoid the synthetic methionine and other artificial supplements used to balance cheap fillers...
Erica
No offence Yonaton, but to my understanding the calcium absorption system can easily be damaged by too much calcium too early. If you fed chicks a complete layer feed plus protein, a high proportion of pullets would be unable to form proper eggshells when time came to lay, no matter how much calcium they were fed. By all means share if it's worked differently for you.
I imagine roosters have larger and more effective kidneys than chicks, so perhaps they can excrete the waste a little more easily. I've fed layer feed to roosters in the past without drama, though now I feed all the birds a mix with 1.5% calcium and leave shell grit in a hopper for the hens.
If you're in Australia you could try a product called 'Pullet finisher', I think it's made by Barastoc. To the best of my recollection (apologies if it's faulty) it's lower in calcium than layer, but has layer protein amount, so should be perfectly fine for roosters. Then you could supply shell grit or eggshell in a hopper for the layers.
Or you could go real crazy and mix your own feed based on 1940s recipes, and avoid the synthetic methionine and other artificial supplements used to balance cheap fillers...
Erica
Quote:
No offence Yonaton, but to my understanding the calcium absorption system can easily be damaged by too much calcium too early. If you fed chicks a complete layer feed plus protein, a high proportion of pullets would be unable to form proper eggshells when time came to lay, no matter how much calcium they were fed. By all means share if it's worked differently for you.
It's worked differently for me for 25+ years. They (chicks, if I order from a hatchery) get chick starter until about 3 or 4 months of age. After that, all my birds have ever been fed is layer. If there's chicks from one of my hens hatched, she feeds them: whatever they eat free-ranging, scratch grains I throw out as a treat for all the birds and the layer pellets I free feed the whole flock. All happy, fat, grow just fine and the hens make fantastic tasting eggs and all but the chicks taste wonderful when it's their time (hens usually go first when the egg production gets so low that there's no return on the feed they eat, roosters go when the ones I've kept after culling at 4 to 6 months of age can't protect the flock very well anymore and a young(er) one will do much better or I need to introduce different genes for whatever reason(s)...~5 years of age.
No offence Yonaton, but to my understanding the calcium absorption system can easily be damaged by too much calcium too early. If you fed chicks a complete layer feed plus protein, a high proportion of pullets would be unable to form proper eggshells when time came to lay, no matter how much calcium they were fed. By all means share if it's worked differently for you.
It's worked differently for me for 25+ years. They (chicks, if I order from a hatchery) get chick starter until about 3 or 4 months of age. After that, all my birds have ever been fed is layer. If there's chicks from one of my hens hatched, she feeds them: whatever they eat free-ranging, scratch grains I throw out as a treat for all the birds and the layer pellets I free feed the whole flock. All happy, fat, grow just fine and the hens make fantastic tasting eggs and all but the chicks taste wonderful when it's their time (hens usually go first when the egg production gets so low that there's no return on the feed they eat, roosters go when the ones I've kept after culling at 4 to 6 months of age can't protect the flock very well anymore and a young(er) one will do much better or I need to introduce different genes for whatever reason(s)...~5 years of age.
- Dec 5, 2010
- 821
- 48
- 133
Quote:
No offence Yonaton, but to my understanding the calcium absorption system can easily be damaged by too much calcium too early. If you fed chicks a complete layer feed plus protein, a high proportion of pullets would be unable to form proper eggshells when time came to lay, no matter how much calcium they were fed. By all means share if it's worked differently for you.
It's worked differently for me for 25+ years. They (chicks, if I order from a hatchery) get chick starter until about 3 or 4 months of age. After that, all my birds have ever been fed is layer. If there's chicks from one of my hens hatched, she feeds them: whatever they eat free-ranging, scratch grains I throw out as a treat for all the birds and the layer pellets I free feed the whole flock. All happy, fat, grow just fine and the hens make fantastic tasting eggs and all but the chicks taste wonderful when it's their time (hens usually go first when the egg production gets so low that there's no return on the feed they eat, roosters go when the ones I've kept after culling at 4 to 6 months of age can't protect the flock very well anymore and a young(er) one will do much better or I need to introduce different genes for whatever reason(s)...~5 years of age.
Then you're not doing what you said was safe (feeding layer all their lives). Your hen raised chicks are having a mixed diet and your hatchery chicks are on chick starter to an appropriate age.
It's not correct to tell people they can feed layer safely to birds at any age. Some people may take that as gospel and feed nothing else (with no free range) to chicks. I'm only clarifying so that isn't the case.
best wishes
Erica
No offence Yonaton, but to my understanding the calcium absorption system can easily be damaged by too much calcium too early. If you fed chicks a complete layer feed plus protein, a high proportion of pullets would be unable to form proper eggshells when time came to lay, no matter how much calcium they were fed. By all means share if it's worked differently for you.
It's worked differently for me for 25+ years. They (chicks, if I order from a hatchery) get chick starter until about 3 or 4 months of age. After that, all my birds have ever been fed is layer. If there's chicks from one of my hens hatched, she feeds them: whatever they eat free-ranging, scratch grains I throw out as a treat for all the birds and the layer pellets I free feed the whole flock. All happy, fat, grow just fine and the hens make fantastic tasting eggs and all but the chicks taste wonderful when it's their time (hens usually go first when the egg production gets so low that there's no return on the feed they eat, roosters go when the ones I've kept after culling at 4 to 6 months of age can't protect the flock very well anymore and a young(er) one will do much better or I need to introduce different genes for whatever reason(s)...~5 years of age.
Then you're not doing what you said was safe (feeding layer all their lives). Your hen raised chicks are having a mixed diet and your hatchery chicks are on chick starter to an appropriate age.
It's not correct to tell people they can feed layer safely to birds at any age. Some people may take that as gospel and feed nothing else (with no free range) to chicks. I'm only clarifying so that isn't the case.
best wishes
Erica
Quote:
It's worked differently for me for 25+ years. They (chicks, if I order from a hatchery) get chick starter until about 3 or 4 months of age. After that, all my birds have ever been fed is layer. If there's chicks from one of my hens hatched, she feeds them: whatever they eat free-ranging, scratch grains I throw out as a treat for all the birds and the layer pellets I free feed the whole flock. All happy, fat, grow just fine and the hens make fantastic tasting eggs and all but the chicks taste wonderful when it's their time (hens usually go first when the egg production gets so low that there's no return on the feed they eat, roosters go when the ones I've kept after culling at 4 to 6 months of age can't protect the flock very well anymore and a young(er) one will do much better or I need to introduce different genes for whatever reason(s)...~5 years of age.
Then you're not doing what you said was safe (feeding layer all their lives). Your hen raised chicks are having a mixed diet and your hatchery chicks are on chick starter to an appropriate age.
It's not correct to tell people they can feed layer safely to birds at any age. Some people may take that as gospel and feed nothing else (with no free range) to chicks. I'm only clarifying so that isn't the case.
best wishes
Erica
Best go back and read what I wrote. They *all* get layer *except* for hatchery chicks. The OP wanted to know what to feed *roosters* and I feed mine only layer. Doesn't matter if they're roosters or hens, that's what they all get and I've not had one problem with *any* of my birds, *ever*, also note I said the hens born under my own birds get layer also, although they can, if the mother hen brings her chicks to it, eat the scratch, but since there's only about a quart bucket of it thrown out at any one time, there's usually not a lot for the chicks to eat so they're stuck with...what mama hen teaches them to eat free-ranging or layer feed (when there's chicks in this scenario I'll keep a bag of layer crumbles in the feeders until the chicks are big enough to eat pellets). That's "gospel" that works *for me* (read that part again too, it's what I stated in my post, that "It's worked differently for me for 25+ years"). I still say anyone *can* feed layer feed to anything they want. You're the one who posted some kind of "gospel" without a single cite, whereas I'm posting from many years' experience. Chickens weren't eating 'layer feed', 'chick feed with ultra-super-duper-medicated-protein feed' nor any other man-made feed before we domesticated them to keep for food, and even in the early years they got nothing but what they could scrounge up and any scraps thrown out to them...how did they survive without all these fancy feeds? In the days when the average Joe knew absolutely nothing about 'proteins' or 'calcium' or any of that other stuff the birds got whatever was given to them. Hey! Surprise! The birds survived, gave eggs and meat, just like they do today!
Anyway, I'm done with this discussion. Experience doesn't matter around here anyway it seems, it's books and people talking like they're chemists and not ever citing anything to back up what they say (that's not a barb at you, that's my opinion of what direction this forum has been headed for a goodly while now).
It's worked differently for me for 25+ years. They (chicks, if I order from a hatchery) get chick starter until about 3 or 4 months of age. After that, all my birds have ever been fed is layer. If there's chicks from one of my hens hatched, she feeds them: whatever they eat free-ranging, scratch grains I throw out as a treat for all the birds and the layer pellets I free feed the whole flock. All happy, fat, grow just fine and the hens make fantastic tasting eggs and all but the chicks taste wonderful when it's their time (hens usually go first when the egg production gets so low that there's no return on the feed they eat, roosters go when the ones I've kept after culling at 4 to 6 months of age can't protect the flock very well anymore and a young(er) one will do much better or I need to introduce different genes for whatever reason(s)...~5 years of age.
Then you're not doing what you said was safe (feeding layer all their lives). Your hen raised chicks are having a mixed diet and your hatchery chicks are on chick starter to an appropriate age.
It's not correct to tell people they can feed layer safely to birds at any age. Some people may take that as gospel and feed nothing else (with no free range) to chicks. I'm only clarifying so that isn't the case.
best wishes
Erica
Best go back and read what I wrote. They *all* get layer *except* for hatchery chicks. The OP wanted to know what to feed *roosters* and I feed mine only layer. Doesn't matter if they're roosters or hens, that's what they all get and I've not had one problem with *any* of my birds, *ever*, also note I said the hens born under my own birds get layer also, although they can, if the mother hen brings her chicks to it, eat the scratch, but since there's only about a quart bucket of it thrown out at any one time, there's usually not a lot for the chicks to eat so they're stuck with...what mama hen teaches them to eat free-ranging or layer feed (when there's chicks in this scenario I'll keep a bag of layer crumbles in the feeders until the chicks are big enough to eat pellets). That's "gospel" that works *for me* (read that part again too, it's what I stated in my post, that "It's worked differently for me for 25+ years"). I still say anyone *can* feed layer feed to anything they want. You're the one who posted some kind of "gospel" without a single cite, whereas I'm posting from many years' experience. Chickens weren't eating 'layer feed', 'chick feed with ultra-super-duper-medicated-protein feed' nor any other man-made feed before we domesticated them to keep for food, and even in the early years they got nothing but what they could scrounge up and any scraps thrown out to them...how did they survive without all these fancy feeds? In the days when the average Joe knew absolutely nothing about 'proteins' or 'calcium' or any of that other stuff the birds got whatever was given to them. Hey! Surprise! The birds survived, gave eggs and meat, just like they do today!
Anyway, I'm done with this discussion. Experience doesn't matter around here anyway it seems, it's books and people talking like they're chemists and not ever citing anything to back up what they say (that's not a barb at you, that's my opinion of what direction this forum has been headed for a goodly while now).
- Dec 5, 2010
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Yonaton, I apologise profusely if I came across as a book learned know it all. Heavens above, I value experience more than much else. I also thoroughly agree with you that somehow chickens (and for that matter people and other livestock) thrived perfectly well before industrialised farming made everything to do with off-label uses of feedstuffs a no-no.
I wish I hadn't come across the way I did. I'm not like that (as a person) at all. I make lots of mistakes in daily life and see myself as always ready to learn, though some things I've read on the way absolutely do seem to bear out my experience (so those are the things I tend to say as flat statements).
But I do have to reiterate, if your hen raised chicks are free ranging, then they're getting a varied diet, not just layer... I'm not contradicting you really, just pointing out for anyone who might be new at all this and inclined to take either view as the be-all-and-and-all that there's more to what you're saying. Your hatchery chicks eat starter (from what I read... apologies if I'm misinterpreting this) and your hen raised chicks have access to free range. I really feel this is balancing their calcium, which would otherwise tend to be too high.
As for citations, I'm fully happy to cite the range of reading for the eggshell stuff, but heck, it will take me a while to get them again, since all that reading was years ago (back when I wondered why I had trouble with soft shelled eggs in young pullets). But I'll dig it out asap and set it out here with a new post.
Once again Yonaton, please accept my apologies if it sounded like I was trying to contradict your experience. If you say you haven't seen a problem then I fully believe you and am happy to take that as 'gospel' as much as any other statement of fact.
And I'm an atheist and enjoy sci fi... So I also like your signature line. My favourite people on forums or anywhere are people who question rules, and I can tell you honestly I'm upset to have comes across the way I did. Like everyone though, I won't retract something I think stands true... I can't help being human. But I think it's I who should bow out of all this, not you.
all the best,
Erica
Edited mistake so it makes actual sense...
I wish I hadn't come across the way I did. I'm not like that (as a person) at all. I make lots of mistakes in daily life and see myself as always ready to learn, though some things I've read on the way absolutely do seem to bear out my experience (so those are the things I tend to say as flat statements).
But I do have to reiterate, if your hen raised chicks are free ranging, then they're getting a varied diet, not just layer... I'm not contradicting you really, just pointing out for anyone who might be new at all this and inclined to take either view as the be-all-and-and-all that there's more to what you're saying. Your hatchery chicks eat starter (from what I read... apologies if I'm misinterpreting this) and your hen raised chicks have access to free range. I really feel this is balancing their calcium, which would otherwise tend to be too high.
As for citations, I'm fully happy to cite the range of reading for the eggshell stuff, but heck, it will take me a while to get them again, since all that reading was years ago (back when I wondered why I had trouble with soft shelled eggs in young pullets). But I'll dig it out asap and set it out here with a new post.
Once again Yonaton, please accept my apologies if it sounded like I was trying to contradict your experience. If you say you haven't seen a problem then I fully believe you and am happy to take that as 'gospel' as much as any other statement of fact.
And I'm an atheist and enjoy sci fi... So I also like your signature line. My favourite people on forums or anywhere are people who question rules, and I can tell you honestly I'm upset to have comes across the way I did. Like everyone though, I won't retract something I think stands true... I can't help being human. But I think it's I who should bow out of all this, not you.
all the best,
Erica
Edited mistake so it makes actual sense...
Last edited:
Quote:
Then what do you feed yours? And how do you keep your roos out of the hen feed?
Then what do you feed yours? And how do you keep your roos out of the hen feed?
- Dec 5, 2010
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http://www.thepoultrysite.com/articles/1003/factors-influencing-shell-quality
The above is a pretty good set of articles on eggshell quality, the calcium system and influences on both. The relevant quote is below:
"In growers, most importantly, high calcium levels during the growth period will interfere with the proper development of the parathyroid gland by increasing gut pH, which will decrease absorption. The damage to the parathyroid would be permanent and would affect the bird's laying cycle afterwards."
There's a good explanation of the parathyroid gland (as a regulator of the calcium system) in the abstract at http://www.pnas.org/content/101/51/17716.full, in case anyone's interested.
I'm not saying parathyroid damage is definitively why my pullets were having trouble forming shells, but it made good sense to me after reading a similar article to the one quoted above at the time (back in 2006). Since I couldn't buy unmedicated chick grower I'd fed them layer feed instead from 11 weeks of age, with a protein supplement. The shell trouble affected the entire batch of pullets raised in this way.
The above is a pretty good set of articles on eggshell quality, the calcium system and influences on both. The relevant quote is below:
"In growers, most importantly, high calcium levels during the growth period will interfere with the proper development of the parathyroid gland by increasing gut pH, which will decrease absorption. The damage to the parathyroid would be permanent and would affect the bird's laying cycle afterwards."
There's a good explanation of the parathyroid gland (as a regulator of the calcium system) in the abstract at http://www.pnas.org/content/101/51/17716.full, in case anyone's interested.
I'm not saying parathyroid damage is definitively why my pullets were having trouble forming shells, but it made good sense to me after reading a similar article to the one quoted above at the time (back in 2006). Since I couldn't buy unmedicated chick grower I'd fed them layer feed instead from 11 weeks of age, with a protein supplement. The shell trouble affected the entire batch of pullets raised in this way.
<3 N.C Chicken Chick <3 :
Quote:
Then what do you feed yours? And how do you keep your roos out of the hen feed?
I feed a custom mash mix, it's been working well and I just have a dish of a mixture of oyster shells and ground lime stone (feed grade) off to the side for the hens.
The mix that I use is around 18% protein and consists of:
Hubbard Chick-En-Egg Concentrate, Corn, Wheat, Oats, Fish Meal, Meat Meal, Alfalfa Meal, Molasses, Cod Liver Oil
Like I posted before most people around here just feed either a Game Bird feed or Big 4.
Chris
Quote:
Then what do you feed yours? And how do you keep your roos out of the hen feed?
I feed a custom mash mix, it's been working well and I just have a dish of a mixture of oyster shells and ground lime stone (feed grade) off to the side for the hens.
The mix that I use is around 18% protein and consists of:
Hubbard Chick-En-Egg Concentrate, Corn, Wheat, Oats, Fish Meal, Meat Meal, Alfalfa Meal, Molasses, Cod Liver Oil
Like I posted before most people around here just feed either a Game Bird feed or Big 4.
Chris
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