Shadrach's Ex Battery and Rescued chickens thread.

[MrsNorthie]

To be fair, that's Shad's message rather than Jenni and Winkler's.

If birds have choices, then they can satisfy their appetites for protein and carbs as they wish, which will vary bird to bird, yet that is ignored by feed manufacturers, who are only interested in averages. That is one of my main issues with processed so-called complete feeds.

The commercial feeds are more designed for giving them the minimum they need to keep production up. I give options so that they all get what they need and they know better than I do.

We offer the fermented grains, dry grains and I keep a small feeder of chick starter, plus, this time of year, they have plenty of forage options and lots of bugs. The fermented grains is the only one that they ALWAYS finish off, eagerly, everything else is hit or miss. It is more work and more expense, but, if they have multiple choices then they can always get what they need.

 

[Mother of Chaos]

In mild defense of those of us roosterless chickeners whose girls squat for us: it was amusing when they first did it, but it was mostly handy for when I needed to pick one up for a quick inspection or getting back into the chicken yard after an escape. Squatting definitely hinders running!

Only one of the three Bigs still squats: the EE, who is by far the least willing to be handled. I still don’t have lap chickens, unless the almonds are out, and I don’t want them.

 

[rural mouse]

Oh I know why people feed the lowest protein, I was just arguing that I don’t want to be giving advice not to give more protein at any stage.
If someone can afford to give extra protein and does so to support their birds during molt, I would just let them do so.

The all flock mine are on is 20% protein. Castor's food is 32%. They habitually raid/check his dish every morning to see what they can snatch before he wants 2nd breakfast. It's also grasshopper season. They're haunting the verges for those too as the population close to the coop doesn't exist. I'm also seeing certain ant colonies getting dug up when those are usually ignored. With mine ranging from coop open to coop close daily, their choosing more protein anyway.

 

[MrsNorthie]

There have also been runny poops and I don't know why. I'm hoping just the heat, and them drinking more, but could it be higher protein?

Could it be from the liquid content of the fruits and veggies in addition to the extra water?

 

[MrsNorthie]

I could offer an idiot who thinks tidbitting when I fill their feeder counts as finding food for his flock,

LOL In his mind, he made you fill the feeders and you can't blame a lad for capitalizing on his luck. ;-) "Ladies, the server has just delivered our dinner, that I arranged ahead of time, dig in!"

 

[MrsNorthie]

Exactly. Molting seems to be one of the times when they need to forage more than ever. Their tastes in the first weeks of molt shift every few days. Sometimes they go bonkers for grass, then for something microscopic in the dirt, then for this or that plant.

They can't order off a menu, so it's important they can walk around and choose for themselves.

Provide access to variety and let the chickens chicken.

 

[MrsNorthie]

Not in my case. I estimate I spend double what the average BYC member spends feeding the field chickens.View attachment 4207909 What I'm after is as wider range of foodstuffs as I can manage to supply.

In the UK and in much of the rest of the world the standard layer feed falls between 16% protein and 12% protein. I haven't read anything that suggest the chickens in the above regions are starving to death due to the lack of protein.

The high protein thing is as far as I can see based and disseminated from the USA.

The most common feed that I have found in the feed stores here, is 16% protein, layer or all flock, chick starter is typically 18-22% and there is a LOT of conflicting information out there about what is best. :-(

Variety and ranging seems to be the best choice, because they will find and consume what they need.

 

[Labsandchickens8]

Could it be from the liquid content of the fruits and veggies in addition to the extra water?

I hope so. I think it's a bad time to treat for worms in the heat and with several moulting

 

[BDutch]

Maybe I am wrong with translating it. I see "kippenkorrel" literally translates to chickenpellets as all flock, and "legkorrel" literally translates to layingpellets as layer pellets. The difference between the 2? legkorrel has 1% less protein and 1% more calcium than kippenkorrel. I also feed a mix a feed and then let my chickens decide what they want.

In principal there is no difference between layer pellets and chicken pellets meant for layers. The ingredient for layer crumb/meal is the same. But every brand has its own composition.

In general the feed for broilers and chicks is the same. Not much people have CX to live longer than about 16 weeks (time to slaughter for meat) .

I write a personal mail bc things about brands are not very interesting for people overseas.

 

[fuzzi]

We provide scramble and fish periodically and during moulting, I make sure that there is some chick-starter or the higher protein feather fixer feed to give them that protein boost. We like to keep a variety available for them, since they seem to know what they need and eat accordingly, anyway.

Mine have been molting for several weeks. I've been feeding canned tuna fish to both of my flocks a couple times a week. They're confined, so I add food items of interest as a side buffet.

Recent offerings included pumpkins, tomatoes, fat skimmed off the top of my bone broth (mixed with a little dry cat food), chicken bits leftover from making bone broth, BOSS, grasshoppers, and green weeds pulled from my gardens, with roots and soil attached.