Skinny chickens

[seraphine]

My girls are like yours. They like crumble better than pellets. Felt like I was just buying food for the visiting rats. I'll try getting pellets and wetting them. BTW: My girls LOVE oatmeal. Please dont tell me that's bad for them. Brin shrimp, dried mealworms, crumble, organic greens from farmer's market.

 

[NaperLix]

I would stick to crumbles,add some frozen corn and mealworms for protein,with some crumbles,and greens cut up...Theyll eat everything.Gain weight a little.
Dry food is mostly corn anyway,but heated up frozen corn tastes better.1/2 cup per 8-9 hens.Will flavor crumbles too.I have Welsummers, as well,also barred rock,and light Sussex.Most took laying break for molt in fall.They lay most of winter,more on then off.many beautiful eggs today,it was -15 lat night,actual temp.Coops heated to 55 though.dark,no lights,nightlight glow panel,
I don't regard any/ every food as treats.Thats uneducated.Zoos give similar diets to avians.Variety keeps them happy healthy.i also give oatmeal, peanuts chopped,chopped raisins,sunflower hearts,chopped greens,flaxseed,mealworms,cornmeal, everyday.Yogurt once week,cantaloupe,raspberries,daily .They eat crumbles I between meals. Breakfast is the big meal,they clean the plate,then go play in sandboxes ,because they feel good.Not fat,nor skinny.Mine are forever pets,and it's important that they live as long as possiblble.
They are healthy,happy,lay often.

 

[My 3 chix]

They were 4 months old the first time I tried to change them to pellets. They are a year old now. I do have oyster shell available to them too. And that's why I was surprised my vet wanted me to switch to pellets. The ingredients are the same as the crumble. Now I'm really confused.

I have made the crumbles (or pellets) into a mash with water myself and they really like it. They think it’s a treat but it’s their same food. The vet is just trying to get them to eat MORE. I think the mash idea will do it. Mine don’t like pellets either. Just wet them down. They’ll eat em.

 

[Aggiedusty]

They were 4 months old the first time I tried to change them to pellets. They are a year old now. I do have oyster shell available to them too. And that's why I was surprised my vet wanted me to switch to pellets. The ingredients are the same as the crumble. Now I'm really confused.

Me too Bear! But what I found when mixing pellets to my crumble feed was they all WAY preferred their crumble, and would knock out the pellets from the gravity flow feeders to the floor wasting the pellets to get better access to the crumbles. Man did I waste feed for s while. Finally said just crumble then, no switch over! You know we start them on a chick crumble and that’s what they recognize as staple food anyway. I feed scratch as well like you a scoop/coffee can in a separate feeder pan. Was thinking it was helping lower the feed cost by feeding separately some scratch. Same thing though, can not mix these two either! Hens will knock out crumble this time to get to the grains. I would have thought scratch would work towards fattening as well with all the carbs in grain. I also pull weeds when possible for them and talk about excited chickens . Oh boy! Right now they really love the nuisance wild mustard that’s been coming up. My chickens are 16-22 months old mostly and laying like crazy right now. Sometimes I feel like they don’t know when to “Shut the Flood Gates” soon enough and stop laying and recover. My Golden Sex Link hens are really bad about that.

 

[chickencoop57]

Even though you can't tell by looking at them, my girls are too thin. I can feel their sharp breastbones when I pick them up.

I had to take Delilah into my vet for possible worm issues and brought up that all 5 of my girls were very thin. My suspected worm issues did not turn out to be the case. No worms of any kind. She asked what I feed them. I said Layer crumble, kitchen salad scraps, mealworms and regular scratch. I throw out about a scoop of scratch and mealworms daily in addition to their crumble which is available to them 24/7.


She told me to switch them to layer pellets (more calories per bite) and to discontinue everything else. No scratch, mealworms or salad! The problem is they don't like the pellets. I tried to switch them when they were 4 months old and they'd hang around the gate all day waiting for me to come down and give them worms or scratch. When I went back to crumble they started eating that again.

I've added pellets to their regular crumble, about 1/2 and 1/2 and intend to switch them over to just pellets after this mixture is done. But I'm really puzzled as to why I'm not to give them anything else until they fatten up. Seems the more I feed them stuff they'll eat the more calories they'd consume.

So, anyone else had skinny chicken and what did you do to fatten them up? Oh, they are laying hens, not for meat, but they do need a bit more meat on their bones to be healthy.

 

[chickencoop57]

I started mine on Chick starter from the time they were chicks till they started laying, as I'm sure most folks did, and then switched over to Laying crumbles. I bought my first 6, 3 Leghorns and 3 Rhode Island reds from Tractor Supply and they look skinny to me, too. I asked someone about that, one time on this forum because I'd seen pics of big Leghorns and they told me that it's where and whom the breeder you buy them from, is why they may be skinny. I feed them Laying pellets now but I was told it dosent hurt to mix Chick Starter with it because of the additional Protein, and they eat like lil pigs but they don't ever get any fatter. However, they do lay good eggs.

 

[chickencoop57]

Oh, and as far as Scratch, I used to put some in with theyre pellets but like Aggiedusty said, they knock out the pellets to get to grain. So I just throw it on the ground when I let them out of coop. It's just a treat. I too thought the corn in it would help fatten them, but it hasent so far but its all good. Keep them egg's a coming!

 

[jodiefoster]

Our hens eat everything, crumble, worms, scraps anything I give them and the breast bone is still there. Took one to the vet and they asked "are they sickly? are they lethargic? how is the appetite?" All indicated healthy birds, so they told me not to worry and keep feeding as is.

 

[tinyfeet]

If your scratch is whole seed, try sprouting it into fodder. Their bodies will only digest around 30% of the nutrition (from an article I read recently) as seed, but will digest up to 80% of the nutrition (same article & a youtube video) when sprouted. I am doing this during the winter as we have no grass right now. I only give it to them 4 days a week. They get no scraps and are very healthy and are laying a lot more eggs this winter than past winters. I also use pellets - non GMO. Less waste. For winter you could step up the protein with an all flock pellet (20%). You will need to watch your calcium as the last all flock pellet I used stated on bag "does not contain calcium".

 

[LMac17]

Personally I wouldn’t worry about it. If your chickens are eating real food and not sick or seeming like they are hungry, then why bulk them up? What chickens are we comparing them to? Chicken feed is a more modern thing anyway, so I ask myself what did chickens eat on for the previous thousands of years before people made feed? Then I fee that to my chickens and let them free range.

Most feed is full of fillers that cause inflammation or high toxin contaminated foods such as corn, wheat, & soy which cause long term health issues for chickens as well as you if you’re eating their eggs.

If your chickens are behaving fine and have plenty of access to food, then I wouldn’t worry about it.