The 10% Treat Rule - Weight or Volume?

[igorsMistress]

I believe for people new to keeping chickens it is important to understand how and what to feed them.
Many people now being able to keep chickens in their area have never kept livestock type animals.
It is a huge learning curve.

General guidelines are helpful.
There are a lot of threads I have seen where birds are not doing well and it turns out the keeper is giving several cups of treats a day to a very small flock of less than 10 birds.

Do I stick to the 10% as a very strict rule never to be broken?
No.
On occasion I give them scratch in the morning and then some watermelon in the afternoon. Not every day or even every other day.

Me too. I add bugs to scratch and scratch does not have corn it though.

 

[Cryss]

Roughly 200 teaspoons per quart

Roughly 50 teaspoons per cup

On average ... a full size Large Fowl laying hen eats 1/4 pound of feed per day ...

Roughly a pound of feed is about 3 cups ... so roughly 150 teaspoons per day of commercial feed.

150 teaspoons X 10% = 15 teaspoons per day of "non-scienctific nutritionally balanced commercial feed" ... or "treats"

One quart (200 tsp) ÷ 15 tsp (per bird) = will provide 13.3 birds with their 10% "treat allowance"

Edit to add ... looks like aart beat me to it ... while I was figuring ...

Oops ... looks like my end of a long day tired brain missed a beat!

A pound is about 150 tsp, and a LF laying hen eats about a quarter of that ... so 150 ÷ 4 = 37 tsp of food per day (by volume)

37 tsp of food per day X 10%= 3.7 tsp ... so roughly a heaping TABLESPOON per chicken per day ...

One quart @ 200 tsp should be able to handle "treats" for 54 chickens ...

Hopefully I got it right this time, still haven't had my coffee yet!

Of course it depends on what you are measuring.
https://www.traditionaloven.com/cul...e-salt/convert-pound-lb-to-tea-spoon-tsp.html

Volume of 1 Pound of Baking Powder
1 Pound of Baking Powder =
94.66 Teaspoons

I give table scraps and excess from my garden. Also dried bugs/mealworms for hand feeding. I'm gonna "guess" I'm not overdoing it.

 

[BigBlueHen53]

Um..... again, I didn't say I threw out so many pounds of scraps to them. I said I threw out a bowl that held "about" a quart. It was miscellaneous and varied from day to day depending on what I cooked. And I don't do it any more. So I don't know why we're having this conversation unless you're enjoying the mental gymnastics. In which case, as my Dad used to say, go ahead, knock yourself out.

 

[aart]

It's just something to think about...if someone is having problems, looking at diet is good. Adjusting diet can have real and pretty quick results.

 

[chjuem]

As a rule if I feed treats, I do it in the evening. That way they will have already eaten their fill of nutritious layer feed for the day. It rarely equals 10%, I have found I get better production out of them if I limit junk food. Everything they eat affects how they lay, just saying.

 

[Cryss]

I'm thinking the real question here is "What is junk food for chickens?"
Free rangers eat protein, greenery, and fruit at will. So if along with the full feeders I toss a bucketful of kitchen scraps, lawn scraps, weeds, and mealworms in their run how different is that from free ranging nutrition-wise? I save things like corn and BOSS for winter bed time treats.

 

[trumpeting_angel]

I'm thinking the real question here is "What is junk food for chickens?"
Free rangers eat protein, greenery, and fruit at will. So if along with the full feeders I toss a bucketful of kitchen scraps, lawn scraps, weeds, and mealworms in their run how different is that from free ranging nutrition-wise? I save things like corn and BOSS for winter bed time treats.

I wonder about this as well. I give mine occasional spoonfuls of scratch, but otherwise it's lowfat unsweetened yogurt, weeds, Japanese beetles, and raw vegetable trimmings. Sometimes fruit scraps, not often. They act like they are starving when fed their feed morning and night, and generally finish their feed, if they haven't spilled too much. I've read here about some people feeding any leftovers from dinner (stale bread, leftover pasta, whatever) and that doesn't seem like a good idea. But weeds?

 

[aart]

They act like they are starving when fed their feed morning and night, and generally finish their feed, if they haven't spilled too much.

Why would they not have their feed every hour they are awake?

 

[trumpeting_angel]

Why would they not have their feed every hour they are awake?

I don't have an adult feeder yet - it's in the building stage (PVC pipe feeder and waterer to minimize the space taken by them). I fill their small feeder twice a day and usually it lasts almost until the next meal.

 

[BigBlueHen53]

I wonder about this as well. I give mine occasional spoonfuls of scratch, but otherwise it's lowfat unsweetened yogurt, weeds, Japanese beetles, and raw vegetable trimmings. Sometimes fruit scraps, not often. They act like they are starving when fed their feed morning and night, and generally finish their feed, if they haven't spilled too much. I've read here about some people feeding any leftovers from dinner (stale bread, leftover pasta, whatever) and that doesn't seem like a good idea. But weeds?

Where do you get the Japanese beetles?