This is what a balanced layer feed with no treats delivers

[tripletfeb]

No, of course not. I want people to offer their birds real food, from which they can select what they want to eat at the time, not a homogenised pellet designed to deliver exactly the same nutrients in exactly the same doses in every mouthful every meal every day.

eta and even better if they can let their birds forage in the garden for a while every day to find the things they want or need there.

Many birds would just pick out the tastiest morsels and not get a balanced diet. If I offered my birds an option, they would eat sunflower seeds and that's it. And yes, my birds have a chicken yard they can go in and eat bugs and grass and such. Not my garden, that food is for me. I feed an all flock food, that way I know my birds are getting all the nutrients they need, not just what they want to eat. Kinda like forcing your child to eat their veggies. They may not like it but that is what is best for them

 

[Perris]

Many birds would just pick out the tastiest morsels and not get a balanced diet.

they only do this when they first get a choice, trying to fill up on what they've been missing in their previous diet. It settles down and all from chicks, through pullets, to layers will choose a balanced diet if presented with the right options. There are papers on it; I will find the links if you are interested enough to want to read them.

 

[Perris]

Further to the last, this summarizes how simple choice feeding can work
"Under choice feeding or “free-choice feeding” birds are usually offered a choice between three types of feedstuffs: (a) an energy source (e.g. maize, rice bran, sorghum or wheat); (b) a protein source (e.g. soyabean meal, meat meal, fish meal or coconut meal) plus vitamins and minerals and (c), in the case of laying hens, calcium in granular form (i.e. oyster-shell grit). This system differs from the modern commercial practice of offering a complete diet comprising energy and protein sources, ground and mixed together. Under the complete diet system, birds are mainly only able to exercise their appetite for energy. When the environmental temperature varies, the birds either over- or under-consume protein and calcium. The basic principle behind practising choice feeding with laying hens is that individual hens are able to select from the various feed ingredients on offer and compose their own diet, according to their actual needs and production capacity. " From the abstract of 'Practical and economic advantages of choice feeding systems for laying poultry' World Poultry Science 2019 https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1079/WPS20020018

 

[nao57]

The laying mash sold in stores and by feed mills isn't enough. Its very fluffed by garbage including ground up external crop shells and sawdust.

In N a z i Germany this was the same; people were emaciated from eating bread with real sawdust in it. It was even a thing that you could find the wood chips in the bread. Now days they are just better at hiding it.

Its not a surprise that you might have a poor looking bird if you only feed it this stuff. I found also to get eggs I had to do other things with the laying mash. I'd add sunflower seeds and whole barley seeds. That worked. You can toy with the ratios of both. I'm not saying you ditch the laying mash entirely because that's too hard to do to afford it. But you can do other things and do experiments also.

You SHOULD do agriculture experiments for your own research. It will help you to learn more and know how to handle more problems. Good luck.

 

[nao57]

Many birds would just pick out the tastiest morsels and not get a balanced diet. If I offered my birds an option, they would eat sunflower seeds and that's it. And yes, my birds have a chicken yard they can go in and eat bugs and grass and such. Not my garden, that food is for me. I feed an all flock food, that way I know my birds are getting all the nutrients they need, not just what they want to eat. Kinda like forcing your child to eat their veggies. They may not like it but that is what is best for them

its kind of funny how much they love sunflower seeds. XD

 

[Debbie292d]

what is your point? The British Hen Welfare Trust has hundreds of hubs where birds are held while waiting for collection from rescuers in their areas.

Because in your first post, you used their chicken to be your example of a chicken that gets nutritionally balanced feed and no treats, so that's not true.

 

[Debbie292d]

Many birds would just pick out the tastiest morsels and not get a balanced diet. If I offered my birds an option, they would eat sunflower seeds and that's it. And yes, my birds have a chicken yard they can go in and eat bugs and grass and such. Not my garden, that food is for me. I feed an all flock food, that way I know my birds are getting all the nutrients they need, not just what they want to eat. Kinda like forcing your child to eat their veggies. They may not like it but that is what is best for them

That's exactly what happened when I switched from layer feed to Kalmbach's Henhouse Reserve (HHR). They picked out what they wanted and left about 1/4 of it behind.

So I put them right back on layer crumbles again and use the HHR as their scratch. I also use 50% of the HHR with various grains and ferment it, so they're still getting "treats" in their eyes, just I got 'em all fooled.

 

[tripletfeb]

Because in your first post, you used their chicken to be your example of a chicken that gets nutritionally balanced feed and no treats, so that's not true.

This is the issue that everyone has with this whole thread, yet OP has yet to realize it.
I don't care what people feed their birds, they aren't my birds. But the OP saying that chicken is what happens when you only feed the layer feed, is simply not true. AKA a lie. Which makes everything else they are saying, in my opinion, suspect

 

[Perris]

Because in your first post, you used their chicken to be your example of a chicken that gets nutritionally balanced feed and no treats, so that's not true.

what's not true? I don't understand the point you are trying to make.

 

[Perris]

that chicken is what happens when you only feed the layer feed

That chicken is not my chicken. It has come from an industrial egg unit. It is a commercial chicken. It has been raised to be a commercial egg layer. It has been fed industry standard feed to maximise its egg production. That is to say, it has been fed commercial layer feed and nothing else.

I do not understand why some of you don't get this.