Treats or supplemental feed?

[yyz0yyz0]

so I've read on here that you don't want to give too many treats and have the girls miss out on nutrition of their regular food.

So how do you know what is a treat and what can be considered supplemental foods? If I pull weeds from the garden such as clover and throw it in the run, is that a treat or food? When I bring some compost from the pile into the run for them to pick through is it a treat or food?

the reason I'm asking is I'm trying to do anything I can to reduce my purchased food costs. I would like to try fodder if I can ever find a source for seeds but that just seems like some of the stuff I"m already throwing in for them to eat. Since they've had access to their run(which is so new it still has grass), i've noticed that I'm needing to fill their feeder less often. So are they over feeding on treats or just getting supplemental foods from the run and what I throw in the run?

 

[Percheron chick]

It depends upon what the treat is. I know I overfeed squash in the summer because I end up with so much of it and can only eat it a few times a week. Because it's low in calories, protein and minerals (especially Ca), you can easily create a situation where you need to supplement back these nutrients if you are going to get any eggs out of them. Alfalfa and clover are high in protein and Ca so they aren't going to have that much of an impact on the overall diet and could actually be beneficial. Personally, I would like to see a "summer" layer feed that would assure high intake of key nutrients that when diluted with kitchen and garden scraps still give them everything in adequate amounts for good egg production.

We're all looking for ways to reduce feed cost and repurpose food that would otherwise end up in the garbage. It's just good common sense. I'd keep up with the freeranging and treats just add back Ca (eggshells or oystershells), protein (fish, soybean, mealworms, grasshoppers, catfood...) and calories if they drop weight or production.

 

[yyz0yyz0]

thx for the tips. The clover is so far their fav when it comes to weeds thrown in. They also like the Brussel sprout leaves that I have to remove from the bottom of the plants, these used to get dropped on the garden like mulch but now they'll go to the girls run first.

Seems like it's a lot like feeding fussy kids, just provide lots of variety of healthy foods and eventually they'll eat something good for them.