What do I feed my chickens?

[black_cat]

Sounds like your doing a great job on feeding your flock. Only one small suggestion, have you considered NATURAL GRIT? Here’s a link that may give you some insight on saving a little money on grit

Our grit is lasting a good long time. They're not using it all up at once. They are confined most of the time but do enough free ranging that buying grit isn't really a problem.

 

[yakitori]

What would you suggest as a tittle?

Oh gosh, I'm terrible with titles.
Maaaaaybe something a long the lines of "DIY feed for my happy healthy flock!". And then you can perhaps put an image of one of your good looking birds on the thumbnail with the colorful grain mix image so people will know you're talking about chickens . I don't know what I'm talking about

 

[The Happster]

No I do not measure anything. I just mix the feed together and throw some out on the run. And yes, I know how that may feel for some chicken lovers who feed only the best highest quality feeds and measure every last grain of crumble, but for my flock, I chose a more easy going relaxed approach. Always keeping in mind the health and nutrition of my birds, of course. For example, I have a large family of 8 with 6 picky eaters that constantly have leftovers for our chickens. Yes I OCCASIONALLY feed them COOKED chicken leftovers, and even COOKED eggs . This provides an extra boost of protein. Also, they are feed this game like fruits, veggies, greens from the garden, worms etc.
Here at our small and humble farm, we are all very involved with the keeping of our chickens, so we go out and watch them eat, clean their water containers etc,. I see what they eat and how they behave.

To answer a lot of people’s questions on this thread, no I do not measure. Yes there is roughly about 10-12 % protein in the mix. But I do provide supplemental foods that give them what they need. I think of it like this, we humans don’t consume the same amount of protein every single day of our lives, it’s ok to mix it up here and there. MY OPINION. Just giving y’all something to think about. always with love and kindness. Also, some people questioned the ability for my birds to digest the grains on the photo of the video I posted. The thing is, my birds have UNLIMITED amounts of natural grit to help their gizzards breakdown everything perfectly fine. I’ve never had a bird with SOUR CROP or IMPACTED CROP in years of raising chickens.

Here is the video that we are talking about in this thread

AND HERE IS ANOTHER VIDEO THAT MAY CLEAR SOME RELATED FEEDING QUESTIONS

Thanks for your reply.

 

[TheOddOneOut]

Everyone feeds their chickens differently. Some strictly feed layer pellets, some feed lots of garden & kitchens scraps along with some seed, and others even find ways to feed their flock almost for FREE! There’s is some foods that are toxic to chickens and you should not feed, but for the most part , raising & feeding your flock is not very hard or expensive at all. Can chickens eat chicken or eggs ? Yes they can!

HERES HOW I FEED ALL MY CHICKENS,
From hatching to laying.

Sorry to be rude, but that is NOT a way to feed chickens. Rabbit pellets and birdseed? Give me a break. Please get some real food.

 

[Idaho Chicken Bungalow]

Cheese, my chickens love cheese. YES or No? A random snack as I was eating a slice and they were very intersted.

 

[JacinLarkwell]

Cheese, my chickens love cheese. YES or No? A random snack as I was eating a slice and they were very intersted.

No. Birds are not able to digest dairy easily, and it has too much fat for them

 

[NatJ]

Cheese, my chickens love cheese. YES or No? A random snack as I was eating a slice and they were very intersted.

A small amount of cheese is fine (like if you drop a bit by mistake.)

But I would not recommend giving large amounts.

 

[NatJ]

No. Birds are not able to digest dairy easily, and it has too much fat for them

I see the point about the fat, although that applies equally to any other fatty treat.

But what about "dairy" can chickens not digest? If it's lactose, then many cheeses would just fine

 

[U_Stormcrow]

11 pages later...

Having done considerable research, and read numerous studies, I can not recommend the proposed diet. It is nutritionally inadequate across a host of common measures. Perhaps OP's flock is fortunate enough to be able to obtain the needed nutrition free ranging on the property, year round. Speaking as someone with a flock of size typically between 50 and 60 birds (see sig below for current count) who free ranges them daily on about 4.5 acres in an area blessed with a long growing season, I can say with complete confidence that I see significant differences in feed consumption seasonally. It seems unlikely OP's birds would manage a complete replacement for the missing nutrition, year round, without deliberate plantings and considerable effort.

- but even assuming that to be the case, a somehow complete diet all year long free range, the video is like showing 1/3 of a plate, covered in mashed potatoes and touting it as the "best" diet - while completely ignoring the remainder of the meal.

Initially, the crude protein is quite low, the overall protein does not appear complete (based on what I could see of the raw ingredients) - though at least the rabbit pellets are made in part with alfalfa, a legume, and absent a supplimental calcium source (which they may be getting from bugs while free ranging, together with a more complete protein), that won't support the needs of production layers.


Yes, you can feed chicken (raw or otherwise) to your chickens. No, its not fatal. Cooking will help to kill any parasites which might be present, though it begs the question of how likely you think it might be that parasites infest one of your birds, but not the rest of your birds sharing the same feed, water, and coop??? Same with egg shells, though just giving a birds own shells back to it isn't enough calcium to support optimum continued production and health.

BSE and other Prion diseases aren't known to exist in avians, and moreover, are concentrated in the brain. Most of us don't feed our birds the brains of our dispatched birds - its too much effort, for too little reward. Still, if that's too much acceptable risk for you, really, you shouldn't be handling birds at all or a host of other, much higher risk, activities most of us would consider perfectly normal and uninteresting.


Would be happy to link studies and other recognized resources in support of my opinions, and will consider alternative sources of equal provenance.