What does everyone feed their chickens?

[patandchickens]

Well, sure, you could say it's all grains, but that's like saying, Hey, oatmeal and fruitloops are both breakfast cereals, or suet and steak are both from a cow, so what does it matter which ones you eat how much of

Scratch is basically corn. Corn alone is not really high enough in protein for chickens to do well on alone (unless they're eating lots of bugs and stuff too), but it is relatively high in carbohydrates and lipids.

While corn is one ingredient of 'chicken feed' you buy at the feedstore, there are OTHER things in there as well, to raise the protein level and balance the rest of the nutritional profile e.g. provide other things corn alone doesn't give enough of.

Sure, you can keep a chicken *alive* on all sorts of diets, but that does not mean that any ole diet that keeps the chicken clinically alive is going to keep it equally healthy, long-lived, disease resistant or laying well.

Does that make sense?

Pat

 

[halo]

Tons of sense, thanks all for posting. One of you mentioned alfalfa pellets; I hadnt heard that before for chickens. I use them in my garden, and for my horses. But chickens? And I like the idea of sunflower seeds as treats. Lots of goodies in sunflower seeds. I think I will go ahead and start my babies on Purina chick starter. Probably the safest way to go, the most balanced, and then add some goodies, such as alfalfa pellets, sunflower seeds, and of course when they start laying, the oyster shell.

Very interesting answers, thanks all.

 

[gamebirdsonly]

right now with all the cold snowy weather just feed them whole corn when it gets warmer chicken scratch.

 

[equinity]

What are the benefits of feeding lucerne pellets ti chickens?
Also I noticed one member said they dont ever feed any meat. Is meat bad for chickens? My very fussy debeaked hens love a chopped up sausage...me being a vegetarian I can't see the appeal

is meat bad for them?

 

[digitS']

What are the benefits of feeding lucerne pellets ti chickens?
Also I noticed one member said they dont ever feed any meat. Is meat bad for chickens? My very fussy debeaked hens love a chopped up sausage...me being a vegetarian I can't see the appeal hmm is meat bad for them?

lucerne = alfalfa

The benefits have been discussed here many times. You can do a search for "alfalfa" and/or read this thread.

One could overdo alfalfa in the diet. Chickens aren't ruminants and, at least with regards to pasturing, there doesn't seem to be anyone who wants to say that they will get more than 30% of their diet from plant foliage. The percentage is probably less.

I'd be surprised if meat could be considered bad for chickens. They are omnivores and will readily eat meat "on the hoof" if they can wrestle it down and swallow it. Feeding chickens meat is expensive and, since they are omnivores, plant-based feed can provide their nutritional requirements.

Meat was considered an essential part of poultry feed a century ago. Here's a poultry specialist writing about the diets of laying hens in 1909 (FEEDING FOR EGGS, a 24-page pdf) . "'The hen is a meat eater.' Animal food of some kind is necessary for fowls to maintain their health and vigor, and to make them productive either in meat or eggs. A knowledge of this fact has done more to increase the poultryman's profits than any other one thing in poultry feeding. The scarcity of eggs in winter is largely due to a lack of animal food. . . . There are a number of ways in which animal food may be fed. Fresh lean meat is undoubtedly the best kind of animal food."

This oldtime science is well worth downloading, reading, and saving. Professor Dryden writes clearly and really knew his chickens

.

Steve​

 

[Mrs Chickenlady]

My girls diet consists primarily of layer crumbles. On occasion I've given them lettuce, cabbage and of course plain ole grass, but that's about it. They've thrived very well and I've had no problems with illness. I'm realatively new to chicken raising so if I want to add the kitchen scraps, oatmeal and scratch to their diets, do I need to do it slowly over time? I don't want to upset their digestive systems. They're almost 1 year old .

 

[hcammack]

My girls get layena sunfresh free choice, fresh pasture daily, Scratch when it is cold or as a treat, all the non-meat (the dogs get the meat) and non-moldy scraps, they also get yogurt ocasionaly.

 

[sunnysidecluckers]

I feed mine layer pellets as their main food. I also give them cracked corn in the winter as a treat. I give them leftover veggies(not onions or garlic) My hens love watermelon,avocados, pasta. I also give them tofu now and then. They love it. Also older bread soaked in milk or yogurt with some water.