What food should my chickens be eating?

[BackyardDove]

I have 4 roosters and 4 laying hens in one area. My question is, what should I be feeding them? I was first feeding them a feed for egg laying chickens, but I was told that the feed will harm my roosters due to the extra calcium in it. So, I switched over to scratch feed. Well, I recently found out that they shouldn't be eating more than 10% scratch feed in their diet. What on earth am I suppose to be feeding them that will give them a complete, healthy diet and not harm my roosters? The only feed I've found is chick feed, laying hen feed, scratch feed, and seed game bird feed. My chickens all look and act the same and appear healthy despite being on a scratch diet for several months now, but I know that if they aren't eating right problems will start to show up. When I first bought scratch feed I also bought a bag of crushed oyster shells for my hens. They never once touched or had an interest in it, so I stopped offering it to them. Their eggs are still just as hard as they've always been, able to with stand being dropped without breaking. Along with scratch feed they eat some bread every week or couple of weeks, and whatever fruits/vegetable leftovers the other animals won't eat every now and again. They are let out of their pen and are allowed to forage for approximately 5-9 hours once or twice a week. They live in a large outdoor pen, not in a coop or anything, but because I also have a horse in that pen, there are no plants or grass inside their pen. Though, the horse manure attracts insects that they like to eat.

No, the roosters and hens cannot be separated. No, I am not new to raising/keeping chickens, I've just never encountered this issue before. Yes, all the roosters get along fine. And please, read everything before replying! I'm sorry if I sound rude or aggressive, but in the past people have asked me irrelevant questions and/or do not read everything I write and so I have to repeat myself. I just want to know if the diet they are on right now is good for both my roosters and hens or if I need to change something. If at all possible, approximate percentages of what they need to stay healthy would be great.

 

[pdirt]

Because you have horses (you mention other animals?), your chickens will get better forage than most folks who free range. They are probably doing better than most folks who feed a scratch only diet, because yours get decent forage. But once or twice a week of forage isn't enough to make up living on a scratch diet.

Correct, the layer feed is not good for the roosters. Scratch is not a complete feed...it's missing a lot of vital nutrients. You can feed chick feed (starter), grower, broiler, all-flock or flock-raiser feeds. Any of those will do fine. They are complete feeds everyone can eat without harm. I would continue to offer the crushed oyster shell to your laying hens. Perhaps they have some secret stash where they are getting all their calcium from (I assume they are laying regularly). They may not be familiar with the oyster shell, but unless they have a secret stash, they will be needing extra calcium for eggshells. The roosters will more or less leave the oyster shell alone.

Chickens will get some calcium from insects, especially the hard-bodied ones, but IIRC, it takes a LOT of insects for a hen to get her daily need filled for calcium. Some chickens are also better than others at absorbing calcium from their diet.

How many eggs a day do you typically get from your 4 hens and how old are they?

 

[chickengeorgeto]

Awhile back I went to Amish Country. While I waited on the harness maker's front porch I kept my eyes on a flock of about 20 hens under the care of the dominant rooster. Another of the harness makers customers pulled up in a horse and buggy and tied the rig up to the hitching rail.
I guess because he was relieved to get a break, the horse had soon relieved himself right where he stood. The dominant rooster squawked and took off running at top speed. Soon he began calling his hens with some urgency. The rooster flew into the fresh pile of poop between the horse's hind legs, and began dishing the most tasty morsels out to his wives. Before long the largest surviving fragment wasn't as big as a pencil eraser. Now ladies and gentlemen that is how you produce tasty free range eggs.

I feel that if you feed your equines sweet feed that your horses will naturally mill this grain based food into a most palatable chicken feed. I know that if you pen a cow and a hen together that the hen can live large off the cow's manure. Back in the good old days this is how free range chickens made a living. Among other things free range chickens literally ate what they found laying on the floor of the cow barn, horse stable, pig pen, and sometimes even under the out house. It's animal based protein don't you know?

I have raised a-many-a baby chick whose mama dragged her children all over the barn yard with the hens' eyes pealed skyward, looking for the next cow patty to hit the ground, often literally following in the cows' foot steps. In fact they liked the flavor of cow manure so well that that they often ignored a full feeder of chick feed until the cow poop was exhausted or else the cows had moved away from my barn.

 

[BackyardDove]

Because you have horses (you mention other animals?), your chickens will get better forage than most folks who free range. They are probably doing better than most folks who feed a scratch only diet, because yours get decent forage. But once or twice a week of forage isn't enough to make up living on a scratch diet.

Correct, the layer feed is not good for the roosters. Scratch is not a complete feed...it's missing a lot of vital nutrients. You can feed chick feed (starter), grower, broiler, all-flock or flock-raiser feeds. Any of those will do fine. They are complete feeds everyone can eat without harm. I would continue to offer the crushed oyster shell to your laying hens. Perhaps they have some secret stash where they are getting all their calcium from (I assume they are laying regularly). They may not be familiar with the oyster shell, but unless they have a secret stash, they will be needing extra calcium for eggshells. The roosters will more or less leave the oyster shell alone.

Chickens will get some calcium from insects, especially the hard-bodied ones, but IIRC, it takes a LOT of insects for a hen to get her daily need filled for calcium. Some chickens are also better than others at absorbing calcium from their diet.

How many eggs a day do you typically get from your 4 hens and how old are they?

Alright, thank you very much. I don't remember seeing any all-flock feeds that weren't very expensive, but if the stores around me don't have it I'll just go for broiler feed. I got tired of putting out the oyster shells because it would go untouched and eventually get rained on, which means I have to empty it, clean it, and refill it just for it to go untouched again. I'll put a little pan of it in their coop this time so hopefully water won't get to it. One hen is a little over 3 years, two of the hens are a little over a year old, and the fourth one is a wild hen that decided a couple months ago to join my hens/become part of my flock, so I don't know her age or how many eggs she lays. My eldest hen lays every other day or every two days and my two year old hens lay everyday, occasionally taking a day in between layings.

Awhile back I went to Amish Country. While I waited on the harness maker's front porch I kept my eyes on a flock of about 20 hens under the care of the dominant rooster. Another of the harness makers customers pulled up in a horse and buggy and tied the rig up to the hitching rail.
I guess because he was relieved to get a break, the horse had soon relieved himself right where he stood. The dominant rooster squawked and took off running at top speed. Soon he began calling his hens with some urgency. The rooster flew into the fresh pile of poop between the horse's hind legs, and began dishing the most tasty morsels out to his wives. Before long the largest surviving fragment wasn't as big as a pencil eraser. Now ladies and gentlemen that is how you produce tasty free range eggs.

I feel that if you feed your equines sweet feed that your horses will naturally mill this grain based food into a most palatable chicken feed. I know that if you pen a cow and a hen together that the hen can live large off the cow's manure. Back in the good old days this is how free range chickens made a living. Among other things free range chickens literally ate what they found laying on the floor of the cow barn, horse stable, pig pen, and sometimes even under the out house. It's animal based protein don't you know?

I have raised a-many-a baby chick whose mama dragged her children all over the barn yard with the hens' eyes pealed skyward, looking for the next cow patty to hit the ground, often literally following in the cows' foot steps. In fact they liked the flavor of cow manure so well that that they often ignored a full feeder of chick feed until the cow poop was exhausted or else the cows had moved away from my barn.

My horse eats coastal hay and 10% sweet feed. The chickens do love her manure, I use to have to shovel it out of her pen because it'd get piled up and would attract too many flies. Ever since I got chickens, her poop is always destroyed into dirt quickly and there's nothing for me to shovel anymore. No chunks at all are ever left. So I know they're eating better than some chickens, if they were eating an absolutely poor diet, they would probably be showing symptoms by now. My grandma use to raise chickens and, like you said, there were no 'special diets' for them back then. She also had horses, donkeys, and other livestock, so her chickens would just eat whatever dinner scraps there were and whatever the other animals left them. I would love to have a more natural diet for my chickens, but, I just don't have the room for enough livestock to supply them. The horse they share a pen with is a miniature horse, so although they get a steady supply of manure, she can only produce so much in one day. What I'll probably end up doing is I'll give them access to a feeder with plain scratch feed and another feeder with a higher nutrient feed, like all-flock or broiler feed. That way, if they need it, they can get whatever they might be missing in their diet. Thank you for your help and advice!

 

[chickengeorgeto]

Quote:
Scratch feed is intended to be just that. In other words scratch feed is feed that your hens and roosters should have to scratch for, and hustle to find. Putting your (or rather your chickens) scratch feed into a feeder is too much like pealing your children's grapes before calling your kids to the supper table. Make those hens and roosters work to earn their keep with the sweat off their brow.

If you are concerned for your roosters' kidneys feed your flock a breeder ration and give them free choice crushed oyster shell. Someone was worrying about the oyster shells getting wet. Don't over think things, oysters live in ocean water, that's what oysters do, spend their whole life in water.

For most back yard chicken keepers a Vienna Sausage can full of crushed oyster shell will last and last. Poke a few holes in the bottom of the Vienna can with a nail to allow any water that finds its way into the top of the can to also find its way out the bottom of the Vienna Sausage can. A few more small holes in the top or side of the can gives you a handy place to tie up your oyster shell can on the wire or somewhere inside the coop (maybe by a roost) in a fashion where the crushed shells don't get spilled, or the chickens can't scratch dirt or chicken poop inside the can.