What is chicken mash and its purpose?

[gritsar]

No the crumbles here look like a pale yellow version of grape nuts - you know, the stuff Yule Brenner used to promote?
We do have three different types of scratch here though:
Scratch - it's powdered corn for lack of a better term. Looks just like corn meal. When I accidently bought it this winter I mixed it with warm water and the chickens loved it on cold mornings.
Scratch grains - that's chopped corn mixed with other grains, like oats and some seed.
Chops - ground corn. The chicken's favorite.

 

[cherig22]

You mean Eule (sp) Gibbons.

Cheri

 

[Chick_a_dee]

I was feeding the mash, however I was getting a lot of inconsistency with one hens eggs, and I switched to the crumbles to see what would happen... no more problems, they're getting ALL of the nutrients now and I'm not having any more issues with inconsistency in texture or fragility of the egg.

 

[gritsar]

Quote:
Yeah, whatever. I'm old. He's dead?

 

[Akane]

Left mash, right crumbles

 

[cherig22]

Quote:
Yeah, whatever. I'm old. He's dead?

Yep. I'm old too, cause I remember his cereal commercials.

Cheri

 

[WoodlandWoman]

If you look up the definition of crumbles, as it relates to chicken feed, it says they are chopped pellets, which is what that picture looks like. However, when I buy crumbles, they do look like Grapenuts!

I think that originally crumbles were just chopped pellets, but that some manufacturers have developed a different way of processing them. I think the crumbles that look like Grapenuts are easier for chicks to eat than the chopped pellet type and that's why so many chick starter foods are that type of crumble now, instead of the finely ground mash that used to be more common for feeding chicks.

Apparently in MN, they use the word "egg" for "layer" when describing chicken feed. Like "egg pellets" instead of "layer pellets." There are a lot of regional differences in what things are called. I guess chicken feed has the same issue!

By the way, Grapenuts are really good in cold weather if you make them with hot milk. Or just pop the bowl in the microwave to heat it. They soften up and taste yummy! Sometimes I like a different hot cereal and it's quick, too. Mmm...

 

[patandchickens]

FWIW, the mash that our local outfit sells is like cracked corn and bits of grain with a lot of coarse and fine powdery stuff.

If I could figure out a way of feeding it without so darn much waste, and without most of the powder ending up lost in the bedding (I suspect it contains most of the protein and mineral supplements...), I would certainly use it. However I haven't figured out how to do that yet, short of just giving them a measured am't of feed twice a day and I don't really want to do that. It *is* significantly cheaper than crumbles (which is what I feed) or pellets.

Pat

 

[sugarbush]

What I buy as crumbles, looks like what is on the left. What I get as mash does too

If the color in that picture is correct the company making that uses a lot of beet pulp filler.

 

[WoodlandWoman]

You can also feed the finely ground mash wet to adult chickens and then they get all of the nutrition in it. That's a lot more work than just filling up a big feeder with dry food, though. It's an option for some people, depending on their individual circumstances.

Making sure the chicken eats all of the ingredients in the feed, is probably one reason crumbles and pellets became popular.