wild bird seed vs. scratch

[onewing]

Id say whole kernel is prolly to much to proscess

 

[animallover505]

(I've tried both, but they don't love either)

 

[centrarchid]

Try it just for fun. My birds, free-range and confined, will clean up intact corn prior to eating the more mundane pellets. Make certain birds consuming adequate amounts of grit.

 

[animallover505]

I try it, I give them whole corn in the winter and they eat it, but they won't eat corn in the summer.

 

[centrarchid]

Mine will consume corn year round although during summer when consumption of greens is high they have little need for energy the corn supplies.

 

[FowlTerritory]

I transitioned my birds from McGill organic grower to wild bird seed and they tell me they can't live without it now, haha. Even after a day of ranging must still come running for it, some breeds more than others. The price is still not so much of a shock after the cost of the McGill.

 

[GardenerGal]

I was gonna get some scratch for my chickens today. I know they don't need it, but I feed it mostly for entertainment. Could I get wild bird seed instead? My chickens love sunflower seed, but I can't afford to buy a bag of it and a bag of scratch and mix it.

I have been using the cheapest wild birdseed I can find, and it makes perfectly fine scratch feed for the chickens. I toss a scoop of it into the run in the morning, mixed with some layer pellets for "variety" and by afternoon the chickens have picked up pretty much everything, including the pellets. They also have their feed bowls filled with layer pellets, but the birdseed "scratch" gets them off the roost and out of the barn in the morning!

However, birdseed doesn't make a nutritionally balanced diet by itself, so it's ONLY a treat and the flock gets their regular layer pellets, free-choice, all the time.

As long as your flock has access to grit, there is no problem with birdseed. My flock eats birdseed that has whole-kernel corn and black-oil sunflower seeds with the shell, and they've never had any problems with that because they have plenty of grit.

I also mix a little birdseed into my waterfowls' feed pellets. Again, no problems. Some people say that waterfowl can get diverticulitis from unhusked seed, but I really think that's only if they are kept in a pen with no access to grit either natural or supplied. Grit allows all grain-eating birds to grind up the husks.

 

[animallover505]

thanks

 

[TOP KNOT]

Why not use whole corn?

You can, but I buy cracked.

 

[centrarchid]

You can, but I buy cracked.

Nutritional quality of whole is superior unless cracked has just been cracked.