new chickens,feed question

[shell]

got 3 rhode island red hens today 20 weeks old,and 1 light sussex and 1 black rock,i have got pellets and scraps,now can i give them meat scraps? and i also have corn,can i give the corn as it is or do i have to cook it first?
this may seem a silly question but this is my first time with chickens,
as soon as i can i will post pics,i`m so delighted,i`ve waited 2 years for this moment

[Millymollymandy]

Congrats shell! I got two new ones at the weekend too.

I'm not sure about feeding the meat scraps, but the layers pellets are the right thing to give them if they are laying birds. On top of that they'll need some crushed oyster shell - there is a small amount already in the layers pellets but I find my girls eat loads as well.

They need grit for their crops unless they have a good sized outside area where they can peck at the ground and then wheat or another cereal as a treat - go easy on the corn as it is fattening - used more often to fatten them up for the pot or to warm them in winter - but it doesn't need cooking! I feed wheat to my girls, and also some scraps as treats. Have a look through this section because there are some fairly current threads on what scraps can or can't be fed to chickens. Have fun!

[Annpan]

I gave my girls meat scraps and quickly got told off in here... so now I don't They get a range of other left overs and scraps (rice and pasta being their favourite) They eat masses of beasties and slugs too.

The only feed I give them is layers pellets and make sure they have plenty of fresh grass available, I let my girls roam around the garden for a good proportion of the day now so they forage too. I don't give them oyster shells or grit and haven't yet felt the need to.

They are great to have around, enjoy

[red]

chickens are omnivores.. so they do eat meat when the find it - snails, carrion etc. however, you should know that it is against the law, In Europe, to give any kitchen scraps to your livestock, and this includes chickens.

dont shout at me.. it's not me that makes these rules.


anhoo... i would avoid giving meat scraps personally anyway, because.. meat can go off quickly, and this can lead to ill chickens or eggs with salmonella. just my opinion though.

[Siena]

Well personally I would feed the few scraps of meat - not too much like but if it's left over from today's dinner then I'd go ahead.

The reason it is illegal to feed meat products to any animal in Europe is because of the BSE scare where BSE was spread as a result of feeding ground bonemeal to cattle. Well that is my understanding. So if it's still fine meat for you to eat, I can see no problem with giving it to the hens to eat.

My 2 cents!

[red]

Well personally I would feed the few scraps of meat - not too much like but if it's left over from today's dinner then I'd go ahead.

The reason it is illegal to feed meat products to any animal in Europe is because of the BSE scare where BSE was spread as a result of feeding ground bonemeal to cattle. Well that is my understanding. So if it's still fine meat for you to eat, I can see no problem with giving it to the hens to eat.

My 2 cents!

actually, I think its foot and mouth that started this. I dont suppose feeding bread crusts to your hens causes F&M but a blanket ban is what they put down. whatever you think of the law, its still as well to be aware of it.

[shell]

thanks,as i have a lot of scraps i can leave out giving meat,the dogs will eat that anyway,this morning we had porridge and sugar puffs left over so i gave them that and some layer pellets and linseed,my 3 rhode islands are picking on my 2 smaller ones,thats the latest problem,and we had to reinforce the pen as my jack russell dug his way in and caused havoc,luckily the neighbours were in their garden and came round and told us,dave got there in time to stop him getting into the coop,but he had pulled a couple of slates away but hadnt got inside,the chicks were demented but still no harm as we got an egg yesterday evening,small but an egg.
i cant seem to put pics as they are too big ,and i dont know how to reduce them, i have managed before but it was pure luck,

[Siena]

Ooops. My mistake

[Thurston Garden]

I have no doubt that in the days of proper Cottage Economy, the chances of keeling over with some form of Mad Animal disease were virtually nil. Sadly in these days of highly processed foods, who knows whats in what you scrape from your plate into a pig bucket or hen feeder? Shredded sheeps spleen.......pigs belly buttons.....triceratops toe nails? I do know that certain lagers have ground up fish bones used as a clearing agent.

There are stict regulations for a reason really - and if you keep livestock other than hens, or enough hens so as to warrant registering your flock, you are required to keep accurate records of what you are feeding them and subject to periodic spot checks with feed samples taken away (in Scotland at least).

Free ranging hens only require layers pellets or layers mash fed ad-lib. Hens are not greedy (unlike pigs!) and will only eat what they require (85-125g a day depending on breed/size). A handful of grain/corn/oats can be flung into the run in the late afternoon - this is especially helpful during the winter at keeping them laying for the maximum time as it helps keep the birds fueled during the night and leaves more of the pellets/mash for egg production energy. Without grain in the winter afternoons, the pellets/mash are used to keep the bird warm and less energy is available for egg production.

As a wee laddie, during the winter to keep them laying, I would feed my hens boiled up potato peelings mixed through their mash with hot water as a kind of porridge - but, oh dear, you can't do that now. Them's the rules

[shell]

yes,i fed my chicks boiled potato peelings till i read on 2 poultry sites i found, that it gives them the runs but now i have boiled up soya beans and dried corn to make a mash and this ive frozen in bags ,this i give a little in the afternoon to suppliment the layer pellets and grubs they dig up,tried boiled veg left over and carrots were the only thing they wouldn`t eat,
i`m still trying to show pics,although don`t they grow fast,they are much bigger now just 10 days on

[dave45]

microwaved potato peelings go down well with mine... carrot peelings are ignored. chickens are very fussy eaters!

[happy place]

on the subject off feeding waste to your animals it is defra who make up the rules
and the rules state that you can not feed kitchenwaste to livestock the defra definition of kitchen waste is food stuffs from a kitchen so if you prepare your veg in the kitchen it is kitchenwaste and can not be fed to your livestock ; if you sit in your garden to do your prep it is gardenwaste deem is the rules as writen by der brainy bods so i say if you are unlucky and have defra do a spot check as long as you anit got a pot in the kitchen labeled scraps for chooks it was all prepared in the garden

[wulf]

I'm fairly new to chicken keeping and we've got three hens. One is a bit older, passed on from friends who were moving, and lays about 4 eggs a week. The other two were bought as point of lay hens but don't seem to have started producing yet (one month on).

One of my housemates did some online research last night and came across advice which said that, in order to encourage egg production, we should minimise the scraps (yes... I did read the thread above... these are things set aside with garden use in mind, so I think of them as garden scraps) and corn and mainly feed on layers mash. What the advice doesn't give is any indication of why, nor if feeding them a diet designed to induce laying reduces the other vitamins and so on they should be getting and works them too hard?

We've run out of layers mash anyway (more due on Monday... our organisation isn't quite perfected on the chicken front) so I'm hoping we'll have a bountiful weekend for eggs. I'm inclined to want to feed them more scraps and less mass-processed food, just like I choose to eat that way myself. Is there anything in the argument for relying mainly on layers mash and minimising scraps and corn to treats in the afternoon? Could we instead buy in crushed oyster shell (haven't done that yet) and provide the necessary calcium that way?

Wulf

[red]

chickens need enough protein to produce eggs - I remember my parents (who keep hens) switched to barley for feed - as they had harvested a field of barley.. so they had it. egg production dropped dramatically.

in days of old people didn't really feed the hens, they foraged and gleened and eggs were not so plentiful

i guess there is a balance to these things


Congrats on the hens Wulf. Mt guess is, now its October, that you wont see eggs from your POLs for a few more months yet. Chickens do seem to notice when the days start to get longer so maybe Xmas or January.

[wulf]

So, protein for the eggs (and some calcium for the shells?)... but, with the days getting shorter, it may be the wrong time of year to expect the new girls to produce much anyway.

Wulf