Chicken Chow
Starters, growers, layers, breeders and finishers all need something different. Learn THE SECRETS to flock nutrition.
Starters, growers, layers, breeders and finishers all need something different. Learn the secrets to flock nutrition.
While your chickens’ nutritional needs vary depending on age, sex, breed and use, their diets must always include water, protein, vitamins, minerals, carbohydrates and fats in adequate quantities and proper balance. All chicken keepers are in agreement on this point. But when it comes to the question of how best to supply all those dietary elements, it’s a different story. Ask any group of fanciers how each feeds his or her chickens, and you’ll find two distinct camps: those who never feed their birds anything except commercial mixes, and those who never feed their birds commercial mixes without supplementing them. Opinion runs high on both sides about which approach is better.
Which one you should take really depends on your primary reason for keeping chickens. If you raise birds strictly for their meat or eggs, commercial feed is the way to go. Commercial bagged rations are formulated to serve up optimal nutrition, thus creating optimal production. Supplementing commercial feed with treats, table scraps, scratch — a wholeor cracked-grain mixture chickens adore
— or anything else will upset that delicate nutritional balance.
However, if like us, you see your chickens as friends and you don’t mind if their growth is slightly slower or if they produce fewer eggs, then you may want to consider supplementing their diets. They’ll appreciate the variety, and you’ll appreciate the lower cost of a supplemented diet.
WATER
Consider this: an egg is roughly 65 percent water, a chick 79 percent and a mature chicken 55 to 75 percent. Blood is 90 percent water. Chickens guzzle two to three times as much water as they eat in food, depending on their size, type (layers require more water than broiler chickens) and the season — up to two or three cups per day. So whether you use a commercial or home-based diet, your chickens require access to fresh, clean water.
Chickens need water to soften what they eat and carry it through their digestive tracts; many of the digestive and nutrient absorption processes depend on water. In addition, water cools birds internally during the hot summer months. If you eliminate water from your chickens’ diet, expect problems immediately. Even a few hours of water deprivation affects egg production.
Chickens don’t drink a lot at any single time, but they drink often. However, water temperature can affect how much they will drink. They don’t like to drink hot or icy water, so keep waterers away from heat sources and out of the blazing sun. When temperatures soar, plop a handful of ice cubes in the reservoir every few hours. In the winter, replace regular waterers with heated ones or add a bucket-style immersion heater to a standard metal version. You can also swap iced-up waterers for fresh ones containing tepid water every few hours. In subzero climates, heated waterers are a must; even a heated dog-watering dish is acceptable.
Chickens are inherently messy, so chickenspecific waterers are better than buckets and dishes. Hanging (tube style) models are good; automatic waterers work best of all; and metal waterers last longer than plastic ones.
Even if one waterer is enough, choose two. Otherwise bossy, high-ranking chickens in your flock’s hierarchy may shoo underlings away from the fountain. (This recommendation goes for feed troughs, too).
Although hanging waterers can be placed on the floor, hanging them from hooks or rafters with the drinking surface level with your smallest chickens’ backs will give the best results. If you can’t hang a waterer, make certain it’s level, or it will leak.
Whichever type of waterer you use and wherever you hang your waterers, clean and rinse them every day. Scour them once a week — more often in the summer, when they tend to get scummy — using a stiff brush and a solution of about nine parts water to one part chlorine bleach.
COMMERCIAL FEEDS
Whether you buy or mix it yourself, a healthy chicken’s diet should provide:
Sufficient protein based on the age and needs of the bird.
Carbohydrates, a major source of energy.
Thirteen vitamins to support growth, reproduction and body maintenance: fat-soluble vitamins A, D3, E and K, and water-soluble vitamins B12, thiamin, riboflavin, nicotinic acid, folic acid, biotin, pantothenic acid, pyridoxine and choline.
Macro minerals (those needed in larger quantities) and trace or micro minerals (needed only in minute amounts) to build strong bones and healthy blood cells, supporting enzyme activation and muscle function, and regulating metabolism. Hens require additional minerals, especially calcium, to lay eggs with thick shells.
Fats offer energy and proper absorption of fat-soluble vitamins, serve as sources of fatty acids, and are necessary for supporting fertility and egg hatchability. Commercial feeds contain processed meat and poultry fats in measured amounts. Fats provide twice as much energy as other feed ingredients, making them especially useful in starter feeds and growing rations.
To meet protein requirements, commercial feeds include a variety of high-protein meals made of corn gluten, soybeans, cottonseed, meat, bone, fish and dried whey. Too much protein can be as bad as too little, so balancing this nutrient is especially tricky.
Carbohydrates naturally compose a large portion of every grain-based diet. While some of the 13 vitamins listed above are plentiful in natural foodstuff, commercial feeds cover all bases by adding a vitamin premix.
Ground oyster shells or limestone, salt and trace mineral premix are commercial feed additives designed to meet a chicken’s macro and micro mineral needs.
Mixing your own commercial- style feed is an option (and often a must for producers of organic meat or eggs), but it’s a complex and nutritionally risky one. Using the commercial feed on the market is convenient and easy.
COMMON INGREDIENTS & ADDITIVES
Common ingredients in commercial feeds include corn, oats, wheat, barley, sorghum, milo, soybean and other oilseed meals, cottonseed or alfalfa meal, wheat or rice bran, and meat by-products, such as bonemeal and fishmeal. Ingredients are finely ground to produce easier-todigest mash; sometimes, they are pelleted or processed into crumbles so there is less wasted food.
Commercial baby chick food is usually medicated; some feeds for older chickens are medicated, too. Each type, designed for a specific group of birds, contains nutrients in slightly different measures, so when buying feed, read the tags and labels to make certain you’re buying what your chickens require.
Commercial feeds also contain ingredients that many fanciers don’t approve of, such as antibiotics and coccidiostats for birds that don’t need them, pellet binders to improve the texture of pelleted feed and chemical antioxidants to prevent fatty ingredients spoilage. If you’d like to offer your chickens commercial feed but want to avoid the questionable additives, ask your county agricultural agent or feed store representative what natural commercial feeds are available locally. Always read labels of unfamiliar commercial feed so you know what’s in there and precisely what amounts to feed.
When feeding commercial products, choose the correct feed: starter, grower, layer, breeder or finisher. Don’t indiscriminately substitute any type for your flock. In a pinch, you can adjust a feed’s protein level by diluting it with scratch or adding a separate protein supplement.
MAINTAINING NUTRITIONAL VALUE & FRESHNESS
To retain full nutritional value and assure freshness, purchase no more than a two- to four-week supply of commercial feed. Don’t dump new product on top of remaining feed; use up the old feed first or scoop it out and place it on top of the new supply. When storing feed, place it in tightly closed containers and store in a cool, dry place out of the sun. Plastic containers work best, but if plastic-gnawing rodents are a headache, store grain in lidded metal cans. A 10-gallon garbage can — plastic or metal — can hold 50 pounds of feed and makes a neat, ready-made feed bin.
If your chickens refuse the commercial feed, examine it closely. Give it a good whiff. It may be musty or otherwise spoiled. If it seems all right, you’re probably dealing with picky chickens who prefer scratch, treats and table scraps. You should cut back on goodies until they eat the chicken ration, too. Distributing treats only in the late afternoon, after they’ve dined on their regular rations, will encourage them to be less picky.
SUPPLEMENTS
According to proponents of supplements, hens fed strictly with commercial feed lay tasteless, thin-shelled supermarket-quality eggs and broilers fed the same diet will taste like packaged, store-bought chickens. A push? Maybe. That’s something you’ll have to decide for yourself. What we present are methods chicken keepers can use to supplement the diets of their flocks.
GRIT AND OYSTER SHELLS
Given that chickens don’t have teeth, they swallow grit — tiny pebbles and other hard objects — to grind their food. If your chickens free range or you use easily digestible commercial feed, you won’t need to provide your birds with grit.
Otherwise, commercial grit (ground limestone, granite or marble) can be mixed with their scratch or container-fed to chickens on a free-choice basis.
Ground oyster shell is too soft to function as grit, but it’s a terrific calcium booster for laying hens. Feeding oyster shell to hens on a freechoice basis allows the hens to eat it
when they wish.
SCRATCH
While university resources advise a straight commercial diet, most hobbyists and small flock owners supplement this with scratch. Scratch is a mixture of two or more whole or coarsely cracked grains, such as corn, oats, wheat, milo, millet, rice, barley and buckwheat.
Chickens adore scratch grains. They instinctively scratch the earth with their sharp toenails to rake up bugs, pebbles, seeds and other natural yummies; strewn on their indoor litter or anyplace outdoors, scratch satisfies that urge. Or you can place feed in separate indoor feeders. To preserve its nutritional balance, commercial feed should be supplemented with scratch in measured proportions.
GREENS AND INSECTS
Hobby farmers and poultry enthusiasts often grow “chicken gardens” of cut-and-comeagain edibles like lettuce, kale, turnip greens and chard for their birds. Chickens of all types and sizes relish greens. Greens-chomping hens lay eggs with dark, rich yolks.
Insects add protein to chickens’ diets. Freerange chickens harvest their own bugs but coop and run-caged birds don’t have that chance. Capture katydids, grasshoppers and other insects to toss to your chickens.
GOOD HOME COOKIN’
Chickens happily devour table scraps. Avoid fatty, greasy, salty stuff, anything spoiled, avocados and uncooked potato peels. Also, strongly scented or flavored scraps, such as onions, garlic, salami and fish, can flavor hens’ eggs. Most everything else from your table will work as well — even baked goods, meat and dairy products.
Many fanciers scramble or fry eggs and feed them back to their chickens. Egg yolk is
a chicken’s first food; it’s a fine supplement for adult birds of all ages and an ideal use for eggs with cracked or soiled shells. However, if you overfeed your chickens on scratch, greens, veggies and “people food,” some will turn up their beaks when served commercial rations. Unless you devise a balanced diet based on home-mixed victuals, consider them supplements, not first-line chicken feed.
Many folks assume free-range chickens will grow healthy eating seeds, weeds and bugs. They won’t. However, if you supplement free-range findings with scratch or commercial feed, your chickens will cheerfully rid your yard and orchard of termites, ticks, Japanese beetles, grasshoppers, grubs, slugs and dropped fruit. One caveat: they’ll also strip your garden clean; think “fenced garden” if you plan to raise free-range chickens.
CHICKEN TRACTORS, PASTURED POULTRY & REE-RANGE CHICKENS ... WHAT DOES IT ALL MEAN?
Most range (also called short-pasture) poultry systems fall into one of three basic categories: free range, pastured poultry and chicken tractors. The first two systems are used for raising commercial flocks and probably won’t interest most who read this book, but they work nicely for hobby farmers seeking ways to raise and market homegrown, value-added products such as natural or organic meat chickens and organic eggs. Chicken tractors are lightweight, bottomless shelter pens designed to move wherever grass control and soil fertility are required. They appeal to small-scale raisers: maintaining a chicken tractor in your garden not only enriches your soil, it’s also the perfect way to supplement your birds’ diet with yummy greenery, crunchy bugs, worms and grubs.
In the grand scheme of things, free-range chickens are any that are allowed to roam fenceless and free during the day, returning at night to a coop or shelter in a barn, tree or wherever else they can find. Free-range chickens, when spoken of in conjunction with today’s range-poultry management phenomenon, are something else indeed.
They are raised in 8-by-18-foot skid houses set in roomy, clipped grass pastures, which are surrounded by predator-resistant perimeter fencing. Each shelter has a roof, a sturdy floor, and wood-framed 1-inch chicken-wire sides.
They’re fitted with roosts, nest boxes (for layers), bulk feeders and float-valve waterers. Chickens, stocked at the rate of 400 per acre, are allowed to free range during the day and are confined to their skid houses at night. Spacing can be no less than 150 feet between skid houses or from a skid house to the nearest fence. When grazing around the skid houses grows thin (generally every few months), the skids — chickens and all — are towed to a new location within the pasture. The free-range system is widely used throughout Europe for producing natural and organic meat chickens or eggs; it’s becoming popular in North America, too.
Pastured poultry are raised in 8-by-10-foot portable pens with roofs but no floors and are confined day and night. Each pen contains about 80 chickens. Roosts and nest boxes are provided; feed and water are carried to the chickens. Structures are moved to fresh pasture (with the birds inside of them) once or twice every day.
Chicken tractors are engineered to move around your farm, usually by hand, to areas in need of enrichment. Size depends on the strength of the operator and ranges from 3 by 5 by 2 feet for three or four chickens to a whopping 8 by 12 by 3 feet. Usually, sides are crafted of wood-framed wire mesh; a hinged roof protects inhabitants from the elements and allows easy operator entry. If you build compact tractors to fit the width of spaces between your garden rows, the chickens will neatly weed and fertilize your garden without tanking up on produce while they do it (water and feed are provided inside the tractor; you’ll need to advance the unit once or twice a day). Larger chicken tractors can be set atop spots needing more thorough cultivation over longer periods of time. Chickens are day laborers; they’re removed from the tractor at night. It’s a great way to cultivate and nourish garden soil while entertaining your chickens. ■
Sue Weaver has written hundreds of articles, including those for Hobby Farms magazine and Chickens magazine, and nine books about livestock and poultry. She lives on a small farm in Arkansas, where she cares for sheep, goats, horses and, of course, chickens.