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 whole- or cracked-grain mixture that chickens adore), or anything else will upset that delicate nutritional balance.
However, if, like us, you see your chickens as friends and don’t care if their growth is slightly slower or if they produce fewer eggs, then consider supplementing their diets. They’ll appreciate the variety, and you’ll appreciate the much lower cost of a supplemented diet.
| Waste Less Chickens waste about 30 percent of feed in a trough feeder that’s full. If the same trough is only half full, they waste only 3 percent. Save yourself some time and money by spreading less feed for your chickens in more troughs. |
Water
Consider this: an egg is roughly 65 percent water, a chick 79 percent, and a mature chicken 55– 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, their type (layers require more water than broilers), and the season—up to two or three cups per day. So whether you use a commercial or home-based diet, your chickens require free 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. Chickens don’t drink a lot at any single time, but they drink often.
Water temperature can affect how much chickens will drink. They don’t like to drink hot or too-cold water, so keep waterers 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 bowl is acceptable.
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.
As with the feeders, hanging waterers 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 is level to avoid leaking.
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) using a stiff brush and a solution of about nine parts water to one part chlorine bleach.
Chicken waterers are designed to keep the water clean.
Commercial Feeds
Whether you buy it or mix it yourself, a healthy, happy chicken’s diet should provide the following:
•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
•Macrominerals (those needed in larger quantities) and trace or microminerals (those needed in only 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 nice, thick shells
•Fats for energy and proper absorption of fat-soluble vitamins and as sources of fatty acids, necessary for supporting fertility and egg hatchability
Commercial feeds are designed to meet the aforementioned needs precisely. 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 are much easier; they naturally compose a large portion of every grain-based diet. While some of the thirteen vitamins listed are plentiful in natural foodstuff, commercial feeds cover all bases by adding a vitamin premix. As for fats, 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. Mixing your own commercial-style feed is an option (and often a must for producers of organic meat or eggs), but balancing the nutrition is a complex task.
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-to-digest 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 of feed, designed for a specific group of birds, contains nutrients in slightly different measures, so choose the correct feed: starter, grower, layer, breeder, or finisher. That information will be printed on the label, along with precisely how much to feed, so always check to be certain.
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 from spoiling. Again, read the labels! 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. The Murray McMurray Hatchery sells organic feed and ships throughout the continental United States.
| ADVICE FROM THE FARM Feeding Your Chickens My chickens get yummy breakfasts every other day: oatmeal, rabbit feed (for a nice greens-based meal), raisins, scrambled eggs, cat food (protein—and they love it), apples, leftovers, mac and cheese (a favorite!), green beans, and Cheerios (another favorite). —Jennifer Kroll Let your chickens graze. My chickens keep our 3 acres almost totally free of ticks. Ticks for eggs—that’s a really neat trade! —Sharon Jones |
Maintaining Nutritional Value and 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 it in a cool, dry place out of the sun. Plastic containers will work, but if gnawing rodents are a headache, store grain in lidded metal cans. A 10-gallon garbage can holds 50 pounds of feed.
If your chickens refuse commercial feed, examine it closely. Sniff. It may be musty or otherwise spoiled. If it seems all right,
