Feeding

What's in Your Poultry Feed?

Look at the Label 😊
One of the key ingredients to look for is what type of protein is in the feed you are buying. We recommend animal protein as the best type of protein to feed your chooks. Chickens are not vegetarians! They love eating meat. Chooks will forage for insects, slugs and worms and they will strip the meat off bones, catch mice and eat your dinner leftovers to get their protein. Look for ruminant protein (meat & bone meal and blood meal) as your key protein ingredients and these need to be at least 16% preferably 18% for optimum production. 16% is the minium requirement of crude protein in commercial layer feed to meet the needs of a laying hen. Feeding out pellets is better than mash. Pellets we have found to be less wasteful and easier for the birds to pick up and swallow. Commercial poultry feed has a shelf life of around 12 weeks so best to buy more regularly than than in bulk. One bag at a time. Chooks don’t like stale feed. Don’t chop and change your brand, chooks like routine and get used to what they eat. Keep them on the same quality feed otherwise you could upset their laying routine.

Invest in an Automatic Chicken Feeder 👍
Chooks are wasteful and messy feeders so investing in a decent suspension feeder (hung at right height like a mini-food bar in the hen house) or step-on feeder (best placed in the house) is a worthwhile investment. The step-on chicken feeders are in our opinion the best value as they give your birds access to feed all day and prevent mice and sparrows from helping themselves and soiling the contents. The automatic step-on feeders come in a range of sizes so best to get one suitable for your size and number of chooks. If you need any help choosing the right feeder talk to us.

• Feed out ad lib using a step-on or suspension feeder.
• Chickens eat when hungry (little and often through out the day) and are not prone to ‘pig out’ like puppies.
• On average a laying hen eats 120 to 140 grams a day.
• Using open dishes and flat trays to feed chickens is very wasteful as chooks love to flick and scratch feed everywhere.
• Wheat and maize should be feed out only as a treat feed and should not make up more than 10% of their diet. Feed out this carbo snack late afternoon when you go to have some time-out with your chooks.
• Kitchen and vegetable garden scraps can be feed out but just as a supplement to their main feed which will be the layers pellets (90%).
• Never feed out more kitchen scraps than they can eat in 10 minutes.

Different Feed for Different Stages

Day old and young chicks will need to be fed chick crumble. This is a high protein crumble designed to grow the chicks well. Most chick crumble is medicated and contain a coccidiostat for the prevention of coccidiosis. We recommend feeding out chick crumble up to POL (point of lay) as it is the best feed nutritionally for growing pullets. Growing good, strong healthy birds will produce good strong healthy layers. When pullets are at POL then switch over to premium layer pellets. We recommend the Westons peak layer pellets. These pellets are specially formulated to give your laying birds all they need to lay eggs for you. Please do not feed layers mash or layers pellets to chicks or growing chickens as the high levels of calcium cannot be easily excreted and will damage the kidneys of the young birds. So when you next go to buy a bag of feed for your chooks – remember to look at the label, go for animal proteins preferably around 18%. Feed your chooks well it is worth it! We cannot stress enough how important it is to feed your birds correctly.

A handful of scratch treats helps build a great relationship with your hens.
Remember treats are only given in small amounts and best in the late afternoon.