best layers

damecluck

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I bought a bag of layer pellets from the breeder when I picked my three girls up. Not too sure about the quality and I can't remember what I used when I last kept chooks. Has anyone got any suggestions for a good quality pellet? They also get a bit of corn, apples, greens etc. and when my friend across the road mows her lawn she saves me a bag of grass cuttings which they love (lawn untreated of course). :)
 
All the well-known brands are OK. Many people, including me, like Garvo if you happen to live near a stockist. Dodson & Horrel do a non-GM version, if GM ingredients bother you. Another reliable brand is Marriages. They do layers pellets with Flubenvet for when the girls need worming, but with only 3 you'd be better off buying Flubenvet powder and adding it to your usual pellets, as even the 10kilo bag of treated pellets would be far too much for one treatment and would be out of date 6 months later when you wanted to repeat the course. Do watch the date when you buy pellets, as with only 3 birds a 20kilo bag will last you nearly 3 months I expect, and especially in hot weather (what hot weather?) the vitamins etc may deteriorate with time.
Not too sure about the grass clippings - I've never given them to mine, though as you say, they love them, because I've read that they can cause crop blockages, maybe someone else can advise on this. Apart from that, your feeding sounds fine - a good simple mixed diet and plenty of fresh water is really all they need, and as long as the pellets are in date and kept in a sealed container, away from vermin and damp, probably all of them are satisfactory. However, I expect the differences in quality of ingredients may well be reflected in the price, and you may find that some of the cheaper ones are actually less economic because the girls don't do so well on them, or actually eat more to keep themselves going. It really depends on what's available locally, assuming you can collect yourself - paying for transport becomes very expensive since the price of feed itself has gone up so much in the past year or so.
 
My girls are fed grass clippings as they do not have the freedom of the garden. They love it and they only get a good handful at a time but it will be gone in 30 minutes or so. Don't think it is any different to allowing them free range on the lawn or in a movable coop that is put on fresh pasture every day.
 
I feed mine lawn mowings which they love and have never come to any harm. There is very little difference in the formulation of the feeds. In my experience the price depends more on the area and the seller rather than what's in the feed. A young chap from South London came in the week for hatching eggs where he pays £11.50 for 20kg - no brand name from a pet chain ! I pointed him down the road to buy some for £7.50 for 20kg from a long established mill !
 
Grass clippings have to be very fresh or dried and short. Or you get sour or impacted crops.

Allan and Page 'Smallholder' we use. No GM ingredients and no chemical colourants, same as the brands Marigold mentioned. Cheap layers pellets contain 'yolk enhancers' which are just the three permitted chemical yolk colourants to make them golden yellow without actually giving the hens a good diet. Cheap is about £6.50 a 20Kg bag, good stuff is £9.00 plus but best to read the contents label which has to be there with the use-by date. Prices depend to a large extent on how close the mill is and how much the retailer buys as we can get Smallholder for £8.00. Pet chain selling at £11.50 sounds like very cheap stuff in a fancy bag.
 
It also depends on whether you are happy with chemicals colourants as opposed to colourant derived from natural sources. The chemicals are E160c, E161b and E161h. BOCM Paul's Farmgate Layers Pellets "colorants are taken from natural pigments of paprika and saffron." Organic feeds use things like marigold petals and grass meal as colourants. I've gone for organic because I don't want GM soya in the pellets - I'd prefer some othe source of protein but haven't come across a commercial food that does not have soya in it.

As well as being guaranteed non-GM the soya in organic pellets has to be expeller extracted, not solvent extracted. It is the solvent extraction process which is not good for you.

I exchanged emails with both Garvo and Youngs Animal Feeds, neither could guarantee that the soya was not GM although they both say they try to avoid it - their suppliers won't guarantee it apparently.

As Marigold has said, it depends on what is available locally or what you are prepared to pay. For example a 20Kg bag of Organic Layer Pellets costing £13.75 has a carriage charge of £5.65, but because it's a round trip of 35 miles it costs me £10 to collect. (I was looking at other stuff and buying the pellets was incidental to the trip.) It isn't only the carriage charged by suppliers that has become expensive!
 
I'm really lucky now to live very near to a Garvo agent, so I can pick up one sack of feed at a time when I need it for my chickens and quails, on my way to my weekly shopping trip with no extra mileage involved. But before he started stocking what I wanted, I used to share a delivered order with two chicken- keeping friends, as the price per bag was the same but the standard delivery charge, based on mileage rather than amount, could be split between the 3 of us and this was more economic. I put the time into booking the order and got it delivered to my place, so they had to put in the muscle to collecting it, which suited me fine, since they are big strong men, not a weed like me!
 
where i live the pellet's come in 25kg bag's at 7.20, also the marriage's 20 kg with Flubenvet at 9.50
 
Grass cuttings - short and absolutely fresh. Thanks for the reminder Chris.
 
Hi, me again! Checked on the bag and the layers pellets I am using at the moment are Goldthorpe's. Does anyone have an opinions on this feed. :)
 
Where are they based ? Probably a local mill, many of which produce very good feed.
 
Goldthorpes are based in Penistone, nr Sheffield, and now are called Argo. From the info on the feed it seems pretty good with no additives etc. So will probably stick to these layers. I paid £9 for the bag from the breeder, so will shop around next time as I think I can probably get them cheaper. Thank you all.
 
damecluck said:
No having much success here. What do I put when I am asked to resize picture? :?


Have you had a look here? This link might help with resizing

http://poultrykeeperforum.com/viewtopic.php?f=27&t=5624
 
damecluck said:
No having much success here. What do I put when I am asked to resize picture? :?


Have you had a look here? This link might help with resizing

http://poultrykeeperforum.com/viewtopic.php?f=27&t=5624
 

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