Layer pellets

C

chicken lodge

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Hi Everyone,
Just a quick question.
We have 11 very spoiled chickens who are laying at the moment between 6 and 8 eggs per day, and seem very content and happy, they all have free range of our small holding on the side of the Black mountains.
We are feeding the chickens on a mixed corn, as well as fresh veggies which i boil down and make in to a mash, they dont get this very offen about once a week or so ( the veggies that is)
My question is this we have been told that they should be having Layer pellets while laying but can i get them to eat it, not a chance, even if i take out the corn and just leave the pellets they still will not eat it, and being a softy i cannot leave them hungry, and just on corn we are still getting all those eggs as above.
Is there anything wrong in giving them just mixed corn and once a week fresh veg.
We also give them mixed grit and oyster shell.
I love my girls and they are very friendly and come over to see us as soon as we go out side.
Thanks for any advice :D
 
Although quality layers pellets have a little more in them than just corn, like omega 3 oil and calcium, they are aimed at people who can't let their chickens free range much, or at all. Your regime sounds fine. I wouldn't boil the fresh veggies, unless there are potatoes in with them, as you take out most of the nutrients. But corn and grit with oyster shell plus fresh veg and grass with the odd insect sound fine. This is basically what domestic chickens have always been reared on before intensive farming practices were introduced Chicken Lodge.
 
If you feel it would be useful for them to enjoy at least some pellets, maybe in cold weather especially, try mixing them with half corn and serving it as a damp crumbly mash. Most chickens seem to really like this especially if it includes treats like bits of chopped veg etc. but I agree with Chris, if they are laying and active and have lots of free ranging they are fine. What lucky hens!

I suppose the advantage to them of eating at least some pellets would be that they got some extra calcium supplement when they're laying. Pellets are also higher in protein than corn, but maybe they get protein extras by finding bugs etc out ranging.
 
Thank you chris and Marigold,
That has put my mind at ease, as i was a little concerned over the pellets.
The chickens love to scratch round the garden and over the feilds and we seem to have a huge amount of worms in the garden so they are having a wonderful time.
I cannot belive what fun and joy chickens bring, please tell me im not the only one to feel that way.
 
You are certainly not the only one CL.

You need to have a worming programme as worms have worms. Snails and slugs are the worst carriers. Flubenvet every 6 months, which is going to be difficult if they are free ranging -see the posts on the subject. To get sufficient concentration of the wormer without too much they need only to eat the treated feed -normally pellets.
 
Is there anything wrong with feeding mixed corn ad lib? Mine don't seem to be eating many pellets at the moment and they all seem to be losing weight and certainly not going to bed with full crops - some don't seem to have anything in their crops at all, even though I watch them and they do seem to be eating something when they're out and about. They don't have the luxury of free ranging in fields I'm afraid! I have Marriages with Flubenvet ready to give them, but there is no point is they won't eat the pellets!
 
If they are doing well and have access to all that free range, they should come to no harm. Some mixed corn has basic additives, some not but free foraging will allow them to find most of what they need to give them a balanced diet. I would supply them with grit in a seperate container which you probably won't notice them eating, as they will just pick at it but it will ensure they have enough calcium.
Sue, the problem with mixed corn is the maize which is very fattening. At free range, this is not a problem as they walk it off foraging.
If they do get too fat or to avoid it, plain wheat is good but I find with most of mine, it's the maize they want ! A lot of mine are on mixed corn at the moment as they are not doing anything much and don't need high protein.
 
Hi Sue. Our young cockerel arrived on a diet of plain wheat. They all love it but I was told using it too much stopped hens from laying and that show breeders use it to get their hens in top condition before a show. Of course they are not laying much now anyway. Ours are not eating much at the moment either -except the piggy Orpingtons. Lovely fat little cuties they are too -except Ollie who's gone a bit weird since she went broody!
 
I don't know where to buy wheat etc. as a separate product. We don't seem to have anywhere locally, everyone only sells mixed corn. I certainly don't have to worry about mine getting too fat as they have all lost weight over the last few months. What did chickens eat before layers pellets were produced?
 
Layers pellets were originally produced to support the newer breeds of hybrid hens which were designed to produce more eggs more regularly for just a couple of years, under commercial conditions. Consequently, people who keep hybrids, and benefit from their good egg production usually feed layers pellets, as the hens do well on this type of food which supports their more specialised nutritional needs. Traditional barnyard hens didn't lay so often, but like our modern purebreds probably had longer lives as a result. I remember my great-aunt in the 1950s boiling up potato peelings and all the scraps and mixing it with chicken corn and mash of some sort and just throwing it boiling hot on to the ground for the hens to fight over. The eggs tasted wonderful!

Growing up in Salisbury in the 1940s-50s I also remember there were large dustbins along the sides of the streets, and people put all their veg trimmings and any food scraps of any kind in these. Once a week this stinking mass was collected to be swill for the Council piggeries. I used to feel really sorry for the pigs, but it's interesting how this practice was considered just good recycling then, but would be illegal now.
 
So am I right in thinking that if we want our hens to live longer and not go mad laying hundreds of eggs, we should maybe be feeding them something more natural other than layers pellets? A bit like feeding a dog meat and biscuit instead of a processed complete diet. Do layers pellets 'encourage' the hens to lay more eggs more quickly?
 
Hi Sue. We have an agricultural merchant chain called CWG (was Central Wool Growers) who cater more for smallholder type stuff and they sell 20kg bags of wheat which cost £10 !! We only bought it for young Boris to try to settle him into his new home as we normally just buy mixed poultry corn as a treat. Anyway the wheat worked for Boris but he now seems to prefer the growers pellets.
 
I think it's probably more that layers pellets provide the extra calcium and protein that a hybrid needs to produce an egg almost every day for 2-3 years, especially those poor girls kept in intensive conditions where that's all they get and they have no chance to exercise properly either and supplement the pellets with other less monotonous things. Yes eggs are important to me, but I think quality of life, and productivity whilst the hens are in their prime, are the priorities as well. Out of the 4 hens I have room to keep to a generous standard of space, two are 1-year-old hybrids and I'm not very happy with the current pair. All winter I've had just one egg per day, sometimes one bird and sometimes the other as far as I can see. Both have been flaunting bright red combs all winter and although I've seldom had an egg-free day, I haven't had a two-egg day either, since about October sometime, and they weren't brilliant layers in the summer. It's as if they've had a sort of work-to-rule pact 'you lay one today and I'll see if I can keep her happy tomorrow.' I give my hens as near ideal conditions and a happy life as possible, but i do expect the hybrids at least to come up with the goods in return, even if they don't live as long as I hope Nutmeg and Marigold will manage.
 
I was very surprised when most of mine started laying again recently. I didn't expect any more eggs until at least the end of February. There was only a gap of about 4 weeks when they were all moulting.
 
They're certainly not eating much in the way of pellets as I don't have to fill up the feeders very often and the level hardly goes down at all, so I don't know what they're eating.
 
Before pellets, meal was available but I must confess I don't know what was in it, you just bought it as meal, probably containing bran and middlings though. This would be fed on it's own or much more commonly mixed with leftovers to form a mash. Apart from that, mixed corn was used, which in those days had some barley and oats added, neither of which was very palatable mainly due to the husks. Before the war, most of the commercial flocks mixed their own to their own formulae.
As Marigold says, layers meal/pellets as we know them today came into being to feed to the highly productive Warrens which were the first of the hybrids as we know them today in the 1960's. Their superior egg laying needed to be matched by a consistent, high protein feed pruduced by the vaious animal feed suppliers.
Most of todays pure breeds with moderate laying capacity can perform and live well with more corn added to the diet. I've often thought that a lot of todays hens are fed a diet too high in protein which their bodies can't use.
 
Do you think the surplus protein they may be eating is harmful, Chuck, or just wasteful, ie excreted?

This link might be interesting to throw into the pot.....
http://castlefarmeggs.co.uk/?page_id=108 -
 
That is a very interesting link Marigold and it makes me wonder whether i am doing the right thing feeding my girls pellets! My only problem is that they do not 'free range' in the true sense of this meaning on grass. In fact they don't have access to grass at all, but free range in an area that is soil, pea gravel and wood chip, so I give them greens most days. So in theory I could mix my own feed (as per the link) and feed the greens as usual, rather than the pellets. My father, who gets the occasional eggs when I have enough, says that the shells are more difficult to crack than 'supermarket' eggs. Could this be an excess of calcium?
 
More like a Calcium deficiency in supermarket eggs I think Sue. Yours will be 'proper' eggs of the highest standard against which supermarket eggs should be judged. We had some supermarket eggs 3 years ago -pale and tasteless and they were the free range ones!

You could mix your own feed but it will be more expensive and time consuming. The Gentleman we bought young Boris from bought wheat in half ton bags at £100, so if you buy in bulk it would be cheaper. You just need the 100 chickens required to eat it before it goes off.
 
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