Re: Birds eating feed

solwisesteve wrote:
Just a long shot really...

Chickens are in the open air and twice a day we scatter food on the
ground for them.

Problem is, soon after scattering the food, after we've walked away,
the crows and pidgeons come down and scoff up the feed!

Any ideas, apart from shoot all the crows and pidgeons? :-)

Steve

Chickens should not be fed scattering food outside!

Get a hopper feeder of an appropriate size to the number of birds and hang
it at the birds head height in the housing they occupy
There are very good reasons for this :-

scatter feeding / feeding outside :-
- does not give the birds enough food
- increases the contamination of their food by the wild birds [the likes of
the corvids and pheasants especially can carry]
- increases the likelihood of rodent vermin
- increases the amount of wastage of the feed so wasting money
- increases the potential for botulism with birds eating remains of rotten
food
- good disease biosecurity quidleines require food fed indoors.

The birds prefer it.
They will also eat more in the morning before being let out which means they
have a crop full of good nutritious food before going out and about so
gaining the best start to the day. What they get on range is useful and
interesting but VERY variable and not the best food for making lots of good
eggs reliably as well as keeping the birds in best condition for a long life

To judge the size of hopper -- allow around 200g per bird per day [this is
very over generous but an easy figure] and multilpy that but the number of
days you want to leave between filling it up.
AKA - 3 kg feeder will keep 5 birds more than happy for 3 days of layers
pellets or meal.

The feed they should be getting in the hopper is always layers ration --
pellets or meal.
Any whole grains should be limited to wheat in the summer and to less than 1
ounce per bird per day and only fed in the late afternoon. This can be
scattered somewhere like the next patch of weeds you want the birds to work
at.
If you have REALLY cold wet weather in the winter then you can feed Mixed
grain but there are very few places in the UK where this is advisable for
any length of time. If grains are fed too much to good productive birds it
can cause a lot of solid fatty deposits inside the body cavity and liver
failure.
Most good range has PLENTY of variety of seeds, bugs, and greenery to keep
birds topped up with interest so whole grains are just not needed in the
summer.
Grains are slow to digest, unlike the layers ration, so feeding earlier
simply fills up the crop so limiting the intake of either range or properly
balanced food - aka layers ration. They are fine for birds to go to bed on.



--

regards
Jill Bowis

Pure bred utility chickens and ducks
Housing; Equipment, Books, Videos, Gifts
Herbaceous; Herb and Alpine nursery
Working Holidays in Scotland
http://www.kintaline.co.uk


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