[st0ne5ish]

Hello All,

I bought my first chickens and coop today, 4 black rhodes, I'm well pleased spent ages watching them.

One laid an egg within an hour of moving in! Kids are well chuffed as they are very friendly and don't mind being picked up carefully.

I have a few questions though for someone more experienced than me:

- Do I need oyster shell, the place I bought them from said I should not use it as it would unbalance the calcium phosphorous ratio

- At the moment they are on fresh lawn, I doubt it will stay that way for long, I don't have that big a garden to keep moving the run to a fresh place. I was thinking of digging down a few inches, laying some old tiles I have spare down and then putting wood chip on top, the type you get from garden centers. Would that be OK? Any better suggestions?

- I had to collect them one by one tonight from the run and place them in the coop as it was pretty much dark. Do they normally go in by themselves or is that something I will have to do each night?

Steve

[CluckyChicken]

Hi, and well done!  The garden will never be the same again!
I can only answer two of your questions though-
1. Yes they do need oyster shell- the calcium is required by them for their egg shells.  And grit is also necessary, for grinding up the food in their crop. 

3. They should go in by themselves after tonight, one night and they will know where home is.

Hope this helps! x

[Vecten]

Hi Steve

Standard practice is to keep the chickens in the coop for 12 to 24 hrs for them to get used to it, then they should go in by themselves at dusk.

You can give oyster shell but to be honest there should be enough calcium in the layers pellets I hope you are giving them. Very, very crushed eggshells (unrecognisable as eggshells) will also give them calcium.

Many people do pave their runs and put down wood chip but remember they love a dust bath in the summer.

I suggest the Haynes Chicken Manual for some good advice.

[evie2]

It's so exciting when you get your first chickens and to have an egg straight away even better

[st0ne5ish]

Thanks for the tips, funny thing was the hen that laid the egg knew where to go straight away. She went into the coop and the nest box, there was a lot of scratching and then she came out again leaving an egg sitting nicely in the box 

Can't wait to check again tomorrow morning.

I am using layer pellets and grit and dusting with Diatom.

Picture of the coop

[evie2]

Very nice, lucky hens

[muntjac]

with all domestic birds you should feed oyster shell ( oestra) the calcium levels in layers pellets are not near enough by half to provide enough calcium for both egg laying and bone formation.if birds do not get enough they will use whatever they have to hand to supplement this ie thier own bones and feather. this will result in ill nourished birds and they will very quickly become unwell... feeding pellet feed is fine so long as they have grit and copios amounts of water available. continually feeding pellet feeds can result in what was termed a lasy gizzard .the gizzard is the part of  a chicken that grinds corn , if this is the case and the gizzard does not get real exercise from the crushing action when a bird does get hard seed it can be passed through only part digested, so to sum up ....
 pellet feed is fine .
 feed oyster shell add lib ( seperate container the birds can get to
 feed grit add lib  ( as above )
feed mixed corn before settling down for the night ( this helps keep the birds warm on cold nights )
 make sure they have access to fresh water .
 feed greens ad lib even if they are free roaming
 kitchen waste is ok but make sure no meat is involved

 yeh im back

[st0ne5ish]

Thanks muntjac. Will take on board the suggestions.

[hillfooter]

Well st0ne5ish if you're not confused by now you soon will be!

I'm going to agree with Vecten and disagree with Muntjac on oystershell.  A modern compound layers feed has all the calcium your laying chickens need for egg laying and bone growth. After all it's formulated for commercial layers for both free range and barn/ cage reared.  You can be pretty sure birds fed exclusively on layers pellets won't quickly (or slowly) become sick.  Contrary to popular myth commercial producers are very particular about maintaining flock health and eggshell quality, their livelihood depends on it, so you can be pretty certain this is true but by all means don't just take my word for it consult various feed producers.

The only proviso I'd put on this is to say that older birds are less efficient at absorbing calcium so providing them with oystershell ad lib in their second season is no bad thing though free rangers will find enough generally and certainly find enough insoluable grit (crushed gravel) which is an essential requirement for grinding their food in their gizzards.  However providing an ad lib supply will do no harm and they'll take what they need you don't need to feed it to them.  

Well I must say you learn something new everyday as in 50 years of being in and around chickens I've never heard or read the term lazy gizzard and neither has google, so I guess it must be some expression localised to where muntjac comes from.  The only reason I would have thought birds might not be able to grind corn in their gizzards apart from some illness would be a lack of insoluable grit available to them.

Calcium absorption also requires Vit D3 which the body makes with the help of sunlight.  Shorter daylight hours and less sun can lead to a Vit D deficiency and poorer eggshell quality in winter for which the best supplement to use is a multi vit in their water or a teaspoon of codliver oil in their feed occassionally, not more calcium.  Not all birds will need this so only provide it if it is indicated.  Your breeder is also right to some extent in that there's a requirement to balance the proportion of phosphorous against calcium.  But you needn't bother with this yourself all this is taken care of in a balanced compound feed.  You should feed this as a staple diet and not unbalance it by feeding a high proportion of scraps or greens.   Chickens need low energy dense feed as they are browsing feeders and will stay active all day foraging.  Over feeding protein satisfies their energy needs with little bulk so makes them lazy and develop boredom habits so strictly limit such treats as mealworms or household scraps containing protein or carbohydrates like pasta.

You may come across such a supplement as Poultry Spice which is a mixture of essential minerals chickens need but only if they aren't fed a balanced compound feed.  Birds fed on household scraps will be deficient in certain minerals and PS was developed to provide these.  It was popular and recommended during WWII when allotment and backyard keepers were encouraged by the government to supplement the food supply by keeping chickens fed on kitchen waste.  It lives on in popular folklore but is surplus to requirements for birds fed on layers pellets (or mash).  Incidentally pellets and mash are identical nutritionally but for small scale keeping pellets is by far the most convenient form of feed to use.

I agree with muntjac about feeding corn in the evening but not for the reasons he states ie providing heat overnight.  In fact grain is very low energy feed and difficult to digest so is likely to supply less energy and hence heat than many other feeds.  You feed grain in an evening as they eat it readily so that they top up and it doesn't disturb the balance the layers provides during the day.  The fact it is digested slowly is believed to be a benefit overnight though I'm not sure it's essential.  The myth grain (and oats in particular) provides heat was introduced into popular folk law by Scotts Porriage Oats marketing.  In fact the heating sensation this produces is due to the fact it is usually eaten hot not that grain is somehow more heat producing.

Certainly your birds should always (apart from when they roost) have access to fresh water.

Many beginners think that feed and water should be provided in the house at night which isn't true.  Birds naturally forage for food during the day and their feed should be suspended at back height (so they can't foul it and rats are discouraged) in their run protected from the weather.  Water should be on the ground again raised on bricks or in a drinker with legs so dirt and droppings can't contaminate it.  Some people suspend water drinkers too but if they are open trough types there's a tendacy for the birds to knock against them and cause spillage which creates an insanitary area around the drinker as well as wasting the water quickly.  The best designs for small flocks are gravity fed feeders and drinkers.  Avoid the cheap red plastic ones they quickly go brittle and shatter.  There are thicker green plastic and red plastic ones which last well and do a good job.

Best of luck
HF

[Vecten]

Blimey Hillfooter. Have you thought of writing a book? You already have a chapter there. 

[joyfull]

Oyster shell (or washed, baked and crushed eggshells) should be available at all time for the chickens to help themselves to if they feel the need, and they should have access to greens to help absorption and grit (if they are not free ranging) to help with grinding their feed.

Beware Vecten not to let Hillfooter catch you suggesting crushed egg shells as this is why he thinks I am a witch because I do that 

[hillfooter]

Blimey Hillfooter. Have you thought of writing a book? You already have a chapter there. 

Well actually I have.  I get so many questions from people who have chickens from me that I wrote a small beginners guide which I've been meaning to publish but haven't got round to.  It needs a serious revision to get it up to date but maybe one day I will.

The reason I tend to over do on the nutrition side is that my daughter is an animal scientist who formulates and designs feeds for a major feed company as well as writing on the topic of horse feed so I get lots of information from her on the subject.  Being of a scientific bent I tend to do a lot of research too though I don't count myself personally as an expert.
HF

[hillfooter]

Oyster shell (or washed, baked and crushed eggshells) should be available at all time for the chickens to help themselves to if they feel the need, and they should have access to greens to help absorption and grit (if they are not free ranging) to help with grinding their feed.

Beware Vecten not to let Hillfooter catch you suggesting crushed egg shells as this is why he thinks I am a witch because I do that 

Well it's not just crushing eggshells you did once turn me in to a toad but I got better

Even though I maintain that supplementing calcium is unnecessary for young birds fed on a modern compound feed there's nothing wrong with providing oystershell ad libitum, even to pullets, it's just force feeding it in food I dislike. 

An excess of calcium can be damaging and potentially life threatening.  A healthy chicken will pass any excess via the kidneys but there's little point in risking kidney stones or kidney damage if your bird isn't fit and healthy.  If you use oystershell make sure you also provide insoluable grit as best not to let them use OS for grinding their food and thus getting an excess.

As Joy says eggshell sterilised by heat & crushed is a source of calcium.  To make the equivalent amount of calcium as in 1 kilo of OS you'll need to crush 600 ish eggshells, so get baking and collecting or just buy a kilo of oystershell from your feed merchant at about 75p.  Depends what you want to spend your life doing.
HF

[Vecten]

I can see where hillfooter is coming from, I would draw the line at feeding chickens eggs, but crushed eggshells (I reduce them to powder) I don't have a problem with. I am recycling the shells and I am talking about maybe a dozen shells a week. This helps me and its not doing the chickens any harm.

[muntjac]

well 50 yrs is a long time for being around chickens ,but i have had the same time experiance as your self my friend but here is where we differ ,i have had a hundred odd years before that with parents and grandparents being involved in farming, raising birds for the table and market place  also being involved with game reaing pheasants / partridges in number. ok so i dont have the qualifications of being a scientist or animal nutritionist.but frankly that means nothing.what counts is having the gathered experiance in handling and looking after hundreds of thousands of birds over 150yrs . what advice i offer is taken from that experiance .not from books or college courses. and to be honest if the scientific world left the birds alone to be given what nature intended them to have in the first place the poultry world would not be in the cruddy place it now finds itself with avain flu and such......  
and on the subject of using cruhed eggshells  its been done for years and its only when they are not prepared properly they cause problems....