[Lindeggs]

I've been reading as much as I can about chicken nutrition recently - a fascinating and complex subject. 

I was browsing through the threads on another forum (not a UK based one) and came across a thread started by someone whose chickens "won't eat pellets" so she decided to formulate her own feed. 

That's all very well until I started reading what she was feeding them - including a lot of bread soaked in milk.  Then she realised they needed more protein so she decided to add sausage meat to their diet.   

By now I was feeling rather despondent and found myself sitting with my head in my hands.   

Where do you start explaining nutrition to someone like that?  She probably feeds herself and her family the same way.  "We do fine on white bread and sausages, so the chickens will do well on it too!"

I came to the conclusion that the simplest way to explain it would be to imagine your chickens as little hippies.  Hippies don't want a sausage sizzle, they would rather eat lentils.  If you must give them bread make it pumpernickel.  For breakfast feed them bircher muesli with grated apple - they really would prefer that to donuts. 

As much as you might like a bowl of multi-coloured cheerios, hippies would rather have millet porridge with a dollop of unsweetened yoghurt.

Brown rice, beansprouts, green salad = YUM
Hot chips, fried chicken, instant macaroni cheese = 

No matter how much refined starch, sugar, salt and fat you want to eat, please feed your hippies on whole grains, fresh veges and layer pellets.

Just don't ask me to start a chicken yoga group.

[joyfull]

good response LE, have they replied yet?

[wolverine]

You need help Lindeggs

[Lindeggs]

I didn't actually put that reply on the other forum - other people have responded to her and are guiding her through.  But it just made me think "where are some people's heads?!" so I had to have a rant about it here.

wolverine, I will ask for help when I decide to host a mini Glastonbury Festival for chickens in my back yard.   

[joyfull]

you have to wait until it is lovely and muddy for that - who will you have headlining the festival? The Byrds perhaps? (sorry showing my age here  ) 

[8doubles]

My hippie hens would all be chasing the sausage around the garden while the lentils were untouched.

I know what you mean though.

[uba]

Keep an eye on those hippy chickens of yours, what might appear to be a cloud of diatom powder blowing out of a corner in the coop is probably a gaggle of wasted chucks sharing hits on a big fat bong!

[New shoot]

My hippie hens would all be chasing the sausage around the garden while the lentils were untouched.

Mine too 

and I'm still laughing about the chicken yoga group idea   

[Pertelotte]

"and I'm still laughing about the chicken yoga group idea"

They say truth is stranger than fiction ...

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Yoga-Chickens-Lynn-Brunelle/dp/0811843114/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1301262789&sr=1-1

and

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Yoga-for-Chickens/dp/3451286505/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1301262789&sr=1-2

[Lindeggs]

   Brilliant!  I knew my chickens were trying to tell me something when they're all stretched out in the sunshine looking totally 'laxed out.

[hillfooter]

I've been reading as much as I can about chicken nutrition recently - a fascinating and complex subject.  

I was browsing through the threads on another forum (not a UK based one) and came across a thread started by someone whose chickens "won't eat pellets" so she decided to formulate her own feed.  
.....................................

Just don't ask me to start a chicken yoga group.

Just so long as it's a probiotic yoga group.

Actually there's no such chickens as one's that won't eat layers pellets only owners who don't think their chickens will eat pellets.  

We once chicken sat a chicken which reputedly wouldn't eat pellets while it's neurotic owner was away over Christmas.  The special food she brought didn't last too long so it had to eat pellets or starve it soon learnt to eat pellets.

Obviously if you offer your birds a choice of poultry treats or pellets it'll be no surprise if they choose the treats.  That doesn't mean they won't eat pellets.

An optimum chx diet has lots of trace elements essential minerals and vits in it as well as bulk nutritional elements such as protein etc and unless you are a very knowledgible the chances are you won't get it right.

Feeds when formulated by feed producers isn't done like producing a menu of ingredients ie a kilogram of wheat plus a 100grams of millet etc like baking a cake.  All the available ingredients available for use are analysed for their nutrional values etc protein, fibre and mineral content for example.  Ingredients and their quantities are selected by a computer programme which is designed to produce a predetermined nutrional formula.  This process is escribed in the following link.
http://www.poultryhub.org/anatomy-and-physiology/feed-formulation/

HF

[Lindeggs]

I agree, hence the "won't eat pellets" in quotations.  Her poor little chickens would be infinitely better off eating pellets than bread, milk and sausages!  So would her children if that's all she feeds them.  I wonder if anyone has formulated pellet feed for children for use in cases where the parents obviously have no clue about optimum nutrition for growing humans.   

There's an interesting quote on the page you linked to:

It is worth stating that chickens are able to select from different ingredients, placed separately, in order to grow and lay normally. Such a practice is known as choice feeding, and is practised on a limited scale by some poultry producers. However, choice feeding is cumbersome and cannot be economically applied in large-scale modern commercial situations without modifications to the infrastructure.

As (mostly) backyard chicken farmers we're lucky not to have many of the infrastructural restraints that commercial farmers have.  That's one of the reasons I choose to feed my chickens a whole-grain hippie diet. 

But of course there's absolutely no point in feeding free-choice if the chickens don't have the right ingredients to choose from.  As people have pointed out, most chickens will choose the sausages every time. 

Although I'm amazed how much grass my feathery hippies eat in a day.  I knew hippies smoked grass but I didn't know they ate so much!  Maybe it's because I don't give them the wheat-grass shots and spirulina smoothies they were obviously expecting when they moved into my hippie retreat.

I also make them live in a bus shelter instead of a yurt.

[hillfooter]

You can always try putting up those notices the local council uses on their bowling greens.
 
"Keep off the grass.!"...............  What a pathetic advertising campaign :blink:

HF

[jinty1911]

Keep an eye on those hippy chickens of yours, what might appear to be a cloud of diatom powder blowing out of a corner in the coop is probably a gaggle of wasted chucks sharing hits on a big fat bong!