Allotment Gardening Advice Help Chat
Poultry and Pets => The Hen House => Topic started by: BIG ZOOK on February 17, 2007, 18:42
-
hello all :D . new 2 hen keeping, i`m currently feeding my chooks on mixed corn, i`m considering feeding - layers mash/pellets :? .there seems 2 be a lot of waste with the mash(dusty food) ?? . are pellets a better idea??. cheers all. :?:
-
Hello zook, welcome to the site, pellets are much less wasteful than meal,
i give my hens pellets in the morning, and corn in the evening, i've also got a endless supply of greens from the local farm shop, and they have these every day, muntjac will be along soon, to give he's views on pellets :lol: :lol: :wink:
-
Hiya Zook ! don't feed your hens on just mixed grain they will get fat and not lay! My 3 just get a handful of grain last thing before I lock them up, and pellets are always availabe. Read Muntjacs Blog on keeping hens it will help you no end in this most rewarding of pastimes. http://www.chat.allotment-garden.org/viewtopic.php?t=1688 (http://www.chat.allotment-garden.org/viewtopic.php?t=1688)
-
To lay they need more protein than you get in just mixed corn :!:
How many hens are you keeping :?:
-
Don't buy cheap pellets or mash - they put some real dodo in them (look in PP, Dec issue I think?). Buy a good quality brand. after all, you get out what you put in and I don't want to eat junk!
-
To right monty tom I buy organic pellets for mine pay about £5.50 a 20kg bag at my local farm.
-
if your mash is dusty ,are you t mixing it with water ,? and are you feeding to much
-
4 all the replies :D i currently keep 12 bantams , they stay out all day and fly upto the hen house at dusk,they have the free run of my plot(300 square yds). they lay ok :D but i have only ever fed them with mixed corn,with layers pellets,peas,maize and the like mixed in. after reading a few posts from here :?: i thing i should be giving them - a healthier diet??. cheers again.
-
To right monty tom I buy organic pellets for mine pay about £5.50 a 20kg bag at my local farm.
That's a really good price! My last lot cost me about £9.
-
Hi all
not got chooks yet
but when buying finch seed at merchants asked price of layers and think they were about £3.50ish for 20 kg are these going to be rubbish?
why do you buy organic monty and how are you sure they truly are
are you not buying into the thought of an organic lifestyle and paying the price!
are there facts available about whats in each brand of layers and what the chooks actually benefit from
NOT having a personal dig just a newby in search of some answers
cheers
jr
-
These are the brand I buy:
http://www.smallholderfeed.co.uk/products.htm
Bit of info about ingredients used on there too. I am not too sure about checking the content of the pellets/mash, but would be sceptical about cheap. But I suppose it's all about what you want personally, and what you are willing to pay, but not obviously be ripped off.
I don't have many birds and I can't forsee me buying any more feed for ages (got a 20Kg sack well before Christmas), so the cost is fairly minimal to me in that respect. Would probably be different if I had to buy it every few weeks!
Hope that helps a bit. The choice is yours... :wink:
-
you can contact lots of suppliers of pellets and the like in practical poultry magazine and they will willingly give you details jack russel mate .incidenntly , practical poultry have a website of thier own based on the magazine with loads of suppliers and other info :)
-
http://www.marriagefeeds.co.uk/farmyard_layers_pellets_mash.htm
this is what I feed my chooks costs about £6.50 per sack
-
Think mine are spillers don't know, I empty them out into a plastic bin soon as I get them.
-
Always keep an eye on the use by date. Vitamin content goes down as the get older :!:
-
Hi every body my first time on the site :) im in the middle of the city and have had chickens for about 2 year, have bought eggs from ebay :roll: :roll: i know, and hatched them and hatched my own eggs too. I have just saved 10 battery hens last friday and having agreat time watching them come round. I love reading all the messages from every body. Going back to buying coops, i found sombody throwing a shed in a slip and asked could i have it, i cut off the bottom that was rotted and made my coop.
-
Nice find miss muffat, one man's poison is another's meat.
Welcome to the forum
-
:D Thankyou :D richyrich7
-
recycling at its best miss muffet. and welcome to the iste :)
-
Welcome little miss muffat :D
We have a very strick rule on this forum:
Post pictures - do let us see your georgious rescue hens :!: :lol:
-
Thankyou muntjak and aunt sally. Im not sure how to attach pictures. Your hens are lovely aunt sally. Iv read about your coop it sounds gr8. Is it easy to keep clean. I made a very bad mistake when i started out, i laid lino in my coop thinking it would be easy to clean and got red mite very bad. It took me a while to get rid of them.
-
muntjak iv been taking lots of notes, il be out in the future looking for dandelion leaves but not the road kill ill visit the fishing shop instead :tongue2: lol. One of my new hens have a bad limp at the moment not sure if its her foot or leg. but the lady i got the battery hens off said that she usualy takes the hens out of the cages but when she gat to the farm the young lads had boxed them already so thay could be very bruised.
-
let her out a couple hours a day to just roamn around if you dont already battery hens have a condition in th leg joints ( inflamation ) because they usually sit on wire all the time in crouched conditions .they dont get to streth the joints fully .with battery birds also look for ammonia burning on the hock joints this is caused by constantly crouching in feaces . she will recover in time im sure if not worry not as i have had a cockerel with a broken leg snapped in a wind blown brooder trap .being it was one of my fav breeders i just popped it back as best i could and gaffer taped it up for a month or so , its now running wild in the estate woods disturbing the peace with a £25 fine on its head if anyone shoots it :wink:
-
Thankyou muntjak and aunt sally. Im not sure how to attach pictures.
Your hens are lovely aunt sally. Iv read about your coop it sounds gr8. Is it easy to keep clean. I made a very bad mistake when i started out, i laid lino in my coop thinking it would be easy to clean and got red mite very bad. It took me a while to get rid of them.
Attaching pictures is quite easy. First you have to host them on a sit on the internet. A lot of us use photobucket
http://photobucket.com/register.php?link=topmenu
You then copy the IMG link from under your picture and paste it into your posting here. Easy ! If you have any problems we can give you more advice.
I'm so pleased you like my hens ( I do too :lol: )
My eglu is brilliant but can only hold up to 4 medium to large hens ( about 8 bantums). It is so easy to keep clean. If you do it each week it takes about 10 mins. (I'm afraid I dont do it that often :oops: but still takes only 10 mins). Never had red mite, there is really no place for them to hide. It's double skinned so warm in winter and cool in summer. And it looks really funky. (I can see muntjac going :roll: bl***y egeroos :lol: )
Munty really is an expert on chooks so if you listen to him you won't go far wrong. (I'm really chuffed to that he usually agrees with my opinion on chooks :D )
As I said do let us know if you have a problem getting to grips with posting pictures :D
-
im not agin eglus .i just dont like them plastic boxed fings .much beter a nice wooden coop , but i know ya loves yabirdies sally .. and i only agree with ya cos i dont want a slapping
-
:lol: :lol: :lol: You'd love a slap really :wink:
-
Thanks munktac ill keep my eye on her and let you now :cry: . Aunt sally ill try and put some pics on tommorow of my girls + my new arivals ( the battery hens) :shock: . Its been great talking to you all thankyou, not many people to talk about cooks aroung here, looking to move to the country somewhere in UK sometime soon an give my girls and 1 boy some more room. See you all tommorow :D
-
yeh watchout for the sell by date -20kgs for a few chooks can last a couple of months. Also good brands like smallholders are nutritionally balanced and prepared in a way which is healthy for your birds!
Personally I believe its a small price to pay for peice of mind! :lol:
-
:oops: is that wrong helppppppppppppppppppppp. so sorry if it is, i thought was doing so well :? :x
-
(http://i150.photobucket.com/albums/s96/waterpower/DSC00008.jpg)
-
dont worry so much .....lol they are tougher than you think , a bird with a balanced diet doesnt need all the supplements and other " oh buy this for my birds crud " just feed them as i suggest . maize in winter is great but in the spring summer its not it makes ya birds fat n then they have trouble passing eggs
etc
-
o my god its so big :shock:
-
Yeh... Well done, You can see she's an ex battery girl by the size of her comb... HUGE They grow them big to act like a radiator in the hot cage houses :evil:
-
You can make your pictures smaller if you have a photo editing piece of software before you put it on photobucket. I use paint shop cos its simlpe (no comments please) :roll:
-
i belive so, some are so big thay droop down one side. thay coming on so much, thay have all been out today and it rained, thay didnt mind. there mixing well with my other girls and eating well. im so happy :D
-
hey aunt sally it looks like u had to get in the eglu to take harriets photo, did u :?:
-
Lucky chook :!:
It's so nice to be able to give them a wonderful life after the conditions they have had to live in :!: All chooks (an other poultry of cause) should be able to see the sky :D
-
i agree totaly, to see them with the sun on there backs and learning to run and flep about, its so rewarding for me