[Mickle]

Mine will be in the pot before onset of Arthritis be it Osteo or Rhumatoid
In the words of some people
No Fat No Taste  

Mick

[Markw]

Hi Mickle

They actually fatten the chickens up on a special cocofeed, you can Google the information on the feed. they sell the chickens for over $20 each. they are meant to be very tasty.

All the Beef in Vanuatu are feed coconuts, and I can tell you it is the best beef I have ever tasted.forger your South American stuff.

[joyfull]

what may be very tasty for us (and I don't disagree they probably are very tasty indeed) does not mean that it is good for your chickens health. If you are raising them to eat rather than for eggs or as pets then that is a different matter as meat chickens are culled anytime between 8 weeks for meat hybrids and 30 weeks for slow growing pure breeds.

[ManicMum]

What a lively discussion - and all contributors have evidence to back up their assertions....

It looks as though, as with so many poultry issues, it is down to choice and to moderation of the amount.

[joyfull]

heehee as I said even the scientists cant agree so what hope is there for us mere mortals   

[Markw]

I was only planning on having the girls for eggs, but now as you mention it and only 8 weeks to the pot I can smell a chicken coconut curry coming on.

[joyfull]

depends on the breed Mark - egg laying breeds don't have very much meat on them so you would need to add a load of veggies for a good chicken coconut curry   

[Mickle]

Hello Mark
Just been reading up on the Cocofeed and as you say it looks like a decent product,
 I am a great believer in if it tastes good "its had a good life and a painless stress free death"
 Looking at it from the chickens perspective, I think I should like a stress free life with good food and pleasant surroundings followed by a painless stress free death
Shedding their Avian coil Fat and Happy as apposed to Skinny and Neurotic

[joyfull]

if you do decide to go down the route of making your own feed from coconuts it may be worth reading this so you get the right balance:-

http://espace.library.uq.edu.au/view/UQ:158341

however to read the full reports you will have to see if you can register to be able to log in and read the rest.

[Markw]

Hi  Joyfull
If we can remember back to my first post on the subject I said (treats or as a supplement)
I would not be looking at making a complete feed. all I was asking for was to see what other members would  think about this.

If I am only paying 25p for a coconut I could put one in a day if they liked it, it would keep them occupied trying to get the meat out of the shell.

That is a lot of treats £12.50   for just under 8 weeks worth and if it is good for them all the better. pellets would always be cheaper. storage will not be a problem as rat are unable to get into the nut and they last a long time, and they have coconut water inside.
Sounds a bargain to me if it keeps the girls happy and good health. I was just thinking how many calories does a chicken need a day ?

[joyfull]

a chicken should eat around 900 grams a week of layers pellets, if you feed treats this should be just a small portion (it is generally thought of an egg cup size of mixed corn per hen per day at the most). So you can see that a coconut a day would be far too much (unless you have a hundred hens).

[Markw]

Joyfull this is an interesting topic, ok I am not planning on feeding the girls just coconut, but as you say about 900 grams of layers a week per bird. or about 125+ a day.

Is there anywhere that advises how many calories are in 100g of feed, ok you could work it out with all the stuff that goes into it soy,corn,etc, has anyone got a typical chart of all the stuff that makes up layers pellets. if you can understand this you can then do some sums of what and how much you could give them as treats.

[joyfull]

Mark I have to go and buy some more layers this morning (I don't have the old bags as I empty them out into a metal bin) so will let you know later what it says on the bag. Unless somebody else helps you out in the meantime.
I did notice though on the American website the feed is for meat chickens which grow quick and put fat on - I suppose they are the equivalent of our corn fed chickens which also fetch a premium price, it didn't give that much advice on the pasture eggs (what we would call free range eggs).

[Tony H]

Hi i sell pet food and hae been looking on the bags of layers/layers mash and as joyfull said a rule of thumb is 900 grms per bird, as for the caleries well that seems to be the same as our food each brand has a slightley different level  I have looked on the net and found a couple of topics on coconut, it seems that for egg produceing chucks should only be fed a small amount of the weekly diet, ie: less than 0.01% of the total intake of food, for eating this can be increased to 10%  in each study the reconmendation is that the staple food should be layers pellets/mash but for meat production you can increase the treats to aid the chucks get fat. hope this helps 

[joyfull]

thanks Tony, I checked my latest bag but no calorific values were given, just a breakdown of the percentages