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druids57

Chicken Menu?

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Hello All Hope you have had a good day with your girls and the lovely sunshine Could anyone please tell me what apart from Layers pellets.grit and treats should i be feeding the girls? What is "Mash" that ive heard people speak about?. :?

Thanks a million

Druid

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Mash is chicken food that has not been 'pelletised'.

 

It takes them longer to eat and they have to pick at the small pieces.

 

You could make up a pellet porridge for your girls, but adding warm water to some pellets and adding chopped cucumber/courgette etc.

 

Mine love it!

 

Basically you can give them most things, but nothing sweet, salty or fatty!

 

Avoid dry bread as it can block their crops.

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Mash is a flakey version of pellets - it's got the same stuff in but isn't pressed into pellet shape. It takes about 7 times as long for them to eat mash vs. pellets - according to David Bland, author of Practical Poultry Keeping. I might switch mine to mash in the summer to keep them busier when they have longer daylight hours to get bored but I think it's messy otherwise.

 

Concerning treats - mine will eat anything but they are greedy gannets and I think it's because they have so much competition for food, being 8 of them.

 

I try to vary their treats, but they always have a couple of handfuls of mixed corn in the afternoon to scratch around for. They normally have last night's veg peelings (not onion, leek or raw potato though) and veg or pasta leftovers, any fruit that's gone too far past it's best for the kids to eat, and I normally hang some greens up for them to peck at. In cold weather, they have a bowl of pellets mixed up with some oats and warm water (chicken porridge) which they love - they make funny "mmm, mmm" sounds while they're eating it.

 

Absolute favourite treats are raw brocolli (stalks and all, they devour the lot), chard, and corn on the cob.

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Mine appear to love leftover Weetabix (they wolf it down) and they particularly liked tuna pasta and sweetcorn bake in cheese sauce, and were pecking at the back door for seconds.

 

Are these things that I am not supposed to feed them as they contain dairy fat? :?: And fish! Cause they do like them!

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A related query... I am adding bokashi bran and poultry spice to the layers pelletts, and think I am going to start feeding the garlic powder and limestone flour as well. That's quite a lot of "powder" being added to the pelletts. Would adding in a little olive oil to the mixture help it to stick to the pellett, thereby getting more inside the chickens and less powder falling through to the bottom of the grub, and getting left behind.? Or should I not do this, as it adds fat to their diet?

 

Thanks!!

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Are these things that I am not supposed to feed them as they contain dairy fat? :?: And fish! Cause they do like them!

 

Fish is fine! I give mine rinsed tuna when they are going through a moult. they need the extra protein.

 

I would avoid the tuna pasta bake though! (its my absolute favourite :lol::lol: )

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Lol mine don't eat much yet, they love their mash (no mess with mine) mixed corn and porridge with water haven't touched :

spinach, brocolli or sweetcorn yet. I put a whole corn on the cob in their run which they were more frightened of lol then cut the corn off the next day and they still didn't eat it!!

Oh and they love raisins!!!

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Are these things that I am not supposed to feed them as they contain dairy fat? :?: And fish! Cause they do like them!

 

Fish is fine! I give mine rinsed tuna when they are going through a moult. they need the extra protein.

 

I would avoid the tuna pasta bake though! (its my absolute favourite :lol::lol: )

 

Thanks Christian! After seeing the colour of what's coming out the other end today, I will put the pasta bake in the green bin next time! :oops:

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Mine really like mealworms and can eat loads. They are even happy to eat them from my toddlers hand despite his very loud squeals of delight.

 

He's worked out that the 'ick icks' will come to him when he has mealworms so if we don't watch him he disappears into the middle of the lawn with the bucket of worms. Over the weekend he managed to get the lid off and very quickly fed them over half the pot before we realised what was happening.

 

They also love corn, left over weetabix and marmite on toast soaked in water. So far they won't touch their greens yet but I assume that they'll develop a taste for them as they get older.. a bit like children :wink:

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Druid, meal worms are really expensive for the amount you get. Garden worms are free.......

 

As long as you've got a bag of pellets to start with you will slowly work out what treats they like as you go along. If you avoid the meat/dairy fatty stuff, you will find you have so much left over food s"Ooops, word censored!"s to experiement with you will never throw anything away again.

 

Yesterday, I made my kids fish cakes. So just from that my chickens got the potato peelings cooked, bit of mashed potato ('cos I had made too much), my daughter's left over alphabet spaghetti (tom sauce rinsed off), bit of fish cake (that my naughty son didn't eat), and a squashed banana (I absolutely hate black bananas but chooks love them).

 

By the end of all that I decided they'd had too many treats and I saved all the veg peelings for today's treats.

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The mealworms are expensive but I only give them a few in their bokashi bran a couple of times a week as a real treat. I bought them to encourage the girls to eat from our hands as we've only had them for a couple of weeks and they're still getting used to us. It worked and they will eat anything from our hands now.

 

They got loads of mealworms at the weekend when my toddler gave them out as he managed to get the lid of the bucket while we weren't watching.

 

Normally they only get a handful of bokashi, a handful of corn and any breakfast or fruit leftovers. They help themselves to worms from the compost too

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Thanks all I guess it is trial and error just gave them some grapes my grand daughter sucks the juice from and spits out :oops: They went crazy for them also the hard bit of cabbage that you cut out they are pecking away at that as i type maybe mealworms for birthdays :D

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