Patridge bantam chicken poorly foot?

[chooklady]

I am asking this question because I wondered what they used to eat before there were pellets?

 

My dog has a raw natural Diet (BARF) and it feels a bit alien giving my chickens processed food. I appreciate that it gives them a balance of vitamins etc but that's what they say about processed dog food, which is something I will never feed to my dog again. If we ate the same thing all the time we would get pretty bored, A balanced diet happens over a period of time, a fortnight for instance, not every day.

 

Is there anyone out there who does not feed their chooks pellets?

 

Just wondered what people thought about it. I know exactly what my dog eats and he has never been healthier. I changed him to this diet at Christmas last year. Touch wood we have not been to the vets since last November whereas we were always at the vets for upset stomachs and sickness etc.

 

I'd be very interested in your opinions on this subject

Looking forward to your replies.

Nicola

[Egluntyne]

They used to scratch around and find their own food, beetles, grubs, slugs, the odd frog etc and if the were very lucky, the might be thrown a handful of corn.

 

They didn't lay anything like as many eggs as they do nowadays.

[Guest]

My neighbour's late Mother used to keep a chicken (yes. A chicken - in Southall!), she tells me, and it was fed on the version of mash they had in those days - basically all the kitchen s"Ooops, word censored!"s boiled up.

 

In the war people were encouraged to keep a few hens to supplement rationing:

 

We kept chickens so we had eggs, and during the winter we stored them in isinglass in a large bucket kept under the stairs. We had quite a big garden with a shed for the chickens, and I remember coming home from school on a winter afternoon, boiling the chicken feed and taking it down to the shed.The chickens

all flew at me, so next time I took a handful of corn to throw to distract them.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/ww2peopleswar/stories/54/a5270654.shtml

 

Or do you mean before they were domesticated? A bit of anything they could find in the woods, I whould think.

[Egluntyne]

My neighbour's late Mother used to keep a chicken (yes. A chicken - in Southall!), she tells me, and it was fed on the version of mash they had in those days - basically all the kitchen s"Ooops, word censored!"s boiled up.

 

In the war people were encouraged to keep a few hens to supplement rationing:

 

See the wartime poster in my signature.

[chooklady]

Yes I meant domesticated fowl and before the introduction of pellets/mash.

 

Is the fact that they lay more eggs now a good thing or a bad one, have we turned them into little chicken factories?

[Guest]

Well I guess that there might have been more pure breeds around - the sort that I think are called 'utility' birds that will lay eggs AND can be eaten. With hybrids they have been bred for a particular function - to lay eggs (are there hybrids for meat as well?) and the feed designed for optimum egg-production. Man has bred the qualities he wants into all sorts of beasts.

[Scramble]

My neighbour's late Mother used to keep a chicken (yes. A chicken - in Southall!), she tells me, and it was fed on the version of mash they had in those days - basically all the kitchen s"Ooops, word censored!"s boiled up.

 

My 'elderly' neighbour's Dad used to keep chickens and when he heard I was gettong chickens he asked what I was feeding them. I told him about the layers pellets on Omlet. He said that was very extravagent

His dad used to collect all the kitchen s"Ooops, word censored!"s boil them and give to the chickens, exactly the same!

 

Except he used to feed that to the pigs too.

[JamesH]

Thought some might be interested in this

 

http://books.google.com/books?lr=&as_brr=3&q=eggs+hens+corn+date%3A1850-1975

 

you can turn up some great old books with some interesting stuff in them.

Some of them full books, some random pages.

[Sandychick]

There would need to be a lot of kitchen s"Ooops, word censored!"s wouldn't there?? Mine eat all my s"Ooops, word censored!"s and it amounts to nothing more than an afternoon snack

[TAJ]

In my old farming books, where farms were small and had mixed farming it shows that hens basically fended for themselves, spilt grain and corn was cleaned up by chickens around the farm, free ranging gave them access to grit and they were feed household s"Ooops, word censored!"s by the farmers wife.

 

Lets face it pellets are all very different - but a good brand and really it is only the natural ingredients in a pelletted form.

 

Tracy

[Guest]

hens were only fed kitchen s"Ooops, word censored!"s during the war because of rationing, people didn't have enough food to go around, never mind the chickens! If you don't feed them a proper balanced diet then it can cause all sorts of problems. Pellets and mash have everything they need, if you were to source all the ingredients yourself (and to be honest, you probably wouldn't be able to) it would cost a small fortune and you'd need a barn to store it all in!

 

Man has bred all sorts of animals to have the traits they want them to have and their diet should be supplemented according to those needs, therefore laying hens need a layers diet.

[chickenanne]

They've been selectively bred over many generations to produce many many eggs, wether hybrid or pure-breed. But they need the right balance nutrients to do so - otherwise they will be unhealthy and malnourished.

Good quality layers pellets have the right mixture of stuff in them. If in doubt, read the ingredients bit, and check it's not got a very significant level of fillers (rusk, etc). If you're very concerned then you can make (process) your own layers mix, but the problem is that unless you have a huge flock they're'll be lots of wastage (or else the vitamins etc will have degenerated over time before the hens have eaten it) as you'll need a load of different ingredients which you'll not be able to buy in really small quantities.

I think it's right to be careful of what's in pellets, as ultimately you could be feeding any old junk unless you take the trouble to look out the contents.

[chooklady]

I don't doubt that I will feed my chooks with pellets/mash I just wondered if there were any people that didn't. These foods are created for convenience of use as much as anything else as are the processed dog foods. We are sometimes brainwashed into thinking that these feeds are best.

 

All the replies are very interesting.

 

For those of you that don't know what BARF stands for it's Biologically Appropriate Raw Food Which means my dog eats raw meat and bones, lamb, chicken, beef, rabbit anything I can get basically, tripe, heart, liver, raw veg, eggs, yogurt, cottage cheese, fruit, nuts & seeds. He has never been healthier than he is now.

 

My dog will be 4 in October and I just wish I had discovered this earlier because it would have saved me a fortune in unessecary vets bills which I now believe were all food intolerance related.

 

I just want the best for the chooks too and a diet that is natural would always be my first choice. I'm sure there will be people who will think I'm mad feeding my dog this way but you wouldn't see wild dogs eating the stuff we give our dogs, an added bonus is a halved food bill and a much healthier dog, it is much cheaper and for a dog the size of Spencer that can only be a good thing.

 

I am very passionate about this, but also I appreciate that people have to do what is right for them, their lifestyles etc.

 

Best wishes

Nicola

[chickenanne]

I totally agree that a well-thought out diet appropriate for the species is key. I do think for dogs, "proper" meat etc as you feed, has got to be better than a lot of the dried/ tinned food available.

But I would be careful that in feeding your chickens a home-made diet that you are very sure that it is complete and includes everything they need, and doesn't break DEFRA /legal requirements not to feed anything that could be contaminated by inappropriate meat products (the rules were brought in following s"Ooops, word censored!"ie in cheep and BSE in cattle) but apply to poultry for good reason. And also, that you can make batches reasonably fresh to avoid loss of vitamins.

[Egluntyne]

Have a look at **this article** about making your own chicken feed.

 

It looks like a lot of hard work and very expensive.

 

I think I'll stick to good quality layers pellets with a few extras!

[Milly]

Thanks for the article Egluntine - this is a topic I'm interested in, but it all seems a bit daunting. I couldn't see how many chickens the writer has (but going off to mix up a 100 pound batch implies quite a few!)

 

Basically they seem to be trying to copy the type of food we are already buying - so I'm not sure it's worth the effort. I'm not keen on the idea of feeding processed food to my hens when I don't eat it myself, but the raw ingredients in the organic pellets seem acceptable. It's just my hens aren't terribly keen on them, they prefer to eat grass.....

 

Milly

[TAJ]

I am sure I have quoted this on here before but a free ranging chicken can get 25% of its daily protein from grass.

 

Tracy

[SharonX]

Well my girls are let out of the eglu run about 9am everyday and they free range until they put themselves to bed (unless I am out). Therefore they eat mostly grass all day and hardly touch pellets. They have a large bowl of water in the garden too as they never seem to touch the glug.

They all lay daily good sized eggs. This has concerned me in the past as I was a bit worried about their diet not containing enough nutrients from the pellets but they seem to be happy & healthy.

The only was to get them to eat pellets is to lock them in their run all day which is not something I would be happy to do. They get corn, rice, pasta or veg daily (1 of not all)!

[Olly]

There was an article in Practical Poultry a few months ago I think (I don't buy it regularly) about Tottenham Pudding. During WWII all food waste was collected, boiled up (in huge quantities) and used to feed pigs and chickens.

 

I live on my own, and the amount of vegetable waste I produce wouldn't feed my chickens for long! They get almost all of my veg waste as treats, anyway. I'm guessing that pre-war, there were probably more s"Ooops, word censored!"s and the chickens would also have free-ranged much more.

 

I'm relieved to hear what BARF stands for, chooklady. I thought it meant something rather less pleasant!