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A few questions if you don't mind...

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1 - I was going to buy a plastic bin for food storage - but is metal better and why?

2 - to confirm - to keep rats at bay, I will put food in a covered bin and take the little food holders in at night - correct?

what about the s"Ooops, word censored!"s? we are going to put the chickens on chip bark/wood chip so if I feed them some treats (our s"Ooops, word censored!"s) how do I keep it all clean?

3 - on that note - what treats can I feed them?

4 - this may sound simple but I was getting confused between the different types of feed, layers mash etc. please help?

 

 

 

Thanks so much!

Susan.

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Metal is far better than plastic because rats can't chew through it. I use a galvanised metal dustbin but there are plenty of options. Yes, its good practice to bring their food in at night. You'll find there aren't any treats left to worry about! If you were worried you could feed them in something flat like an old tray and bring left-overs in. Treats include veg (partic greens), mixed corn (corn=fattening so be sparing, the rest of the mix is wheat), straight wheat, mealworms, going over fruit etc. All treats should be fed sparingly and in the afternoon so the birds eat their balanced pellets/mash first. Mash is basically ground up pellets and can be fed wet or dry. Basically, you get chick crumb for birds up to 8 weeks, growers mash/pellet for 8-16-18weeks ish, and then when a bird is in lay she goes onto layers mash/pellets.

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1 - I was going to buy a plastic bin for food storage - but is metal better and why?

Rats can gnaw through some plastic bins, that's all. :D

 

2 - to confirm - to keep rats at bay, I will put food in a covered bin and take the little food holders in at night - correct?

what about the s"Ooops, word censored!"s? we are going to put the chickens on chip bark/wood chip so if I feed them some treats (our s"Ooops, word censored!"s) how do I keep it all clean?

Put out no more than they can manage in one go. They are pretty good at hoovering s"Ooops, word censored!"s up. You can give the wood chips an occasional raking.

 

3 - on that note - what treats can I feed them?

Mixed corn, dried wheat, barley, sweetcorn, mealwormd (dried or live) tomatoes, cucumber, cooked rice, pasta, to name but a few. :D

 

4 - this may sound simple but I was getting confused between the different types of feed, layers mash etc. please help?

Layers mash is a complete chicken feed, which is in a ground up mealy form. Layers pellets have essentially the same constituents, but in a pelleted form. There are pros and cons for both. The mash takes longer to eat, and so occupies the hen more, but they can be selective about the bits they prefer not to eat. Also, they scatter it about and it can get smelly. Pellets are eaten more quickly,, they can't pick and choose which bits they fancy, and they tend to make less mess.

 

 

Thanks so much!

Susan.

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Egluntyne pretty much has it covered with her answers

 

I use plastic and metal bins for feed, we do have rats at the stables but they havent given us an grief yet (we put poison down and try to clean up any feed spillages) but then we have 8 feed bins in all - if I was to do it all again I'd probably get metal ones but like I say our plastic ones have been ok so far

 

The metal bins from Ikea are nice to look at and hold exactly a bag of feed

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That's really great, thank you so much.

 

I tend to overthink everything so is there anything (info/tips/how to/what to do/not do) that's not in the Omlet instructions or not taught on delivery that I should know about?

 

Thanks again.

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Gardman bird supplies do a nice enamel wild bird feed bin, which holds 25 litres I think and has catches on the lid to stop rodents. It's £12.99.

 

I take my feeder in at night and try to keep food off the ground where possible. I feed the girls their treats while they're free-ranging, so it goes pretty quickly.

 

I also poo-pick most days around the garden, run and house - to stop Mr Fox getting an idea that there's chooks about. :D

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I have mine in a plastic bin but it is in a storage unit and we have concrete around the whole run so no rats can get in.

I remove food and remove s"Ooops, word censored!"s at the end of the day.

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