2009 Omlet cube and run for sale

[lesleysprite]

Hi, I need to flub my chickens but I have a problem in that I give them a wet feed (boiled up veg s"Ooops, word censored!"s porridge ect with beans and peas) so i can't really calculate the dose by weight of feed. Not sure what to do -they really need wormed soon. Any ideas? Thanks

 

Lesley

[The Dogmother]

They ought to be wormed quarterly for their own health as well as to help egg production. TBH, they'd be better off on layers feed than boiled s"Ooops, word censored!"s; they need a very precise balance of nutrients to keep them healthy and laying.

[lesleysprite]

I know (re worming) I usually do FECs to keep an eye on it but let it slip recently. I had some pellets left over last time so didn't have this problem.

 

As for their feed, they do pretty well on this as long as i keep their protein levels up, perhaps because they forage for a lot of their own food.

[Jools]

You can work it out backwards (though I don't have the numbers to hand).

 

If they were on a commercial feed, they'd need 125g - 150g per day, so that's approx 1kg per bird per week.

 

So work out what weight of pellets your flock would eat in a week, then pro-rata the Flubenvet dose for that weight of food - It will depend which Flubenvet you have.

 

That should give you the weight of Flubenvet you need, which you can just divide by seven and add to their normal food daily.

 

My dad and grandad used to feed theirs on s"Ooops, word censored!"s and lots of free-ranging - oh the good old days!

[Henchanted]

How many chickens do you have?

[Henchanted]

In another thread "Flubenvet ....where to buy ? , Claret stated that any seller of Flubenvet has to be licensed, and go on a 4 day course as part of the license requirement, so I would ask your supplier for their advice, they ought to have all the answers (after a 4 day course ....)

 

If no joy there, then personally I would consider making up a solution by mixing one 6g level scoop measure with exactly 70 mls of cooled boiled water, keep in a sealed container in the fridge. To use, add 10mls to the wet food daily (In this concentration each 10mls is a seventh ( a daily dose) of what you would add to 2kgs of feed. And 2kgs of pellets would roughly feed 2 chickens for a week with a little left over). So to treat 4 hens double the scoop and add to 70mls using 10mls per day (or double both powder and water and use 20 mls per day).

 

I think I need to go and lie down....

 

 

 

[The Dogmother]

The advice from Janssen (the manufacturer)s is that it is fed mixed in with their daily ration of pellets or mash, not fed on grapes or in a wet mash. They need to absorb it gradually over the course of the day, not in one hit.

 

There was a debate on this a year or few back and I contacted Janssen for clarification.

[Jools]

I found the link I had to Flubenvet dosage.

 

If you have the 2.5% version, it's 1.2g per 1kg of food, so that works out at 1.2g of flubenvet per bird for the week.

 

If it's the 1% version, it's one scoop per 2kg of food, so that's half a scoop per bird for the week.

 

HTH.

[Henchanted]

Hi Lesley

 

I understand the issue is also how to mix it /add it so that you don't have one bird getting a large dose and the others much less rather than only how to calculate the dosage.

 

Maybe if you made up a solution you could add the daily amount to the water you use for the porridge and give this in 2 meals, that way the flub will be evenly mixed in and in 2 meals over the day should be absorbed by the chickens more evenly.

 

I must say I commend you for feeding them DIY wet food, you are obviously putting a lot of thought into what they get and so I would suspect they may even be slightly better off than those pellet fed birds (lets face it we use pellets - like all pet food - for convenience). As omnivores, as long as they free range, they will more than likely be getting a healthy and varied diet. As long as they get grains, greens, grits and grubs that is all they need, and have needed, happily existing on just that before intensive farming and pellets came along.

 

Have you decided how you will flub yet?

[lesleysprite]

Hi, thanks for the tips everyone, I worked out how much commercial feed my 5 birds would eat per week and divided the equivalent amount of flub by 7 to get the daily amont, I mixed the powder straight into their daily ration using a blender as I blend the food anyway, added it gradually to make sure it didn't clump. Split their feed into morning and evening. May be I will do a few individual FECs to make sure it is working and they all getting it, but I'm sure i got it evenly through the food. Thanks for all the advice!

 

Lesley