What to Feed Your Chickens

So you have got your chickens and now you are wondering what to feed them? A good question, to which the obvious answer is: food.

But what, I hear you cry, do chickens eat? We can answer that question by first of all finding out how they eat.
Chickens are omnivores, which is a Latin word meaning "to devour".

Ominous creatures are in the main opportunistic eaters, which means that they will eat anything that is handy or seems appealing at the time. Very much like you and I really. What ever takes their fancy?

Chickens feed themselves in the wild by eating seeds, bugs, grubs, insects, small mice and lizards. Because of this habit and to keep your chickens happy (which is vital if you want them to be healthy) you should always let you chickens " run about " as often as you can.

By allowing your chickens to do this you will be able to keep your chickens food cost down and also as a side effect, there will be less bugs in your garden to eat your veg!

There are a few questions that you need to ask yourself before you start keeping chickens;

Why do you want to keep chickens?: For eggs/meat/pets

Are you going to spend money on keeping chickens or do it on the cheap?

Make you own food or buy in?

Only you can answer those questions, but lets say that it is a bit of everything: you are going to keep chickens for a few eggs for breakfast, buy a bit of food and feed them your scraps; which I suppose is what most backyard chicken keepers do.

A few tips on buying food: go to a proper shop. By that I mean a farmers shop that sells "feeds" failing that buy your food at a busy pet shop. The reason for this is that you do not want stale or out of date food and a busy shop will have a good turn over of food stock....never buy chicken food that is on sale because the reason that it is on sale is because more then likely it is getting old. Also do not buy too much food at once so that it ends up going sour in your store.

When feeding your table scraps to your chickens do make sure that you do not feed them any meat. I know that chickens are ominous creatures and can eat meat but you do not know what the meat that you eat has been fed when it was an animal, it could well of been chicken offal and that is defiantly a no no (I assume you have heard of Mad Cow disease...that's what that was about; feeding dead animals to animals)
When you feed scraps to your chickens you will soon find out what they like and dislike by what they eat and don't eat.

Chickens are like people they eat what they like and leave what they don't like. I like chocolate but not everybody does.

A word of warning: never feed your chickens salt.

There are many good books on this subject, take a look around; make a start by looking at my blog you will find a very good book for you to look at there.

Richard has been keeping chickens for over 40 years: http://build-a-backyard-chicken-coop.blogspot.com/

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Richard_Haigh

Chicken Trivia

You can literally hypnotize a chicken by holding it and drawing a line in the dirt over and over. The chicken will stay still right there as long as you do this.

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Colonel Sanders (the Kentucky Fried Chicken guy in the white suit) was the second most recognized public figure in the world in 1979.

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Did you know that some breeds of chickens can lay coloured eggs? Sure enough, the Ameraucana and Araucana can lay eggs colored in shades of green or blue, depending on the breed and it's ancestry.

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In Fruita, Colorado, the town folk celebrate 'Mike the Headless Chicken Day'. Seems that a farmer named L.A. Olsen cut off Mike's head on September 10, 1945 in anticipation of a chicken dinner - and Mike lived for another 4 years WITHOUT A HEAD. Mike died from choking on a corn kernel.

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In Gainesville, Georgia - the chicken capital of the world - it is illegal to eat chicken with a fork!

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One punishment for an adulterous wife in medieval France was to make her chase a chicken through town naked. The source doesn't state whether it was the chicken or the wife who was naked.

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According to National Geographic, scientists have settled the old dispute over which came first -- the chicken or the egg. They say that reptiles were laying eggs thousands of years before chickens appeared, and the first chicken came from an egg laid by a bird that was not quite a chicken. That seems to answer the question. The egg came first.

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Beijing boasts the world's largest Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurant.

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Chimney's used to be cleaned by dropping live chickens down them

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The closest living relative of the t-rex is the chicken which makes the phobia 'Alektorophobia' (Fear of chickens) slightly more plausible.

Interesting Facts About Chickens

On average, a hen lays 300 eggs per year.

Nine egg yolks have been found in one chicken egg.

A mother hen turns her egg approximately 50 times in a day. This is so the yolk does not stick to the shell.

To produce a dozen eggs, a hen has to eat about four pounds of feed.

The largest chicken egg ever laid weighed a pound and had a double yolk and shell.

A chicken with red earlobes will produce brown eggs, and a chicken with white earlobes will produce white eggs.

A chicken is 75% water.

In the U.S., approximately 46% of the chicken that is eaten by people comes from restaurants or other food outlets.

Hens will produce larger eggs as they grow older.

A chicken loses its feathers when it becomes stressed.

A chicken once had its head cut off and survived for over eighteen months, headless.

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Precautions When Raising Chickens During Summer and Winter

Chickens seem so fragile. They seem without any survival characteristics. But that is not true 100%. They have some characteristics that allow them to pull it through and survive in harsh weather conditions. Of course, those traits depend on the chicken species.

Some chicken can withstand the harsh conditions of winter and other may like to do sunbaths. It depends on the type of chicken and on the weather he is accustomed with.

So don't waste your money and your precious time with a type of chicken that likes a different weather than the one you have. It may be very hard to raise chicken under difficult conditions.

The winter time

In this cold weather, many people try to heat the chickens. They think that they will do them good. But don't try that if you want alive and healthy chickens.

They can catch a cold or even freeze. You may leave them healthy and safe and in the morning you can find them dead. For your information, keep in mind that chicken can adapt to difficult weather conditions. Their body has a changing metabolism that helps them survive during cold temperatures.

If the place where you live has a cold weather with harsh temperatures, you may want to take some precautions before bringing the chicken in. In this way, you will be ready for them and you will not put their lives in any danger.

Some of these actions are:

1. Sometimes, the low temperatures cause the comb or the wattle to have frostbites. If you want to prevent this from happening, you can rub a petroleum jelly or another kind of moisturizer on that place from time to time.

2. Make sure the water supply is not frozen. Depriving the chicken of water can seriously damage their health. If the water is frozen, the chickens will not get near eat and they can die without water. Also, make sure the water reserve has no impurities.

The chicken can get diseases from those impurities. If there is a danger or freezing, get a heater and warm up the water. Make sure the water stays warm at all times. If you don't posses a water heater, get the water inside your house and bring it to the chicken in the morning.

Summer time

If you have a house located in a place where there is summer all the time, the chicken can suffer form being exposed to heat all day long. They could be dehydrated and that is not good. The one thing and very important thing you need to do during summer is to make sure they have water all the time. Make sure the water is fresh and pure. Refill the supply whenever it is possible. Also, don't let the chickens run around without providing them some shade. Also, you can provide some ventilation in their pen.

Another important thing is that when heat waves occur, the hens can lay excessive eggs. This is not a good sign. It means the hen is very stressed because of the heat. If the heat stops or the temperatures goes back to normal, the laying process will resume to normal.

Also, during extreme weather conditions it is good to observe the chickens for any abnormal behavior. Notice the way they walk, what they eat, how often they eat etc.

If you see one of them isolated in a corner or acting a bit strange, it means they have caught a disease. Get the chicken and put it in quarantine to prevent the disease from spreading.

The isolated animal also needs water, food and treatment. After he has recuperated, the sick chicken can return to the others.

Some symptoms of chicken sickness include: depression, sneezing, teary eyes, loss of appetite, mites, abnormal stools and the tendency to become isolated.

If you notice any of these signs, talk to the vet and get treatment for the chicken.

Learn more about chicken coops and how to build chicken coops and save money!

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Cristian_Stan

Making your own Chicken Food

So, you have bought your chickens and put them in the coop and wondering what to do next?

First thing you must do and not neglect is: water. Give them fresh water and make sure they have it on tap all the time. there are many fine water feeding system on the market, just pick a system that suits you and your pocket.

Next thing is your have decided to feed them yourself and not buy in food as such.
Well that is fine; people have been doing that for centuries. If you do it right and have the right breed, then your chickens will be healthy and give you a few eggs.

Making your own chicken food is very much a "suck it and see" sort of thing. The chickens will eat anything and if they don't like it, they will leave it...its as simple as that. Before we start, they are two things that you must not do.

Never feed the chickens meat of any kind and never ever feed them salt. Chickens like us, very much appreciate a varied diet and in the wild the birds will go round eating grains, seeds, bugs insects and small manuals. So with you home feeding system it is a good idea to let them roam round and pick up what they can. Doing this will also keep the "bugs" down in you garden as well as feeding your flock.

As well as water, the other thing that chickens need is grit. A home made method (a bit of an old wive's thing) for this is to take the egg shells that you get and put them in the oven until they are crunchy and then break them up as small as you can...try and get them like a course grit and then make this available to the flock. Do not give the chickens oyster shells because they are not good for them you would have to buy these anyway and we are not doing that, are we?

Summer or Winter it is a good idea to hang a cabbage up so that the chickens have to peck at it. This is good because it will keep them busy and also give them "greens"

Summer Feeding:

I am assuming that your chickens are running around outside and getting "their natural food" as well; so you can feed them anything that you have left from your table.

There are some foods that you must not feed them which are: raw green potato peels/dried or uncooked beans/avocado skins and pit/raw eggs/sugar/sweets/cirrus or chocolate. All these foods contain a toxin of one form or another (without being too scientific)
Chocolate is poison to most pets; thank God all the more for us! And as already been said; salt or anything really salty because salt can poison small animals.

Winter Feeding:

Once again, this is very simple: The same as in the summer only boil everything up and throw it in the trough when it has cooled down a bit.

Now if you are not buying food, there are ways of getting extra food in without handing out cash.
Barter....if you keep one or two more chickens then you need you will have a few extra eggs.
Go down to your local shop and see what they are throwing out because it is out of date..old cakes, bread, veg, grains of any type or anything else that they have and over them sum fresh eggs for their breakfast.
Your can also do the same with your neighbors; get them collecting scrapes and offer eggs in return.

There is one thing that you must remember with this type of feeding: have a cleaning routine for the feeding trough and do not leave old food laying about to get stale and attract vermin.

Richard has been keeping chickens for over 40 years: http://build-a-backyard-chicken-coop.blogspot.com/.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Richard_Haigh

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