How to put weight on chickens

[marmalade76]

For treats I give mine fruit & veg straight out of the garden ( cucumbers, cabbage, currently having whole purple sprouting plants complete with caterpillars ?), their house is under an apple tree (windfalls coming off already) so they eat as many apples as they want. They love blackberries too and had a couple of whole melons over the hot weather & get pumpkins at holloween. They love fruit, I've not known them turn their beaks up at any fruit. They also get homegrown or shop bought corn on the cob and tinned sweetcorn when I can't get any of the former.

I don't feed porridge or dry porridge oats, I've heard it's not good for their crops or something.

 

[poiuytrewq]

It’s illegal to feed kitchen scraps. Many of us do though! ?.

Is it really? I had no idea, I used to feed our old lot of hens left overs but the ones we have now don’t eat anything other than layers mash, although since harvest started I have seen them going in the grain store a lot eating corn. They don’t want other bits I try though.

 

[Clodagh]

My OH used to go mental if they got in the grain store. No shit in the sample . ?.
Foot and mouth has been started by feeding omnivores kitchen waste, hence the ban.

 

[poiuytrewq]

My OH used to go mental if they got in the grain store. No shit in the sample . ?.
Foot and mouth has been started by feeding omnivores kitchen waste, hence the ban.

Makes sense! Good job these ones said no then.
No one has ever mentioned them
Being in the grain store. I’d never really thought anything of it!

 

[Widgeon]

they eat as many apples as they want.

When we made cider last year (it's not kitchen waste if it was processed on the drive, right?) we had an entire builders' merchant dumpy bag full of pulp. Obviously it goes off in about three days but in those three days the chickens must've been eating their own body weight every day

 

[soloequestrian]

Foot and mouth has been started by feeding omnivores kitchen waste, hence the ban.

I don't think this is really the case. I looked it up and although this text comes from a non-reviewed site it's much closer to my understanding of the situation:

If I recall accurately the most likely reason was pigs being fed on undercooked catering waste that included illegally imported meat. So it wasn’t the catering waste as such – it was illegally imported meat and a failure to process the waste properly. Two failures that reinforced each other with catastrophic results.

If the infected meat hadn’t been illegally imported then we most probably would have been OK or if the waste had been properly processed we would have been fine.

It’s worth noting that the 2007 outbreak of foot and mouth disease was caused by poor bio-security procedures at the Pirbright laboratory.

 

[HappyHollyDays]

Do any chicken keepers here feed linseed? Given it piles on the weight and condition on my ponies I wondered whether it would be any good for skinny hens. I have a rescue who has just had sour crop and she has dropped weight off at an alarming rate and even though they get free run of the orchard during the day, have fresh fallen plums, sweet corn, melon and organic layers mash she is very skinny. I won’t feed mealworm and the ground is to hard to dig up worms. They are all wormed properly.

 

[marmalade76]

I think you'll find that linseed is already in layers pellets.

 

[rara007]

Swap them onto garvo or growers pellets.
Treat any parasites.
Are you sure they’re too thin…?

 

[DSB]

Protien meat/good quality canned dog/puppy food.

 

[Clodagh]

I don't think this is really the case. I looked it up and although this text comes from a non-reviewed site it's much closer to my understanding of the situation:

If I recall accurately the most likely reason was pigs being fed on undercooked catering waste that included illegally imported meat. So it wasn’t the catering waste as such – it was illegally imported meat and a failure to process the waste properly. Two failures that reinforced each other with catastrophic results.

If the infected meat hadn’t been illegally imported then we most probably would have been OK or if the waste had been properly processed we would have been fine.

It’s worth noting that the 2007 outbreak of foot and mouth disease was caused by poor bio-security procedures at the Pirbright laboratory.

Sorry, yes, I did know that but it was the undercooked commercial waste that led to the outbreak, and as there are no ways really of testing what or how well people cook stuff at home a blanket ban made more sense.
I don’t feed my chickens animal products anyway, but I know of people that do.

 

[Clodagh]

Protien meat/good quality canned dog/puppy food.

Like feeding sheep to cattle? That worked well.

 

[Clodagh]

Do any chicken keepers here feed linseed? Given it piles on the weight and condition on my ponies I wondered whether it would be any good for skinny hens. I have a rescue who has just had sour crop and she has dropped weight off at an alarming rate and even though they get free run of the orchard during the day, have fresh fallen plums, sweet corn, melon and organic layers mash she is very skinny. I won’t feed mealworm and the ground is to hard to dig up worms. They are all wormed properly.

You can mix linseed oil in their food, it’s great for them.

 

[Widgeon]

Protien meat/good quality canned dog/puppy food.

I don't feed them meat...it just seems a bit...weird. Probably because it forces me to think about all the things they would eat given half a chance, and that is frankly terrifying.

As an update on the worming situation - they are disgusted with the Flubenvet pellets and are eating the minimum required for survival (because clearly I am trying to poison them). However the bag is slowly going down so hopefully in another four days or so they'll have eaten the lot!

 

[Clodagh]

I don't feed them meat...it just seems a bit...weird. Probably because it forces me to think about all the things they would eat given half a chance, and that is frankly terrifying.

As an update on the worming situation - they are disgusted with the Flubenvet pellets and are eating the minimum required for survival (because clearly I am trying to poison them). However the bag is slowly going down so hopefully in another four days or so they'll have eaten the lot!

Try mixing something like linseed oil in it? Although technically they aren’t meant to have much in the way of taste buds, maybe it’s because you removed their choice ?

 

[Widgeon]

Try mixing something like linseed oil in it? Although technically they aren’t meant to have much in the way of taste buds, maybe it’s because you removed their choice ?

I'm a bit worried it'll go grotty in the feeder in this heat - I think I'll just have to leave them to starve* for another few days then they can go back on normal rations. They're proper characters, I wouldn't be surprised if this was a strike induced by the removal of dinner options. At least they're still laying, so they can't be too hungry!

*or so they say