How to put weight on chickens

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Widgeon

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I've been chewing this over in my head for a while but it occurred to me today that some of you on here might have useful tips. We have 6 hens (bluebells, Sussexes and white stars) and a Buff Orpington cockerel; they live in a large walk in run attached to a walk in shed. They have plenty of space (I can work it out later if anyone cares to know) and they have permanent access to a feeder full of layers' pellets. They have perches and straw to scratch around in. Every morning they also have about 500g of corn scattered in an old shower tray for them peck at.

Despite this they're all much skinnier than I'd like. They get leftover bread, vegetable ends, old fruit, any bits of herbs or duckweed etc from the garden that we think they might enjoy - they are little dustbins and eat pretty well anything we give them. Does anyone have good ideas for cheap nutritious food that they might like, that would bulk them up a bit? They're layers not eaters (basically pets) but I'm not entirely happy with how thin they seem. There are always layers' pellets available for them but they don't seem massively keen.
 
Cracked corn is supposed to be a good weight-gain for them. Also anything they sell in bags for meat birds I imagine since the aim is to make them grow quickly? Problem with hybrid laying breeds is that they are bred to put all their effort into laying eggs at the expense of everything else.
You could try a vitamin supplement, de-worming them, checking for leg mite... but it may just be what they are.
 
Pasta is nutritionally void and technically illegal to feed to them.
Do you worm them with a proper wormer like flubenvet at least once a year? Twice if on restricted ground.
Corn is fattening but also heating, I’d feed sparingly in summer but a crop full in the afternoon in winter is good.
Layers should give them all they need.
If they are hybrids they will be naturally skinny anyway, are their combs red, are they active and laying well?
 
Reread your post, if they can eat rubbish like bread they won’t eat pellets. Like kids, junk food is preferred! If they get hungry they’ll eat the pellets.
A fat layer is also one prone to prolapse.
 
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Mine have porridge oats mixed with live yoghurt first thing before they go out, then a bit of cat food and maybe some sunflower hearts when they go back in at 3.30pm. Layers crumble is on free vend, they won't eat pellets.
 
Clodagh said:
Pasta is nutritionally void and technically illegal to feed to them.
Do you worm them with a proper wormer like flubenvet at least once a year? Twice if on restricted ground.
Corn is fattening but also heating, I’d feed sparingly in summer but a crop full in the afternoon in winter is good.
Layers should give them all they need.
If they are hybrids they will be naturally skinny anyway, are their combs red, are they active and laying well?
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Thank you - we actually haven't wormed them so that's a good call, I'll look into that and get it sorted. We've had them two and a half years now and none of them have ever been fat, but they're all laying well, active and chirpy with big red combs (except one who I'm a bit worried about, but that's a separate question I think).
 
Clodagh said:
They might be going into moult now as well.
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Some of them definitely are, but this is more of an ongoing thing - we've had them two and a half years and they seem a bit skinny even when not moulting. @Archangel's porridge oats idea is a good one, I did make them big vats of warm porridge last winter and they liked that. I must be able to get porridge oats cheap in bulk somewhere!
 
please don't give them pasta or bread.... it's very bad for them. I volunteer for 'fresh start for hens', rehoming ex commercial girls. we always advise free access to layers pellets. my girls only have a handful of corn at night between 20 chooks as it warms them up.. so they wont be needing much corn at the moment. it is illegal to give kitchen scraps..... but if you give spud peelings, make sure you boil them first. how old are they?
 
Clodagh said:
It’s illegal to feed kitchen scraps. Many of us do though! ?.
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We always did but I used to make labels for our egg boxes with a little write up about where our hens had come from as they were ex batts, what their names were and what we fed them on just in case anyone was offended. It was only friends and family that used to buy from us anyway.
 
Mealworms have a lot of protein in so they would put on weight, so had cracked corn. Make sure there is plenty of grit left out for them too.
 
Birker2020 said:
It was only friends and family that used to buy from us anyway.
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Exactly - ours get bread and veg scraps just to keep their lives a bit more interesting. The only people who eat the eggs are us and a couple of neighbours, who supply us with their bits of bread and veg scraps as well! Ours aren't daft, there's no way they'd eat uncooked potato peelings :D
 
Birker2020 said:
Mealworms have a lot of protein in so they would put on weight, so had cracked corn. Make sure there is plenty of grit left out for them too.
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Mealworms is a good idea - they'd love that (although I think that's illegal too, haha). They do get cracked corn every day, just a bit each to peck at. They have grit in a separate little feeder.
 
Widgeon said:
Mealworms is a good idea - they'd love that (although I think that's illegal too, haha). They do get cracked corn every day, just a bit each to peck at. They have grit in a separate little feeder.
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Gosh we used to dig up slugs for ours, they used to go crazy for them, they would chase each other in big circles in the garden to get a slug of each other.
 
Widgeon said:
Mealworms is a good idea - they'd love that (although I think that's illegal too, haha). They do get cracked corn every day, just a bit each to peck at. They have grit in a separate little feeder.
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Yes mealworms produced in China are illegal, I think because of disease introduction risks. They do love them though ?
 
Birker2020 said:
Gosh we used to dig up slugs for ours, they used to go crazy for them, they would chase each other in big circles in the garden to get a slug of each other.
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We have a phenomenal number of pond snails - I wonder if I could feed them those? I haven't yet because I was worried about the risk of worms. They're organically farmed though, with very low air miles (it would be about 6 metres as I lifted them from the pond and carried them to the run)
 
Widgeon said:
We have a phenomenal number of pond snails - I wonder if I could feed them those? I haven't yet because I was worried about the risk of worms. They're organically farmed though, with very low air miles (it would be about 6 metres as I lifted them from the pond and carried them to the run)
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They'd love those!
 
Off topic completely but I’ve just taken in a hen from next door who had her whole wing ripped off by the fox last night. How on earth she didn’t die. I’ve cleaned her up, covered her in Terramycin spray and left her to be quiet with her chick.
 
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Clodagh said:
Off topic completely but I’ve just taken in a hen from next door who had her whole wing ripped off by the fox last night. How on earth she didn’t die. I’ve cleaned her up, covered her in Terramycin spray and left her to be quiet with her chick.
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Gosh she did well to escape. Foxes are the reason that ours live in a run - every six months or so a fox will butcher all of a neighbours' chickens. The last lot to go was a barn of about fifty / sixty hens at a farm just down the river. It killed everything. Before that, it was the three bantams in the garden opposite us :-(
 
marmalade76 said:
You don't want fat laying hens, if they get too fat they'll stop laying.
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I don't want them to be fat, but at the moment they all look at little bit shabby and when I pick them up they feel very bony. Have ordered five kilos of Flubenvet-laced pellets and it'll be interesting to see whether they pick up after that. I'll feel terrible if they do (but at least it would be an answer! And I'll worm them at least annually from now on)
 
Widgeon said:
When you think about it too much chickens are both disgusting and terrifying. They're basically tiny, un-evolved little dinosaurs. I am fairly confident that if I sat still for too long ours would eat me.
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Yep, mine drew blood pecking a mole on my leg when I had shorts on and they are sods for toes when wearing flip flops, particularly if you've painted your toenails.
 
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Widgeon said:
I don't want them to be fat, but at the moment they all look at little bit shabby and when I pick them up they feel very bony. Have ordered five kilos of Flubenvet-laced pellets and it'll be interesting to see whether they pick up after that. I'll feel terrible if they do (but at least it would be an answer! And I'll worm them at least annually from now on)
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They could be coming into moult now too, they will look scruffy and growing new feathers takes a lot out of them.
 
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