Chickens - what to feed? Learn

2024 Author: Howard Calhoun | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 10:16

Beginning poultry farmers face a number of difficulties. Here, it would seem, cute yellow chickens - what to feed them? Newborn chicks are defenseless, so it is important to provide them with proper nutrition. Let's find out more about it.

Newborn nutrition

Immediately after birth, chicks do not peck well. This does not mean that they do not need to be fed. On the contrary, food should be offered as often as possible, preferably every 2 hours. Until 10 days of age, the number of feedings should not be less than 5.

So, the chicks hatched - what to feed them immediately after birth? For the first time, an egg is given, hard-boiled, chilled and finely chopped. One egg is enough for 15-20 individuals. It is necessary to ensure that there is enough food for everyone, since immediately after birth, a period of active growth begins. What to feed small chickens for variety and for their vitamins and nutrients? Babies can be given fresh cottage cheese, a mixture of dry crushed grains of millet, corn, wheat, as well as boiled millet. From the third day of life, it is advisable to add fresh herbs to the diet: nettle, alfalfa, clover.

What to feed weeklychicks and grown-ups

In addition to the above, grated carrots, boiled potatoes are added to the diet. They are added to the mash from the grain mixture. From the sixth day of life, dry and moist mixtures begin to be introduced. These are baker's yeast, beet tops, green grass, needles flour, carrots.

So the chickens have grown up - what to feed them next? And then they expand the diet due to crushed grain, a mixture of mealy feed with lake and river duckweed. After 10 days, feeding is done every 3-4 hours, and from the seventeenth day of life, the interval between feedings is 4-5 hours. It is useful to give babies fish oil for breakfast mixed with crushed grains. For 1 chicken you need no more than 0.2 gr. per day.

And the chickens grew up again: what to feed the grown-up individuals? You can feed the chicks with barley or oatmeal, but sifted, as the young do not digest grain films well. They give boiled veal, ground calf bones, veal lungs, raw potatoes, between feedings - bone meal or chalk. All of the above also remains in the diet. Don't forget to give your chickens water or warm milk.

Nutrition Secrets

To improve intestinal motility, newborn chicks are given a grain of pepper. Feed should be poured into half a box, and a drinker with water or milk should be left nearby.

Liquid from the drinkers should not be spilled, because chickens get cold and get sick from sticky fluff. Instead of water and pure milk, you can use a mixturemilk and a weak solution of potassium permanganate (or a special antibiotic), which cleanses the stomachs of newborns of disease-causing bacteria and may keep them alive.

Eggs that are used for feeding must be shelled and very finely cut or ground through a sieve. When the kids have eaten, you need to examine their goiter. If it is full, then the chicken is full and will not die of hunger.

Hot food or water can kill chicks, so all food should be refrigerated. This also applies to boiled potatoes, eating which in the first 3 weeks of life provides an accelerated start of egg laying.

The more varied the food, the faster the kids will gain weight. Providing chickens with all useful substances and vitamins is a guarantee of productivity and good taste of meat in the future.