GRIT and OYSTER SHELL
Chickens need grit to grind up food in their gizzards.
Check whether or not the commercial feed you buy requires the hens to have extra grit. Too much grit will cause an impacted crop, so if you leave the hens to help themselves they should only take what they need.
Laying hens also need ground oyster shell in a feeder for the calcium for their egg shells.
Back to the top
COMMERCIAL FEED
NEVER LET THE FEED GET WET AT ALL. Ergot fungus grows rapidly (overnight) on wet feed, and the chickens literally drop dead. If you clean up all the wet feed, and disinfect, they should stop dying within a day or so. Don't let them eat the disinfectant either.
Use medicated or non-medicated starter feed as you choose, but if you decide to use non-medicated, coccidiosis is a real threat.
See Coccidiosis The chicks drop like flies once it gets into the chick house. If you use non-medicated feed (and even if you don't), make sure that you thoroughly clean and disinfect the chicks' area with a disinfectant before the chicks arrive. Lysol is good, bleach makes terrible fumes. I used a plant mister to get a fine mist into all the cracks and crannies. One time I did not disinfect and the coccidiosis stayed in the room and the new batch of chicks started dying.
Back to the top
Broiler Chicks only
First Day start the chicks off on Broiler Starter Crumbles, (23% protein) Again, use medicated or non-medicated as you choose.
At 5 weeks switch the chicks to Broiler Grower crumbles.
At 6 weeks I switched the chicks to Broiler Grower Pellets.
They should be big enough by now to be able to cope with the bigger chunks. Any time from now on they should be big enough to be put into the freezer. Make sure that they have not had the medicated feed for the required number of days, according to the package, before you slaughter the chickens.
Meat Birds only
If you get meat bird chicks, and feed them on meat bird grower feed with about 23% protein, they will grow to around 8 lbs in 8 weeks, at which time you slaughter them. They have been specially bred to grow fast and furiously. Unfortunately, there is a down-side to all this fast growth. Many of them will break their legs, and have heart attacks before they are 8 weeks old, because their legs and hearts cannot keep up with the rapid weight gain. I lost 30% of the birds the first time I tried raising them. My second attempt was much more successful. I slowed down the growth by using layer grower feed, which is only 15% protein, and cut down on the losses considerably to about 10%. This was still high when compared to the 3% mortality of the layer chicks.
Back to the top
Layer Chicks only
First Day start the chicks off on Layer Starter Crumbles (20% protein) either medicated or not. The pellets are too big at this stage.
At 7 weeks switch to Poultry Grower Crumbles (15% protein)
When they start to Lay switch again to Layer Ration Pellets (16% protein). By this time they are able to handle the larger pellets. They also need crushed oyster shell in a separate feeder for the calcium to build the egg shells.
Laying Hens only
If you keep the birds inside all the time, 90 layer hens, when fully grown, will eat 1 x 50lb (20kg) bag per day.
If you free-range them from 9am to 5pm, and still supplement their feed with commercial pellets, they will only go through 1 bag in 2 days.
Back to the top
FREE RANGE LAYER HENS
Hens are descendents of Indian Jungle fowl. Their natural instinct is to scratch around in the dead leaves and twigs in the jungle looking for bugs. They also are partial to quite a lot of greenery. Wherever you let them outside, they are likely to scratch the ground bare, and eat lots of greenery. The smaller breeds are good for bug patrol in the vegetable garden. If you want to plant a mixed crop for them, such as grass mixed with alph-alpha or clover, they would more than likely appreciate it. The clover and alph-alpha are high protein crops.
I find that they always look for cover where they can "hang out" for part of the day. They will find a tree with low dense branches, like cedar trees, or go under a building where they can still see out. They also like to hang out under my barn which varies from 2 feet to 4 feet off the ground. It gives the hawks less chance to see them.
They also find themselves somewhere where they can have a dust bath. They go under the trees and find a patch of dry earth, and wriggle around until it is all through their feathers. They seem to know that it will clog the pores of the mites in their feathers, and get rid of them.
I always kept my layer chicks inside until they were 8 weeks old. Apart from anything else, the weather was never warm enough for them before that age. They are also more aware of their surroundings and danger by 8 weeks, since they do not have a mother hen to look out for them. I live in the middle of the bush, with bears, racoons, cougars (which I am assured do not like the feathers on the chickens), hawks and a marten (which is like a weasel), so there is danger lurking everywhere.
Once they were 8 weeks old, I let them out in the day-time and locked them in at dusk, after they had put themselves to bed. They know when the light starts to fade, and they start to congregate near the door of the chicken house. As it gets darker, they go inside. Then there comes a point where it is darker inside than out, and they all troup out again. Then when it gets darker still, they go back in and hop up on the roosts for the night.
I still leave a hopper of feed and water in the coop for them. They like to snack at dawn and dusk. They will go through about half as much feed as they would if they were locked in all day.
When they start to lay, I keep them locked in till noon each day for a few weeks, so that they learn that the chicken house is where they are supposed to lay eggs. Otherwise you will be on an egg hunt every day.
Most of the laying is over by noon.
Back to the top
CHICKS FROM EGGS
If you want to get chicks from the eggs, firstly you must have a rooster running with the hens! Secondly, you must give the laying hens a higher protein diet than if you only just want the eggs to eat. The layer ration alone is not high enough in protein. Free range chickens will eat so many bugs that they do get enough protein.
Back to the top
FREE RANGE MEAT BIRDS
Trying to free range the meat birds was difficult, to say the least. Since my mobile/barn was off the ground, I gave them a 4 inch wide ramp to walk down to the ground, just as I gave the layer birds. The meat birds are not very bright at all, and they fell off the ramp sideways. Then I gave them a 4 feet wide sheet of plywood to walk down. They walked to the edge, peered over, and fell off again! To make matters worse, they then walked under the plywood, and could not find their way back up the ramp into the barn.
Another problem is that they have lost their instinct to be natural hunters and gatherers, as a result of the intensive breeding to gain weight fast. One day, there was a wood louse on the floor of the barn. The little meat bird chick was looking at it, first with one eye and then the other, wondering what it was. I went into the brooder, changed the water, and when I came out it was still looking at the same bug. (there are very, very few bugs in the barn because of the cedar walls and floors). Along came a layer chick, and, quick as a wink, the bug was history. The meat bird chick was still wondering what had happened!
There are two alternatives to combat these problems.
-
Alternative 1.Pastured Poultry.
I have not tried this since I have only rough bush and no flat grass, but I am assured it works. You make a moveable wire cage about 12 feet x 12 feet and 3 feet high with an open botton and a roof over the top for the meat birds to be sheltered if needed. For the first 8 days you confine them to one corner, preferably with curved corners so they can not huddle and smother each other. When the weather is warm enough (see the section on heat) you set the cage on a patch of grass, put up to 80 meat chicks in it, and move it to a new patch of grass each day. They can't fail to find the grass, since they are standing on it. You still give them water and commercial feed in a feeder in the cage. Just make sure the feed stays completely dry, or the hens will literally drop dead overnight from the ergot fungus which grows on the wet feed.
Back to the top
-
Alternative 2.
A Broody Mother Hen
WORDS OF CAUTION. NEVER put chicks under or near a hen that has not been sitting on a nest for approximately 3 weeks or she will kill the babies. The usual incubation period for hens' eggs is 21 days, which is when the hen would expect to find the babies under her.
I had a hen who had gone broody one spring, and had sat on some eggs for about 4 weeks and none of them hatched (they should have hatched after 19 to 22 days). At that time I only had Charlie as a rooster, and it is very questionable as to whether he is hen or rooster, so I doubt if the eggs were fertile. I went to the feed store, and as luck would have it, the owner had some day-old meat bird chicks to sell. I bought 10 of them and brought them home. I put them in a brown paper bag with the top open for air, next to the hen at night, so she would get used to the sound of the chicks. The mother hen talks to her own chicks when they are still in the eggs and recognise their cheeps, so you need to get the hen to recognises the cheeps of the new chicks, otherwise she might kill them thinking they aren't her chicks, (which they aren't, but we are trying to fool the hen here). Next morning I put the chicks underneath her, one by one, and she accepted them. From then on she raised them. I partitioned off an area of the barn for the hen and her chicks, and I also made a little enclosure outside for them. She is better off away from the other hens so they don't attack the chicks. I gave her a hopper of layer growera crumbles, which she and the chicks all ate, some water, and she did the rest. When she was ready, she led these meat bird chicks outside. She taught them to forage for food, and brought them up and down the 4 inch wide ramp with no problem.
One evening, I saw two or three chicks at a time, leap up in the air and crash together. On investigation, I discovered they were after the termites that had just started to fly, and they were all trying to get the same ones. When the chicks were about 6 to 8 weeks old, the mother hen chased them away, which is normal. She won't let them anywhere near her. If you have layer chicks that you want to keep, you will need to move them away from her for long enough that she forgets them (a week or two). Then you can put them in together again.
I moved her out of the chick pen, into the main chicken coop. Next morning she went to the chicken wire fence to see that the chicks were all right, and she stayed quite a while, and then left and joined the rest of the flock. Soon after that, the chicks were ready for the freezer.
Back to the top
