=Pursued the message data base not finding anything definitive. Most web sites speak of commercial operations or penned birds. I am heading toward the old Ma and Pa Kettle style chicken raising on the family farm for the kitchen - keeping it simple and inexpensive. My question is for feeding my day-time free ranging and night-time in mobile coup egg layer chickens.
I have nine hens and one rooster, heritage Rhode Island Reds, at 20 weeks of age, living in the mild coastal Oregon area on a dozen acres of meadows, trees, and pasture. (I will be harvesting or finding homes for three leaving me with six hens and one rooster.) Have a partially built mobile coup that they happily head for after dinner. (Building the nesting boxes and inside feeders with plans later to add LED lighting to increase egg laying.) I also have a kitchen garden so have excess dried corn, peas, wheat, fruits, vegies, etc. to augment feeding the chickens.
Presently the ten chickens go through a bit over two pounds a day consisting of half home-mix scratch and half commercial layer pellets. As they have been growing from little chicks, I feed them 4 scoops of scratch (grain and kitchen scraps) at 1000 and again 1500. Just before dusk, they get to consume all they can of the commercial layer pellets which minus what is left comes to 8 scoops. The scratch consists of 5 parts cracked corn, 1 part peas, 1 part rice, 1 part wheat, 1 part layer pellets, and 1 part grit. This grain scratch is reduced by the amount of kitchen/garden scraps available. (Last week it was excess blueberries and cheap hot dogs the dog refused to eat.) They are let out of the coup around 0900 to free range to their hearts delight until returning to their roosts at dust. In the morning, they head out for a meal of fresh green grass and bugs. I have even seen them consume lizards and the small grass snakes we have in the area. Of course, they have 24/7 access to fresh well water, a gravel driveway for grit, and a bowl of free choice oyster shell.
I have not free choice fed them as I suspect they would turn into fat butterballs considering how they attack their food at the current three feedings. The 1000 and 1500 feedings are more like snacks to encourage them to feed themselves free ranging. The evening meal of commercial layer pellets is an all-they-can eat taking roughly 5 minutes after which they head for water and then the coup perches.
My desire is to have them free ranging feeding themselves most of their greens and protein while providing them the carbs and minerals. I understand one must figure on feeding at least 50% of their food intake during the summer period. I am not wealthy and though I want eggs and meat, I hope to reduce my reliance on the purchase of commercial feed. I have some excess grains from the kitchen garden and can add more to supplement the chickens. What did Ma and Pa Kettle do on the old family farm with the chickens running around wild through the summer/winter seasons??? How much of this can I adopt to reduce my overhead in terms of money and time?
Hope some of you can critique what I am doing right/wrong and to offer real world suggestions which hopefully you have/are doing yourself. Please keep the hearsay to a minimum.
CHICKENS-101@yahoogroups.com
No comments:
Post a Comment