Choosing the Right Chicken Feed For Your Breed

chicken feed for chickens

When raising chickens, it is important to choose the right chicken feed for your particular breed. In general, you should feed layer hens with a diet that contains 16 percent protein. However, you can also choose to make your own chicken feed by mixing grains, various brans, alfalfa meal, and fish meal. You can also add scraps of leftover bread. However, you should avoid including raw onion or potato peels as these are difficult for chickens to digest and can alter the taste of your eggs.

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Contents

Broiler feed

Broiler chickens are bred for speed and rapid growth, so they should be given a high-protein feed. Their rapid growth can cause problems for the chickens’ organs, legs and bloodstream, so a high-quality broiler feed is important to ensure their health and well-being. Broiler chickens should be kept in a brooder until they are fully feathered and acclimatized to a temperature range.

Broiler feed for chickens is available in several varieties, including starter, grower and finisher varieties. The starter variety is high in protein and encourages fast growth. It should not be fed to laying hens. It is also important to make sure that the birds have access to food twenty-four hours a day.

Grower feed

Grower feed is a supplement that is given to cockerels and pullets between the ages of five and 20 weeks. This diet contains less protein than starter feed but is high in energy. Grower feed is also lower in calcium than layers’ diets. It is generally available in crumble or mash form.

The main difference between starter feed and grower feed is that grower feed has less protein and less calcium. This is because too much protein in the growing pullet’s diet will affect the kidney and liver function later in life.

Flock raiser

Flock raiser for chickens is a mixture of mixed grain and nutrient-rich crumble that provides starting and growing nutrition for meat birds and mixed flocks. This crumble is made with freshly-ground grains and provides balanced nutrition. It is ideal for growing chickens and turkeys.

Flock raisers are used to feed mixed flocks of chickens, turkeys, ducks, and geese. Purina Flock Raiser Crumbles Premium Poultry Food provides balanced nutrition for mixed poultry flocks. It is made with freshly ground grains from North American farms and contains essential amino acids.

Oyster shell

Oyster shell is a natural calcium supplement that chickens can eat. You can buy oyster shells from your local feed store or even from online retailers like Amazon. You should always make sure to give your chickens free choice of the supplement. When given to laying hens, oyster shell is safe for their health and won’t make them aggressive or destructive.

Your chickens need a certain amount of calcium to produce healthy eggs. They need about 4 grams of calcium a day, and oyster shell can help them meet that requirement. In addition to calcium, oyster shell helps strengthen the bones of your hens. As a calcium supplement, oyster shell is an excellent choice for layer chickens.