To guarantee your chickens produce beautiful eggs, feed them the right diet. Achieving an ideal balance of proteins, carbohydrates, fats and vitamins will help them flourish and provide your family with nutritious eggs throughout the year.
Calcium is an essential element in chickens’ diet; they need it to form healthy eggshells. Crushing oyster shells or ground eggshells into their feed is a simple yet effective way to boost calcium levels in your chickens’ food.
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Free-Range
If you’re searching for a healthier chicken, feed your hens eggs from free-range poultry. Unlike caged birds, free-range birds have access to more land and are allowed to roam more freely.
However, the USDA lacks a legal definition of what constitutes “free range,” nor do chicken farmers have an established standard regarding how much time their birds should spend outdoors.
Contrary to what the label on your grocery cart may indicate, chickens inside may never have had the chance to roam free; they would likely live in an industrial factory farm with no outdoor space whatsoever.
Chickens living on cage-free farms may face painful and harmful procedures in addition to not being allowed to roam. They may also be fed diets that increase their weight at an unnatural rate, and ultimately they could still be killed with cruel methods like tail docking – a painful mutilation process.
Hard-Boiled
Feeding chicken eggs is an excellent way to add protein and calcium to their diet. Just be sure that they’re cooked thoroughly beforehand!
Fresh eggs from your backyard chickens are a delicious treat. Their yolks sit higher than store-bought eggs and they have an exquisite color.
Hard boiling eggs is not recommended due to their low pH (meaning they’re acidic), as this causes the proteins in the white to bind with the membrane during cooking – creating an issue when trying to peel them.
Thankfully, there are a few simple tricks you can use to avoid this from occurring. One is using a pressure cooker – not the fastest option but it does make fresh eggs easier to peel! Additionally, an ice bath after boiling or steaming helps keep egg whites from sticking together. Finally, adding baking soda to the water before boiling or steaming can also help.
Scrambled
Eating chicken’s eggs scrambled is an excellent way to give them a protein boost and can also aid in healing molts or illnesses that might affect them.
Eggs provide your chickens with essential nutrients to promote healthy feathers and skin. Furthermore, they’re packed full of calcium – an important element in bone formation.
Make a delicious scrambled egg with fresh eggs straight from your coop and quality butter – both available at local grocery stores or farm stores.
Scrambled eggs are an incredibly easy, nutritious treat for your chickens to feed. Packed full of protein and low in fat, scrambled eggs make a perfect meal.
Baked
Eggs are an ideal way to provide your chickens with a high protein snack that’s packed full of beneficial nutrients. Not only that, but eggs also aid in recovery for sick or ailing chickens – particularly weak baby chicks!
But, if your chickens have made it a habit of eating their own eggs, you must stop this behavior immediately. Breaking this bad habit is not easy and the longer you delay, the harder it will be!
One way to break this bad habit is by feeding your chickens baked eggs. This will keep them from intaking eggs that they shouldn’t, as well as deter them from pecking at the eggs they lay themselves!