Chicken scratch feed is a mixture of seeds and grains that chickens love, usually including oats, barley, wheat, corn milo millet sunflower seeds.
Feed pellets come in premixed bags and provide an easy way to supplement your chickens’ diet, though it should never become their main source of nutrition.
Contents
Pellets
Feeding chickens requires many different kinds of feed; choosing the appropriate feed can make a huge difference in the quality of eggs, egg shells and meat produced.
Your laying hen needs the essential grains, greens, proteins and calcium from her diet in order to produce high-quality eggs. No matter if you opt for commercially prepared feed or scratch grains – they require a balanced meal that fulfills their nutrition requirements.
Scratch should only be given as a treat alongside regular chicken feed, since it doesn’t contain as many essential vitamins and minerals as primary foods for your flock. Do not give more than 10% of their diet in scratch form.
Shell Grit
There are two different kinds of shell grit: insoluble and soluble. Soluble grit, made from oyster shells and containing calcium carbonate to aid chicken laying eggs, is more commonly found than its insoluble counterpart.
Chickens require ample calcium in their diet in order to produce top-quality eggs, with oyster shells providing the majority of this supplement, though small amounts may also come from eggshells.
Alternately, you could purchase large bags of flint or granite in bulk and grind it yourself for your chickens as a cheaper and long-term alternative to purchasing oyster shell supplements.
Keep a separate container of grit that your chickens can access as needed. Ideally, place it high off the ground to prevent contamination and keep it dry; be sure to add fresh grit periodically so they receive their nourishment.
Chick Starter Feed
Before commercial chicken feed became widespread, chickens would often forage through their farmers’ leftover grain and seeds as “scratch”, helping stretch their budget further for regular feed costs.
Chicken scratch typically includes cracked or rolled corn, barley, oats, wheat, sunflower seeds, milo and millet; these grains were chosen based on their nutritional content and ease of digestion.
Quality chick starter feed should contain between 15-18 percent protein for rapid development and growth of chicks. In addition, it should have higher concentrations of Vitamin A and E to promote faster development.
Medicated chick starter is available to protect hens against diseases like coccidiosis. However, many organic and pastured small farms avoid its use due to amprolium toxicity risk, which could cause intestinal infections that prevent chicks from laying eggs. Therefore it’s always wise to check what ingredients your feed contains before feeding your chicks any medications or supplements.
Scratch
Chicken scratch is a mixture of grains and seeds used as bedding by your chickens to scratch in their bedding or soil. Typical ingredients for it are cracked or rolled corn, barley, oats, wheat milo and sunflower seeds.
Scratch feed can often be purchased in bags. But you can make your own by mixing equal portions of grains or seeds into one large bin.
Feed should provide your chickens with a balanced diet of essential proteins, calcium and vitamins – something commercial chicken feed is specifically designed to do.
If your hens do not receive enough protein, they may display unwanted behaviors such as feather plucking, nibbling and egg eating. In addition, their health will deteriorate further resulting in lower quality eggs being produced.
