What to feed the chickens

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The question of what to feed the chickens is one of the top priorities when raising birds. It is not surprising, since it is a proper and balanced diet that helps to maintain the health and improve the vital functions of birds. Feeding chickens must meet the basic requirements and purpose. With improper care, there is a risk of provoking the appearance of diseases and inhibition of development.

How to feed chickens at home

You can watch one of the specialized videos and read the article below about what home care and nutrition should be after the hen hatched the birds. So, let's take a look at the question of how to feed chickens and everything about feeding them below.

What can be food for birds

Feeding chickens at home is not particularly difficult even for novice poultry breeders. The thing is that small birds are picky, so food for them can be found in any pet store or made on your own. It is important that the formulation of the diet takes into account the age and purpose of raising the chick. Often, the menu of each bird includes a starter feed for day old chickens and growth feed for individuals whose age has already reached 2 months. Feeding hens from the 17th day completely represents the use of developing compound feed. In addition to PC, young animals need fermented milk and grain products.

So what to feed monthly chicks?

1. Grain feeding is an important part of the diet of any breed of chicken. Cereals are included in the diet in the amount of up to 60%. It is important to clear the grains from films, crush them as finely as possible. Wet mash can be made with curdled milk or skim milk in order to increase the nutritional value of the chickens.
2. Feed for laying hens should be combined with the use of dairy products (whey, skim milk, cottage cheese, yogurt) that can provide the body with calcium and the required amount of vitamins and minerals. The bird can only eat fresh and not sour food in order to keep the intestines normal. Water can be replaced with small amounts of whey.
3. Feeding small feathered greens is necessary every season, therefore, even in the absence of fresh greens, it must be replaced with sprouted cereals, grass flour, nettles, dried hay. Also for chickens it will not be superfluous to prepare a hanging feeder with herbs. Feeding monthly chicks is an important point, you need to monitor it.
4. The diet of chickens must be enriched vitamins already in the early days. You will need complexes of vitamins E, A, D in order to prevent rickets, lameness, weakening of blood vessels. The main thing is to prevent overdose, because this or that vitamin in more than necessary quantity can lead to poisoning. For example, D2 is less active (28-30 times) than D3. The diet for chickens must be well built.

Newly born chicks need to be fed frequently due to physiological characteristics.The first time after birth, newborns are fed 8-9 times a day, and it is possible to start eating food only after 12 hours after birth. Of course, in the first hours of a baby's life, the question arises whether it is necessary to feed the chicken with this or that product. Food for small chicks should include:

• chopped groats: millet, corn, oats;
• hard boiled egg;
• cottage cheese;
• onions and dill.

In addition to the fact that you need to feed day old chicks often, you will have to devote time to this for several days at night. After 7 days, the birds can be fed with shells, fine river sand, flour, eggshells and charcoal. The feed rate for young chickens is calculated individually, there is a special table for this.

The subtleties of growing and feeding chickens

How to feed and care for your chickens, or how to properly feed laying hens are important questions. Chickens need to be watered and fed regularly and correctly. There should be free access to feeders and drinkers so that the baby can satisfy his needs at any time. Should chicks be heavily fed? To make caring for chickens easy, the following guidelines must be followed:

• the feeder should be filled only by a third, so that the feed consumption is not too large;
• feeding from the first day should be tight and regular: those chickens that rarely approach the feeders can eat from the owner's hands, for which a pipette is suitable, in which you can put pounded egg yolk and milk;
• chicken at any age should be provided with water, which should be changed regularly;
• in order to avoid diseases, chickens are fed with a solution of potassium permanganate.

There are videos on how to feed chickens to help all poultry farmers.

For complete care, one feeding is not enough. It is necessary to take care of the feeders from the first day, constantly cleaning and disinfecting them with a soap solution or formalin solution. In order to prevent rotting, it is necessary to carefully dispose of old feed.

How to feed broilers

First feeding your chickens - what will it be? It is necessary to feed broiler chickens in a special way, so that already at the age of 2-3 months they reach a weight of more than 1.5 kg. Fattening meat breeds at home is done in intensive and extensive ways. The first case involves year-round cultivation without walking, and the second - three months or four months with periodic walks. In order for small birds to grow as quickly as possible in the early days, it is better to compose their diet from the developed compound feed with a lot of proteins and vitamins in the composition.

Feeding little newborn chicks is an art. Chicken feed should be abundant and include gravel.

In order for broilers to gain weight more efficiently, a special scheme was developed, following which, it is possible to grow a large chicken in a small amount of time. normal development of birds is possible only with the right lighting and temperature in the chicken coop. At a younger age, the temperature should not go beyond 28-30 ° C, in the month or more it is recommended to reduce it to 20 ° C. In this case, you must adhere to dim lighting.

It will be elementary simple to prepare food for chickens in a cozy home environment. So how do you feed broiler chicks based on their age?

1. One-day-old chickens are fed with wheat groats, chopped corn, mashed boiled eggs, millet. If you feed them with oats, boiled rice and buckwheat, barley, wheat, it is important to monitor the elimination of the film and the maximum grinding of the grain. You can give some cottage cheese.
2. Three-day-old birds are gradually transferred to chopped greens. You can start adding dandelion, nettle. With a lack of greenery, the mouth of the young is inhibited.
3. Five-day-old males and chickens, in addition to everything, are fed with shabby red carrots (the norm per individual is 4-5 g per day) and grass flour (about 2-5 g). More product will lead to overdose due to its high fiber content.
4. Ten-day-old chickens are pampered with a greater proportion of cereals, porridge. You should also make sure that the chicken is provided with fish, shabby crayons, shells. Foods are high in calcium and are essential for the growth and strengthening of bones. The consumption rate should not exceed 10 g. Growing chicken also needs vegetable protein feed: meal and cake.
5. Twenty-day-old, one-month-old guinea fowls are fed boiled and chopped potatoes, which should replace 5 of the grain crops.

We must not forget that newborn chickens (one month - two lives) must also be watered. You should give starter feed, and then decide on the further scheme. A table or feeding chart can help you with this.

Feeding scheme

How much and how often to give the birds food will reflect the feeding scheme, according to which:

• in the first week of life, you need to feed chickens 8 times;
• in the second - up to 6;
• in the third - 4;
• a month or more - twice.

To accelerate growth, you must try to feed the chickens with chopped cabbage, pumpkin or zucchini. Vegetables are full of vitamins, sulfur and trace elements. Following the advice of experienced farmers, you can saturate the diet with fine gravel (no more than 200 g per hundred heads once every 7 days).

Purchased organic feed for your chicks can be an excellent start for their growth and weight gain in the first days of life. Basically, the recipe for the first starter feed is distinguished by the quality and the correct ratio of the required components in grams. It is better to choose complete ready-made feed with wheat, corn, fish meal, meal, salt, limestone and other mineral components.

Farmers are often not satisfied with the price of the finished product, so they switch to independent production. You can buy feed mixture for any of the chicken breeds at poultry farms or veterinary stores. The best choice for broilers to gain weight quickly is Purina or Rich (to speed up metabolic processes), which can be fed within a few days after birth.

Egg chicks: feeding characteristics

Food egg breeds at home in the early days is not difficult. The first meal should take place as soon as the chick dries up and starts moving. Growth in the future depends on how early you can start feeding the young. In general, the diet of egg chickens does not differ much from that of young beef. Just as in the case of broilers, it is important to follow the regimen from the first day of life and to fill the layers' feeders with food in a timely manner.

1. Daytime birds need to be fed with boiled and crushed eggs, treated with semolina to avoid sticking to the limbs of the bird.
2. On the second day, the chicks can gradually switch to eating fresh herbs (the same products are suitable as for the meat breed). The use of yeast will not be superfluous, after which the birds are transferred to solid vegetables.
3. From the first to the fifth day, the chicks must be fed with a mixture with wheat or corn, cottage cheese and boiled millet.
4. Feeding hens from day 5 at home can be dry and wet mash, made with your own hands, and chopped food, rich in proteins. The table, according to which many poultry farmers follow, indicates that the diet should have the following composition: up to 10 g of dairy products, 2-3 g of boiled eggs, 3 g of greens, carrots, tops, 0.5 g of ground shells.
5. At the age of 10 days, a young chicken should be fed with stale milk, fishmeal, cake, carrots, mineral feed, cereals, boiled rice with milk, low-fat cottage cheese. Flour can be replaced with meat waste, frogs, worms.
6. At 20-29 days of life, you need to start giving the young more potatoes - up to 20 g. You need to switch to fermented milk products and give up fresh milk for better assimilation. Cereals are gradually enlarging: the fraction for feeding monthly birds should be 1 cm. The consumption of fishmeal is increased a couple of times in order to prevent rickets and harden the shell.
7. At the age of 30 days or more, laying hens are transferred to table salt (its content cannot exceed 0.1 g). Chicks feed on chopped cabbage, beets, pumpkins, green feed. On the 30th day of life, chickens must already be accustomed to greens, the use of which allows you to reduce the intake of purchased vitamin complexes. Two-month or three-month-old chickens need to be gradually accustomed to use fish oilmixed with grain, as well as wood ash, the amount of which should be 4 g per day.

Conclusion

It's all about chicken feeding that a self-respecting poultry farmer needs to know. The composition of the diet largely depends on the age of the bird. As with broilers, layers should be fed with sand. Kvochka should not consume fresh milk, so as not to provoke digestive disorders. Standard proper nutrition, starting from day 4, is saturated with mineral supplements, lime feed. For 10 days, to feed the birds, you need to give them food every couple of hours, after which the feeding is reduced to 5 times a day. After 60 days of age, the birds are transferred to 4 meals a day. It is impossible to give large grain to chickens whose age has not yet reached a month, because the body will not be able to digest such heavy food.

It is also forbidden to keep chicks locked up: they need to be provided with walking and the sun, which can nourish them with vitamins and energy.

Proper nutrition is the key to health and good weight gain. If chickens are not provided with a balanced diet and vitamins from birth, there is a risk of death or the occurrence of freezing and disease. It is important to remember that meat and egg breeds differ in feeding requirements, therefore they must be taken into account without fail. Now you know what to feed your birds with, and whether you will do it with porridge or specialized food is a purely personal matter.