The productivity and health of the chicken depends on the quality of its nutrition. And it doesn’t matter for what purpose and where the bird is kept: at the poultry farm or in a private farm, the main thing is to monitor what the chickens eat. They need to be given only high-quality and nutritious feeds that are rich in all the necessary trace elements and vitamins that will only benefit the bird. As a result of a good, balanced diet, the chicken will bring large, tasty eggs.
Feed content
No matter where the hens are raised, their diet should be varied and nutritious. At poultry farms, the diet is dry food for chickens, and at home it can be varied, giving the bird grass, vegetables.
In poultry nutrition, proteins, fats, vitamins, trace elements, carbohydrates must be balanced.
Squirrels
The main component of the egg is protein. It is necessary for chickens for the normal development of the body. At home, he added bagasse, sunflower meal , soybean, and legumes to hen food for laying hens. These are sources of plant-based proteins. Also in the diet should be animal proteins. Their hens can receive with meat and bone or fishmeal, earthworms, mollusks. In private farmsteads, if a bird walks freely, then it itself can get a part of animal proteins. In industrial cultivation, fish or meat and bone meal is added to feed .
Fats
Chicken energy is derived from fats. These elements are deposited in the subcutaneous layer, and from there the reserves are expended. Part goes to energy, and the other goes to egg formation. In order for the bird to be strong, vigorous, well carried, corn, oats are added to chicken feed at home. These are fat rich foods. And when corn is added, the yolk of the egg acquires a beautiful, rich orange color.
Carbohydrates
To ensure the functioning of all muscles and organs, carbohydrates are needed. From what chickens eat, their productivity depends. If there is a sufficient amount of carbohydrates in the diet, then the bird will rush well and develop quickly enough.
Carbohydrates can be obtained from juicy foods: potatoes, beets, pumpkins, zucchini, carrots.
Vitamins
For normal life, the bird should receive a sufficient amount of vitamins with food. Of particular importance are vitamins D, B, A. If they are deficient, the bird begins to hurt: it falls to its feet, and productivity decreases. The main sources of vitamins are grass, fish oil, baker's yeast.
Minerals
Many farmers wonder why chickens eat their eggs. Most often this is due to a lack of trace elements. It is from them that the construction of the egg shell, the skeleton of the chicken is going . To compensate for the lack of calcium and other nutrients, birds should always have chalk, gravel, wood ash or a shell in a separate feeder.
Feed balance
The diet can consist of ready-made feed, which is sold in bird markets, in veterinary pharmacies. You can compose feed yourself by mixing different grains.
When buying feed, products containing dyes, growth hormones, and flavor enhancers should be avoided. The nutritional value of poultry feed should be as follows:
- proteins - from 15 to 19%;
- fiber - 5%;
- ash, potassium, calcium, amino acids, vitamins, copper, selenium and other useful trace elements.
When choosing feed, preference should be given to those products that produce proven plants.
Food for domestic chickens can be given in feeders, and you can sprinkle on a walk. When using factory feed, it is necessary to provide the bird with constant access to water: 0.5 l of water is needed per bird per day. You can’t put a container of water in the chicken coop because of the risk of increased humidity. This will adversely affect bird health.
You should know that they eat mixed feed hens per day at 80 grams. At home, the diet must be diversified by adding succulent feed, grass. Dry chicken food should not be the only type of food. Even on poultry farms where chickens are fed with mixed feeds, various nutrients are added to it. Most often these are growth stimulants, vitamins, chalk, shell and other types of additives.
Grass, succulent feed
The necessary feeding for layers is succulent feed and grass. The composition and quality of the yolk depends on the quality of greenery. Free-range birds are not deficient in fresh greenery. That bird, which is kept in cages or in a closed paddock, may be deficient in grass. Because of this, the bird can get sick, have a variety of health problems. To avoid this, you should include grass and other beneficial substances in the daily diet.
As a top dressing for the main feed, chickens are given freshly cut grass, including grass, waste from the garden, peeling vegetables, fruits. They perfectly eat weed weeds, green manure crops.
A good addition to the chicken table will be any kind of cabbage. It contains substances that prevent cannibalism.
Pumpkin, zucchini, apples should be introduced into the diet. In some yards you can see tied bunches of grass. To reach them, chickens have to bounce. This is done in order to provide sufficient load for poultry kept in cramped chicken coops and on small paddocks.
Juicy feed ration
The chicken menu may include:
- Potatoes. Sprouted, small potatoes, peeling, are suitable for food. Up to one hundred grams can be given per day.
- Bread. Few people know that chickens eat bread. They are given dried, stale slices, previously soaked with water.
- Waste from the kitchen table. Giblets, heads, the remains of soups, pasta, meat dishes have a positive effect on the productivity of laying hens.
- Protein products. Chickens can be given cottage cheese, yogurt, whey. These products contribute to the replenishment of protein and calcium in the body of the bird, increasing egg production.
It is useful to give boiled vegetables, fresh fruits.
Forage harvesting
In the winter season, the bird must be given foods rich in trace elements and vitamins. If chickens were prepared for food in advance, then in the cold season, the bird will delight the egg.
From the second half of summer and autumn, grass seeds, leaves and berries of wild shrubs and trees are harvested for birds. It can be mountain ash, hawthorn, rose hip, chestnuts. Herbal brooms from nettle, alfalfa and other useful herbs are also harvested. Herbs are crushed and dried in the shade, in a well-ventilated place. In winter they are added to the mishmash and fed to the bird.
Preparing food for feeding
Before giving chicken food, it must be prepared. This is done to increase its nutritional value and improve the digestibility of the laying hen by the body.
- Potato and its sprouts. As you know, potato sprouts contain solanine. This is a toxic substance from which chicken can die. To remove it from the product, the potatoes are boiled or steamed.
- Roots. For better peeling of zucchini, beets, pumpkins and other root crops, they are pre-rubbed or ground with a food processor. Then the vegetables are added to the main feed (compound feed, crushed grain, corn). In this form, the feed is given to the bird.
- Before giving chicken crops, it is recommended to grind them.
- Legumes are pre-soaked before feeding.
In the winter season, it is useful to give chickens germinated grain. To obtain it, whole barley or wheat is taken, poured with a thin layer into a container (on a tray), filled with water. Three days later, the product is ready for feeding.
Feed preparation
It’s easy to create a balanced diet yourself. To do this, you can focus on the following calculations:
- potatoes - 100 grams;
- oilcake or meal of sunflower - 7-10 grams;
- salt - no more than 0.5 grams;
- baker's yeast - 1 gram;
- chalk - not less than 3.5 grams;
- wet mash (corn - 50%, barley, wheat, bran 25% each) - 30 grams.
The diet must include grass. Potatoes can be replaced with other vegetables or mixes of different vegetables and fruits in the amount of 100 grams per bird.
You can make other types of menus. For example, for the summer period, the following composition is suitable:
- flour mixture - 50 grams;
- grain crops - 50 grams;
- solid succulent feed - 40 grams;
- protein feed - 15 grams;
- bone meal - 2 grams;
- salt, mineral additives - not more than 5.5 grams.
In the winter season, the diet should be slightly different. In it, green feed is replaced by mash mashines in which dry grass is added. When compiling a diet, you can use the following composition:
- dry herbs - 15 grams;
- potatoes or other root crops - 100 grams;
- grain crops - 50 grams;
- mash mash - up to 30 grams;
- meal, cake - 7-10 grams;
- meat and bone meal - up to 2 grams;
- mineral additives - not more than 5 grams;
- dairy products - 100 grams.
Ready-made compound feeds for layers in their composition have all the necessary substances. However, such feed is not cheap for a personal compound, buying them is unprofitable. It is much more profitable to feed yourself.
Features of feeding hens at different times of the year
Knowing how much food a laying hen needs per day, you can organize the right feeding. To maintain good egg production, the bird is fed four times a day. However, this mode is difficult to maintain, because many people work and cannot leave work to feed chickens. Therefore, they are most often fed two to three times a day.
With three meals a day, the daily dose is divided into three doses, and with two meals a day, into two. In any case, the bird should be fed at regular intervals.
The first feeding should be as early as possible in the morning, the last - as late as possible. In the evening, chickens are recommended to give grain. The rest of the time, mash mixes, vitamin feeds are given. If it is planned to feed the laying hens twice a day, then the ration is divided in such a way that most of the mixes and vitamin feed fall in the morning, and in the evening the bulk of the ration consisted of grain. In the winter season, the mixers are warm.
Many are interested in the question of how much food the chickens need per day. It is definitely impossible to answer it. The exact amount depends on the type of feed. If this is compound feed for laying hens, then it is given at the rate of 80 grams per individual (the amount may be more or less, depending on the type of compound feed). A more accurate dosage can be found in the feed manufacturer's instructions.
If you give the bird its own feed, then a day the chicken eats from 150 to 250 grams of feed. The exact amount depends on the season, composition.
For a more accurate determination of the feeding rate, calculations are made. A bird weighing up to 1.8 kilograms with a productivity of 100-110 eggs per year produces about 130 grams of feed per individual. If the chicken weighs 2 kilograms, then it needs 135 grams of feed. Then, for every 250 grams of weight, 10 grams of feed is added. Egg production should also be considered. For each additional 30 eggs per year, 10 grams of feed is added.
Shed feeding
During a decrease in daylight hours and a decrease in egg production in chickens, molting begins. At this time, the bird needs to provide good nutrition with an increased amount of minerals. Sulfur is added to the diet. In terms of composition, food is made more diverse, but not high-calorie (part of the grain is replaced by vegetables, grass, vitamin feed).
Knowing how much chicken eats, you can easily make the right diet for different life cycles.
Chickens are unpretentious birds that are easy to maintain. But this does not mean that they can be fed with any feed. So that the bird does not get sick, there is no death, it must be fed only with high-quality feed. You can not give a bad, moldy grain, moldy bread. This can cause poisoning, as a result, the bird will die. The diet should have high-quality grain, fresh grass, boiled potatoes, chalk, shell, gravel and other useful substances.
Proper feeding with good feeds, a varied diet will delight the bird, and it will be good, large eggs and tasty meat to its owners.