Before telling what to feed the chicken, we ask another question: "When to start feeding it?" Strange as it may seem, heated debates with weighty arguments are still going on here and there in some places. “Oddly enough” - because nature itself gives a convincing answer. See how the chickens that the quack hatched behave. It takes only 4-6 hours from the moment of hatching - and they no longer just waddle after hens
her for a walk, but also learn to look for
pasture.Now let's look at the statistics: chickens, which were provided with water and food during the first 16 hours of life, survive 20% better than young animals, who did not receive any food at all for a day or two. Finally, an argument from biologists: in the first hours, the internal organs are actively developed in the chicken's body, most of the stored energy is spent on this process, which must be replenished with something ...
Having understood all of the above, let's see how to feed the chicken. And, in fact, what can he find in the compound? "Dining room" with fresh grass, sand, insects and plant seeds. From this we will proceed.
The first two days of life, the chickens are fed with a chopped yolk of a steep egg with the addition of a small amount of semolina so that it does not stick together. You can also add a well-ground feather of chives and eggshell, peeled from the film. To stabilize digestion and colonize the intestines with microflora, fresh kefir is useful (you can take nonfat yogurt). That's just the chickens do not yet know how to peck liquid, you have to drink them from a syringe or pipette. These two days are the most difficult: you need to feed the chickens every two hours, including at night.
The next three days, the diet is almost unchanged, except that the yolk can already be given along with the protein, and kefir and pure boiled water are given in drinkers (necessarily separate).
Then in the diet we begin to increase the proportion of greens and at the same time reduce the proportion of kefir. Alfalfa and clover should be added to the chives. And give kefir like this: soak a little stale white bread in it, squeeze, crumble and pour into a feeder. In the diet, non-fat meat broth and fish oil should also appear at the rate of 0.2 g per day per head. It is important than to feed the chicken, in addition to organic matter, Sifted sand (for the prevention of stomach upsets) with mineral baits: crushed eggshells, shells, wood ash. You can feed less often - every 3-4 hours.
By this time, in principle, it will already be clear how to feed 10-day-old chickens. If they are almost deprived of walking, add vitamins to the arsenal of disease prevention, and twice a week with a very weak aqueous solution of potassium permanganate. It is already possible to refuse night feeding.
Now consider the question of how to feed weekly broiler chickens. Here, the methodology and diet are somewhat different.
The diet of the first three days of life: cereals or finely chopped corn, wheat, barley, peeled of films, as well as a mixture of wheat bran and well-grated steep eggs without shell or cottage cheese. It is distributed every 2 hours. Then they are fed with dry mixes, the basis of which is concentrated feed with additives (every 3-4 hours), and wet mixes (soft feed, 2-3 times a day). Starting on the fifth day, broilers are also given fish oil daily.
Finely chopped peas, clover, nettle, alfalfa, dandelion, sow thistle - this is what feed broiler chicken must be in the summer, starting from the 3rd day of life. From the age of 5 days, the diet is replenished with grass flour and sprouted grains, and from the 6-day age, red carrots and yellow pumpkin are added to the mixes. In addition, broilers are fed with mineral additives: crushed chalk, shells, bone meal, and starting from 10 days old - with gravel.