Beginner poultry farmers face a number of difficulties. Here, it would seem, cute yellow chickens - how to feed them? Newborn chicks are defenseless, so it is important to provide them with proper nutrition. Let's find out more about this.
Newborn Nutrition
Immediately after the birth of the chickens, they bite poorly. This does not mean that they do not need to be fed. On the contrary, food should be offered as often as possible, preferably every 2 hours. Until 10 days of age, the number of feedings should not be less than 5.
So, chickens hatched - how to feed them immediately after birth? The first time they give an egg, hard-boiled, chilled and finely chopped. One egg is enough for 15-20 individuals. It is necessary to ensure that everyone has enough food, since immediately after birth a period of active growth begins. How to feed the little chickens for variety and get vitamins and nutrients? Kids can be given fresh cottage cheese, a mixture of dry crushed grains of millet, corn, wheat, and boiled millet. From the third day of life, it is advisable to add fresh greens to the diet: nettle, alfalfa, clover.
How to feed weekly chickens and older individuals
In addition to the above, grated carrots, boiled potatoes are added to the diet . They are added to the mixers from the grain mixture. From the sixth day of life, dry and moistened mixtures begin to be administered. These are baker's yeast, beet tops, green grass, needles flour , carrots.
So the chickens have grown - how to feed them further? And then expand the diet due to crushed grain, a mixture of mealy feed with lake and river duckweed. After 10 days, the feedings are performed every 3-4 hours, and from the seventeenth day of life, the interval between feedings is 4-5 hours. It is good to give babies fish oil mixed with crushed grains for breakfast. For 1 chicken you need no more than 0.2 g. in a day.
And again the chickens grew up: how to feed the grown individuals? You can feed the chicks with barley or oatmeal, but sifted, because young animals do not digest grain films well. Boiled veal, ground veal bones, veal lungs, raw potatoes are given, between feeds - bone meal or chalk. All of the above also remains in the diet. We must not forget to water the chickens with water or warm milk.
Food secrets
To improve intestinal motility, newborn chicks are given a grain of pepper. Feed the food on half a box, and leave a drinker with water or milk nearby.
The liquid from the drinkers should not be spilled, as chickens get cold and get sick from sticking down fluff. Instead of water and pure milk, you can use a mixture of milk and a weak solution of potassium permanganate (or a special antibiotic), which cleans the stomachs of newborns from pathogenic bacteria and can save their lives.
Eggs that are used for feeding must be peeled and finely cut or ground through a sieve. When the kids have eaten, you need to examine their goiter. If it is full, then the chicken is full and will not die of hunger.
Hot food or water can cause the death of chicks, so all products need to be cooled. This also applies to boiled potatoes, eating which in the first 3 weeks of life provides an accelerated onset of egg laying.
The more varied the diet, the faster the kids will gain weight. Providing chickens with all useful substances and vitamins is the key to the future productivity and good taste of meat.