fish meal, peanutbutter, etc. for chooks

[MsPony]

I've been noticing my ladies are "thin", I can feel their kiel bones. I didn't think much of it, they have unlimited feed pellets, seed mixes and forage bugs and grass, as they are free range. I asked my vet today and she said to up protein & fat, she wants them fatter. They are brahmas, black langshan, blue wynadotte, cuckoo maran & two bantees. Bantees don't lay eggs, so they are still nice and fat.

She suggested oatmeal w/ peanut butter or almond butter mixed in. Also frying up hambuger meat, sausage, etc. It goes w/o saying, good organic quality meats and soaked oatmeals.

Everyones on chick food atm because of the two little ones, I mixed in fish meal from my trusted local feed store. I want to switch them to azure standards chick feed, as my current one (while organic) is corn, soy, sea kelp meal and DE. The older ladies get amazing quality calcium/phosphorous.

Any other suggestions? Also how much fish meal to chick feed should I do? I'm always looking to better my knowledge and flock

 

[lorieMN]

I wouldnt worry about it,,if they are getting enough they are fine,,they sound like they are getting enough to eat,good laying hens you should be able to feel the keel bone,fat hens will not lay eggs,or at least not as well

 

[MsPony]

The vet (she's chicken specific) says its too prominent :/ lol I just thought they were lean because they don't sit around all day in a pen.

 

[chickenvirgin]

My free range laying hens are pretty lean too, I think that is just the nature of the beast. Now saying that......I feed my hens all the left overs from the house and that includes the fats from making stocks weither it's chicken or beef and bacon fat and they are still thin. I have noticed that there are a few that are over two years old and are not laying anymore and they are bigger and nicer feathered than the ones that are laying!

 

[MsPony]

Yeah, she said it had to do with egg laying. Ill start giving them meats w/ the grease. Mmmm (ew.)

Has anyone used fishmeal or sea kelp?

 

[Cindlady2]

My hens were getting thin for a while too.... found out they had roundworm! After I wormed them they started to put on weight again.( all but 1 that had them real bad) I also gave them peanut butter, oats and hamburger over the winter because they need more fat to fight the cold in winter.

 

[MsPony]

Last fecal I had done at random came back negative. Ill grab some more anyways this week, just in case.

Fed them stew meat tonight! I don't eat meat but everyone else does, so I just pick out the meat. They went hog wild over it

 

[MsPony]

I think that's the problem. I don't eat meat, or oatmeal/peanut butter/etc, so I unintentionally just don't feed it. I don't even buy meat They get veggies as their fresh food, and whatever hubby doesn't eat at a restaraunt. (Last summer, it was a lot of lobster/crab lol.)

 

[keljonma]

For extra protein, TR and I used to feed The Ladies bluegill, perch, trout, salmon; usually fish we caught ourselves. Just scale, cut them up and put them in the farmyard.

Sometimes, we would find canned mackerel or salmon at a very good price (advise you check can for origins, for quality purposes).

Besides foraging two acres, and feed, we also fed oats, BOSS, homemade yogurt and cottage cheese, along with a variety of vegetarian/grain based foods, like lentils and bulgar.

We intentionally never fed The Ladies something we would not purchase to eat. Of course, The Ladies being chickens, they will run the farmyard for a fat frog or tasty grasshoppers.

Good luck.... if you find worms, I have heard good things about Verm-X.


edited for typos.....

 

[~gd]

C an you buy/grow black oil Sunflower seeds (not the big striped seeds though they are better than nothing) the black seeds are grown for their oil, all birds seem to love them and both the oil and the protein in the seeds are very high quality. Unprocessed peanuts are great too. Chickens soon learn to shuck them and eat the seeds (this is the feed that made Smithfield ham famous) again they are high in oil and protein and raw unprocessed peanuts are a heck of a lot cheaper than peanut butter. Fish Meal has become more expensive than it used to be but is a great source of protein and minerals that might be exhausted in your local soil I include it my breeding ration and the birds do much better than on the usual corn/soya chicken feed. I haven't seen fish oil in quanity in years but it is loaded with vitamins as well as fats. As far as that goes plain old corn is loaded with fats in the form of oills and is the traditional feed to fatten birds for the table. when us people are eating sweet corn on the cob I give the birds all the cobs and their beaks remove every trace that human teeth have missed. they will fight over them.