Food and beverages Food and beverages    FAQ   Search   Memberlist   Usergroups   Register   Profile   Log in to check your private messages   Log in  Birds eating feed          Food and beverages Forum Index -> Food and beverages View previous topic :: View next topic   Author Message solwisesteve Guest Posted: Thu May 31, 2007 10:14 am    Post subject: Birds eating feed Just a long shot really... Chickens are in the open air and twice a day we scatter food on the ground for them. Problem is, soon after scattering the food, after we've walked away, the crows and pidgeons come down and scoff up the feed! Any ideas, apart from shoot all the crows and pidgeons? :-) Steve Back to top   Ads Advertising Sponsor Jill Guest Posted: Thu May 31, 2007 10:14 am    Post subject: Re: Birds eating feed solwisesteve wrote: Quote: Just a long shot really... Chickens are in the open air and twice a day we scatter food on the ground for them. Problem is, soon after scattering the food, after we've walked away, the crows and pidgeons come down and scoff up the feed! Any ideas, apart from shoot all the crows and pidgeons? :-) Steve Chickens should not be fed scattering food outside! Get a hopper feeder of an appropriate size to the number of birds and hang it at the birds head height in the housing they occupy There are very good reasons for this :- scatter feeding / feeding outside :- - does not give the birds enough food - increases the contamination of their food by the wild birds [the likes of the corvids and pheasants especially can carry] - increases the likelihood of rodent vermin - increases the amount of wastage of the feed so wasting money - increases the potential for botulism with birds eating remains of rotten food - good disease biosecurity quidleines require food fed indoors. The birds prefer it. They will also eat more in the morning before being let out which means they have a crop full of good nutritious food before going out and about so gaining the best start to the day. What they get on range is useful and interesting but VERY variable and not the best food for making lots of good eggs reliably as well as keeping the birds in best condition for a long life To judge the size of hopper -- allow around 200g per bird per day [this is very over generous but an easy figure] and multilpy that but the number of days you want to leave between filling it up. AKA - 3 kg feeder will keep 5 birds more than happy for 3 days of layers pellets or meal. The feed they should be getting in the hopper is always layers ration -- pellets or meal. Any whole grains should be limited to wheat in the summer and to less than 1 ounce per bird per day and only fed in the late afternoon. This can be scattered somewhere like the next patch of weeds you want the birds to work at. If you have REALLY cold wet weather in the winter then you can feed Mixed grain but there are very few places in the UK where this is advisable for any length of time. If grains are fed too much to good productive birds it can cause a lot of solid fatty deposits inside the body cavity and liver failure. Most good range has PLENTY of variety of seeds, bugs, and greenery to keep birds topped up with interest so whole grains are just not needed in the summer. Grains are slow to digest, unlike the layers ration, so feeding earlier simply fills up the crop so limiting the intake of either range or properly balanced food - aka layers ration. They are fine for birds to go to bed on. -- regards Jill Bowis Pure bred utility chickens and ducks Housing; Equipment, Books, Videos, Gifts Herbaceous; Herb and Alpine nursery Working Holidays in Scotland http://www.kintaline.co.uk Back to top   Ads Advertising Sponsor solwisesteve Guest Posted: Thu May 31, 2007 3:27 pm    Post subject: Re: Birds eating feed On May 31, 8:28 am, "Jill" <n...@NOSPAMkintaline.co.uk> wrote: Quote: Get a hopper feeder of an appropriate size to the number of birds and hang it at the birds head height in the housing they occupy Gotcha :-) But we have a house very similar to your Windsor model. This is plonked down in a netted area. We tried having a food hopper in this netted area but the chickens would spend all day emptying the hopper onto the ground around the hopper. After 2 days the entire contents of a 5Kg hopper were emptied onto the grass which was a) expensive and b) created a total mess and an even bigger vermin problem! Prior to this we had the Windsor in an area with an integral roof and netting walls. However we still had the same problem with them emptying the hopper :-( So I suppose the question is, if you use a hopper (which could arrange to be in a covered area) how do you stop the little bu**ers emptying it onto the ground? Back to top   Ads Advertising Sponsor solwisesteve Guest Posted: Fri Jun 01, 2007 2:36 pm    Post subject: Re: Birds eating feed On Jun 1, 8:10 am, "Jill" <n...@NOSPAMkintaline.co.uk> wrote: Quote: Pekins with layers pellets. Try using a layers meal - dry. 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