What to feed - sooooo confused!

[kathyd]

Hi

Moved to Brittany this summer, and with more space and time to play with, and having always wanted to keep chickens, have now picked up 6 as layers. 3 are a year old - 2 french hybrids and one maran. The other 3 are apparently Shetland chickens (hoping for blue eggs..) now around 16 weeks -ish, 2 hens and one cockerel with twisted toes (he came free, and would have been 'put down' if I didn't take him...). I read loads of stuff about chicken keeping and have asked various ppl for advice, and now I'm totally confused. Help!

I started by giving them layers' pellets, but they pretty much ignored these in favour of scrabbling round their run, which is quite generous but not massive. I worried a bit but they seemed fine so I still give them pellets, but then read I should give them grain - preferably wheat - at bedtime as well to see them through the night. So I added wheat to the menu, and they do like this.

Then I read/was told I could and possibly even should mix grain a bit at this time of year so I've now bought a bag of mixed grain labelled as 'complet' for layers, add extra wheat to dilute things a bit and give them this at bedtime instead.

THEN I start worrying about them not eating pellets and the lack of insects with the colder weather, and reading about making them a hot breakfast (??), so I'm giving a small amount of the mixed grain in the morning when they wake up, and still leaving the pellets out all day - and collecting them all in again at night almost untouched. Also grit and water of course.

They get occasional snacks or treats, but not a lot. And someone has just told me it sounds as though I'm fattening them up for Xmas!! Lol . But seriously, I don't want to make them fat, I just have no idea what to give them any more... The maran is apparently overweight already according to her previous owners, but I wouldn't know - she's all feathers and looks huge compared to all the others. And please don't suggest I pick her up and squeeze bits of her to find out, I can't catch them as yet! Don't think the older ones have ever been handled, although the younger ones are quite friendly and will sit on me and eat from my hand.

I have lots of questions, but my first priority definitely has to be about what I should actually be feeding them, how much and how often please...

Thanks
Kathy

[RichmondHens]

Firstly, just layers pellets is fine. Most people for ease of management (including myself) fill a hopper and let the hens feed ad lib throughout the day. If you do have a problem with overweight hens then a measured feed given morning and mid afternoon (if you can - obviously if you are out during the day then this is not practical) means the greedy ones don't stuff themselves all day and put on too much weight. Grain ideally should only be fed as a treat late afternoon, a couple of handfuls between 6 hens is ample. They really don't need anything else but of course veg and fruit scraps given in moderation plus the odd leftover bread/potatoes/pasta etc is fine, again feed late afternoon as a treat so they consume the "proper" feed over the main part of the day. The one thing you can be sure of is that unless they are ill or being bullied, chickens don't starve themselves. Just offer the pellet, they will get used to it and although may not eat much while you are watching you can be sure they are when you are not there! If you feel their crops at night they should be reasonably full. Handling chickens, especially new ones or flighty ones is best done at night when they have gone to bed and are sleeping. You can open up the hen house quietly and stroke the birds on the perch to get them used to you. Any inspections can be done at night too, with the aid of a powerful torch. I wear a head torch to keep my hands free. TBH I rarely catch mine up during the day unless they are particularly tame, leaving all the fiddly stuff to after nightfall when they are much more co-operative.

[petal]

They sound lovely. Offer layers ad lib with grit until the afternoon. At that point give a little corn as a treat- it takes longer to digest and is better for a snack before bed time. They will eat the layers when they get hungry, just like a dog gives in and eats dog biscuits, eventually!

[jessmorris]

Aye, its often a battle of wills with my collie. He waits, looking uninterested in his dinner, to see if I will put anything tastier in it to encourage him to eat it. When I first had him I had to hand feed him to start with and he wouldn't eat his dinner if I was out of sight....but he's quite happy eating out of the compost bucket, chicken poo, or live voles he digs up.
Dogs.

[Nicos]

Kathy- hi! Can you please put your rough location into your profile?- It'll help in future questions/answers, as 'things' are a bit different over in France!

I have geese,layers,fatteners ,teenage chicks and week old chicks running together in a section of field behind the house. They are protected behind an electric fence we bought from the UK.

Feeding is a nightmare as you can imagine! Geese can't eat chook food- the fatteners need more fattening and if the layers get too fat then they'll stop laying...added to the fact that we give the babies crumb .
We feed them all a farmhouse mix from Agrial.
When the geese and fatteners have gone for their 'hols' we'll go back to layers pellets from Agrial with some maize concasse. In the winter we make porridge as an early morning treat with value oats we bring over from the UK.

The idea is that pellets are a complete nutritionally balanced diet- so in theory they shouldn't need anything else!
Have you noticed how many of your neighbours just chuck in veg peelings and dry bread? I bet they were lucky to get even that during German occupation ( if they managed not to get caught and eaten!)
I do sort of chuckle a bit at how paranoid I used to get about feeding the right stuff- now I seem to be a tad more flexible

Marans eggs?...mmm- lovely colour!

[kathyd]

Thanks for the reassurance RichmondHens - it sounds as though I was doing pretty much the right thing in the first place and have just got confuzzled and worried by over-reading and asking too many questions! Good idea about checking them out at night - will have to see if I can actually reach them when they're roosting - the coop is one of those small back-garden types bought in the UK, not a walk-in one, and I'm not sure how accessible they'll be once inside - I'll have to give it a try!

Petal - thanks for the words of advice - they'll definitely look forward to their bedtime nosh, as will I - it's our 'friendly' time together when they get nosey and chat to me.

Nicos - I think I've added my location to my profile although it's not showing up as I write this reply. If it still doesn't show I'll try again. You sound like you have a real challenge on your hands . Our maran either hasn't laid at all yet, OR she's laying very pale eggs, not the lovely dark brown I was expecting.. I know she won't lay like the others a) cos of her breed and b) cos she's a fatty (or so I'm told), but she has got so excited a couple of times I'm sure at least a few of the eggs are her's - she's one of those who likes lots of attention and praise . She tends to climb in with one of the other french hybrids when they go to lay, and sometimes there's one egg and sometimes 2 afterwards, although curiously always both in the same nest box - different coloured eggs and different sizes though, so not from the same hen! I think the maran (Dotty) is actually sometimes pretending she's laid when she hasn't, just to look good and get around Tony, who was heard to mutter 'six euros eh? That's good value when you look at the price of chicken in the Intermarche'. I think she must have heard him .