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Poultry Feed & Bedding
Feeding Poultry
Feeding your chickens couldn’t be made easier with Mole Valley Farmer’s extensive range of poultry feed.
Choosing the right feed for your chickens depends on the age of the chicken.
If you are rearing chicks, they should be fed on chick crumbs from day one up until they are 2-4 weeks old, slowly changing from chick crumbs to poultry pellets. Poultry pellets can be fed to chickens until they are 16-18 weeks old at a rate of approximately 120g* per head per day. By the time the chickens are 20 weeks old they should be moved into laying accommodation and be fed layers pellets or layers mash. This feed gives a good balance in their diets to maintain good health and healthy egg production. Once the pullet starts to lay it is called a hen.
*Feed quantities are approximate and may need to be increased or decreased according to the breed and size of the birds being fed. The amount of natural forage, such as grass and worms that are being consumed will also affect feeding rates. The quantities given here are calculated on a medium sized breed / warren type bird.
Chickens are great waste disposal units, they especially love greenery and, if fed to them, the eggs they produce will be lower in cholesterol and contain more omega 3. They enjoy access to grass and fresh greens such as cabbage leaves as well as insects, worms and seeds but remember they cannot achieve their laying potential on grain or scraps alone.
Clean, fresh drinking water should be available to the chickens at all times. Under cold conditions additional amounts of water will be consumed.
Chickens don’t have teeth so mixed grit or oyster shell should be fed alongside poultry pellets. This acts as tiny millstones, breaking up the food in the gizzard and enabling the chickens to get maximum nutrition from their food. A hen’s crop is only capable of holding about 100g of food, so it is adviseable not to mix grain or corn with pellets, as the birds will tend to go for the grain first, fill their crops and then be unable to eat sufficient pellets. This can often lead to problems as the birds will not be receiving a balanced diet, which may affect their laying potential. If corn is fed to your chickens, it must only be done so as a treat (maximum of 20g per bird per day) in the afternoons.
Feeders must be kept clean and removed from the run at night to discourage vermin – rats bring disease.
A common misconception is that there is no need to feed layers pellets or meal to hens that are not laying because they are going through a moult, or to pullets before they come into lay. In fact, both these periods are times when a hen particularly needs protein. If adequate food is not given then laying performance will be affected in the future.
