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Organic feed?
Our farm here at Abels Bay is an organic farm. We
use only fertilizers that are organic, we use only sprays which are
allowed to be used by certified organic farmers. The
only non-organic component that enters our farm is chook food.
Wouldn’t it be great if we could feed our chooks organic
feed? Unfortunately organic chook feed is so expensive that we are not
able to do this. A certified organic egg farm in our area has recently
stopped to produce organic eggs for this reason. We hope this
situation may change in the future when more and more people ask for
organic products and are prepared to pay a higher price for these.
How
much do they need?
Chooks need an average of 110g of feed per day.
They need protein to lay well. Layer pellets are available at the pet
supply stores and they range in price from $14 to $25 or more for
25kg. They contain a balanced diet for egg layers, but the more
expensive the pellets are the higher is the protein content. Check the
protein level on the bag before you buy. Budget pellets may only
contain 12% to 13% of protein while more expensive pellets can contain
16% or more.
Chooks love to eat grain. On cold winter evenings
we feed a grain mixture in addition to pellets. The chooks digest the
grain during the night and this heats their bodies.
Shell grit is included in layer pellets. Chooks
need to eat shell grit to form the shells of the eggs. We always
provide them with additional containers with shell grit.
Home-grown
chook food
All our chooks free-range and they find a large
percentage of their food (such as greens and worms and insects)
themselves as they forage. Greens are an important part of the diet
for chooks. If they do not have access to free-range they should be
fed greens daily.
In the future we want to provide the chooks with
as much organic food as possible by
growing our own feed crops. We currently experiment with green manure
which we sow in fenced areas between April and August. In October we
will plant vegetables here. By July/August the green manure has grown
to a stage where the chickens are allowed into these areas. They feed
on the green manure, break it up, scratch it into the soil and get rid
of any pests they can find. While they feed on the green manure crop
they prepare the area for the next planting and now play a
multi-purpose role in our sustainable way of gardening. Lucerne, oats,
barley, canola, silver beet, cabbages are some of the greens that we
consider planting as feed crops in the future.
Chickens eat kitchen scraps but we never have
anything left for them. Our kitchen scraps go to the pigs!
Chickens are omnivores and eat meat as a source
of protein. Our chickens find worms and insects as they free-range and
other than layer pellets we do not feed them with extra protein but
meat and bone meal could be used for this purpose.
We do not mix our own wet mashes as chook feed.
Alanna Moore lists a number of such recipes in “Backyard Poultry
– Naturally.”
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