NUTRITION 101 Q&A

Hi frans530. Yup, pellets are suppose to be more cost effective because they are harder to waste by grinding into dust and scratching into oblivion. I'm still not sure what the difference is between mash and crumbles--but mash is pretty fine and breaks down even finer. Great if you are a newly hatched chick--but quite wasteful if you are an enormous egg-laying pullet who should be eating layer pellets. Which your loving owner is providing. Errrrrrr!

Take the driest, most stale french bread you have ever seen in your life and hit it with a hammer. Hit it twice for crumbles, 10-15 times for mash. The mash we get is smaller than instant potato flakes. The crumbles look like irregular, falafel sized pieces of pellet. Or you could carefully cut a pellet into about 8 pieces to get a rough idea. Millet sized.

could not hqave said it better than that, grownut...

i always considered mash soemthing mixed with water.

crumbles are previously pelleted then crushed. they can turn dusty when old. you can add a little water to turn it into mash rather than throw it away, since they can't eat dust.


frans [et al], you can run your pellets through a blender to get a crumble consistency.../

claire, layer pellets is too high in Ca and too low in protein for chicks. you need chick starter for them, if it comes in pellets, see above...

one last hting:

TF -I know what you mean -mash oughtta have warm water and a little molasses or something. Is it supposed to be mixed with water or just another of those ubiquitous misnomers?

mis-nomer i suppose. i have never seen "mash" in a feed store or a bag... or even on the marquees...

oh my gosh.. would you guys speak where we can understand.. what the heck is meant by ubiquitous misnomers? In my head ? Never been seen, just word of mouth ?

Sorry, my bad upbringing -I was raised by an English teacher and an editor- family skeleton. I meant> everybody all over the place calling stuff something it's not. ubiquitous>too da*n many, misnomers>mis-named (we also use "the U word" as a family joke for anything that's way over talked about or heard too much or simply everywhere -Ronald McDonald, Michael Phelps, and The Chicken Fairy on a busy day...)

We have mash (bags that puff powder every time you touch them) crumbles (what I get) and pellets (what should bemore economical if we could get our spoiled birds to eat 'em) Took me forever to figure out why I kept getting different sizes, shapes, and colors of chicken feed.

OK, I'm feeling far more informed about the differences between mash and crumbles now. I am sure that the layer feed we got (Nature Wise by Nutrena) is crumbles. The first feed I got was Layana (or something like that) and it was pellets. I don't think I've seen mash yet, then, because nothing I've seen is really powdery. It's more like granola bits. Small granola. Probably doesn't taste like granola though - I haven't tried it! LOL!!

My new chicken, Red Rosie (sans beak) is doing just fine so far on the crumbles. She's also enjoying her daily cottage cheese and oatmeal. What a spoiled girl!

I haven't had to start the other 3 hens on the crumbles yet because I still had some of the pellets. I hope that when I start them on the crumbles, they won't refuse to consider pellets in future...
Claire

Ok now my girls like the peanuts, still to early to tell if they make the eggs bigger...LOL but the same person that gave me the peanuts has given me some cheeze that is old.. How much is too much cheeze for my girls and roo's...

I got to say they are really getting spoiled and growing, the roos are getting pretty...

cheese? you are asking the wrong gal... i have heard of them eating cheezit crackers, and i occasionally give mine milk.... so why not?

one importatn thing to consider is that they have an opportuinty to BALANCE their diet. if they do not free range, then you should be careful and sparing what they give them. like a kid with candy popcorn and penauts, they will fill up without getting much needed nutritional balance...

I give my girls about a tablespoon of cottage cheese some mornings for a treat. They are regular size hens. The bantams get a little less. Red Rosie the rescue (currently VERY skinny) gets a little more cottage cheese, mixed with oatmeal and olive oil and crumbles. She is the one missing most of her beak though, so she has a hard time eating.

My MIL calls all crumble mash. Claims her mothers (when she kid) would eat the dust? I don't think so. How can they even see it?? I believe I read it is the commercial egg producers that like the mash (would think they would have to mix with water or something). Book I read claimed easier for chickens that don't move much to digest. Chick starter & game starter I get here is same size as crumbles I get for banties. The pellet I was buying is much smaller than I bought years ago (what I would consider more of a crumble size). They claim, easier for chicken to eat. I claim wasteful.

One question, I started giving my standards & banties SS. They are leaving it. Wild birds getting most. I buy the black oiled SS. Peafowl (and Pheasants I had) love it. Chickens did and still seem to leave. Do they need shelled seeds, raw or??

Pea ~ Cheryl

Not to make fun... and on this subject I am ignorant... but I find it halarious.. I picture my ladies sitting around the kiddie pool on their recliners shelling their sunflower seeds and eating the innereds.. kind of like us with pistasios..gossip-ing away.. LMBO

I don't think they can shell SS.. now would someone without a cartoon mind please answer the question seriously?

My hens won't eat sunflower seeds whole. The roosters on the other hand finish 'em off in no time flat. The girls will wait very patiently for us to crack open the seeds for them (they do gather and sit on the porch with us for this), then gobble them down. My scratch grains mix has shelled sunflower in it. Rooster scratch (which we get when the feed store is out of regular) has whole sunflower seed.

This message was edited Aug 23, 2008 6:30 AM

I do have a question and maybe I have asked it before but forgot. I have a mix of birds, the only 2 that are seperate for now are the turkeys. What would i feed to the whole flock, chicks under 16 weeks and hens and roos over 16 weeks and keets that are 5 weeks old????? I have one large feeder and they are not free range right now.

tia, can you put the chicks feeder in a corner, and put a wire caddy corner there where the larger birds can't get through? that is what i do...

also, providing a mixed grain, like i described above, is satisfactory for all the birds [once they are off starter], as they will eat accroding to the nutrition they need...

frans, i didn't have a cartoon mind, but asfter reading your post, i will ATTEMPT to answer Cherly's Q...:

they can eat the SS. they don't want to. maybe they are watching their wastlines [high in fat]. even our little King Pigeon, our seabrights, the OEGs, and little nankin can eat them... put some lard out and see if they refuse that also LOL. so stop feeding the wild birds [they carry disease, i have them fenced out of the feeding area], don't put out more than what they will eat, or anythiung they won't eat. in the fall they will have a desire to fatten up for the winter, try again then...

grownut, i just don't know WHAT to say... ;-)

Thanks again, TF. I was having blabber mouth guilt complex -administer one half gallon Cherry Garcia Ice Cream orally...

tf & Frans, lol... Thanks! I wondered about that. I mean the tiny finches & starlings love them, just the way I buy. Can't keep em away from the ss and other grains (they don't like the layer either), suckers fly right through the 2" poultry wire and I have no cover over these guys. Maybe I should, something I will be working on, just finished the peafowl pen not too long ago. So, until it gets a bit colder, I will hold out on them. They certainly don't eat or beg like they are watching their waist lines! Then, my theory back in place, if you are hungry, you will eat it. Works with kids & dogs, will work with hens.

Cheryl ~ Pea

just takes longe rwith hens LOL

grownut, did you bring enough to SHARE?

Most definitely I'll share. Did you think I could finish that alone?? (don't ask!; )

I'll bring Haagen Dasz Sesame Brittle Reserve ice cream to the party...

Ooooooo. Birds and sunflower seeds. Bird ladies and ice cream. Ooooooo. Is it still in Joplin?

we'll have the Chick City gathering here soon. BYOicecream LOL.... I'll have the Schwan's Decadent chocolate Raspberry...

If we keep talking this way I'll be too fat to go!!( How much could I go through between now and then!?!)

ps. Was this a NUTRITION thread?

This message was edited Aug 24, 2008 11:41 AM

yep..
So lets talk Milo... Tell me why I might want to pay $85. for a 50 lb. bag here in IL for Milo.. I mean is it a miricle.. will my girls lay golden eggs? Can I just use corn? Cracked or whole?

Oh, here's a very handy nutrition link on toxic plants.

http://www.poultryhelp.com/toxicplants.html

thanks Claire.... where in the world are theycharging you eighty five bucks [did i read that right?] for one bag.... 50 pound is standard size... though when referring ot the cost of feed we often say so much per hundred.... did i have a typo again?

Milo here is just over $17 per 50 lb bag. Frans are you sure they are not quoting you a couple hundred lbs price? Maybe they thought you needed gold or silver? lol Sorry, but that is a huge price! I thought the mid-west was the grain capital of the country / world. Who can afford that! I thought $17+ was bad! Still gonna check around for better price tho.

Cheryl ~ Pea

will check my reciepts, but i was thinking around 10, didn't i post it above?

gee, it is just a carb filled grain. you could probably substitute millet or a dleuxe mixed grain wild bird seed... and it will already have the SS in it...

ok.. Maybe I am exaggerating.. it was $8.57 for a 5# bag.. I just assumed that 10 bags would equal 50# and $8.57 X 10 would = $85.57.. I haven't actually found it in a 50# bag yet.

that is still TOO HIGH. find another feed store. buy a two week supply and make it worth your drive... i have seen 25# bags of starter for around 8, and thought THAT was ridiculous...

Depends on where you're located. Out here Orscheln's is the cheapest and their 18% chick med. starter is around $9-10.

You must realize we are in the center of the corn belt.. corn is very reasonable.. anything that would compete with corn would be concidered a threat to our farmers survival and probably be at a very high cost to discourage usage. Just my business mind working here.. not sure if that is true...
But after reading all about Milo.. tf.. explain to me the whys I want to use it over corn again.. it really seems like the same exact product to me, except in growing it is much more drough tolorant.. but is used exactly as corn is.. and isn't sorguhm a sugar just as the carbs in corn?

Don't peck at me .. really asking when I mention to the "corn" farmer the "heat" problem with his corn in the summer with the chickesn... he called me some sort of city folk name.. spit some cud.. kicked his boot and walked away... mumbling of course.. that is after I went to buy hay from him.. paid full, fair price and, as a nice stupid city girl would.. help this old farmer unload 6 flatbeads of hay on the conveyor belt... oh well.. I am learning...

K, it's late & I should be in bed, but have to ask. What about Soy? One of the feed stores here has soy, no milo. Still seems a high price, but when I used it years ago, found it to be very dusty & birds didn't seem to eat it. Anyone ever tried & had success? What would be the advantages? disadvantages? I have 4 feed stores I can choose from, just hard to get there during their hours (one only on Sat). Have 2 more to check for milo, millet or??? Had someone else checking prices for me at the 1st two, wondering if I got the right info now???

Cheryl ~ Pea

Cheryl whay are you still doing up??

Same as you, I suppose....lol. Would say 'I can't sleep', but haven't tried yet. Doing so now.......nite!

good night! sweet dreams

well, frans, for a city girl, you know you stuff and a hard worker too. i wouldn't do business with that nut again!

i guess if you are paying out the wazzoo for milo, and corn is cheap, go with it. if you can get it non-gmo, all the better...

Can I feed my hens mesquite beans? We are having a bountiful crop this year and they are all wormy so I can't harvest them and make flour. The coyotes, javalinas and dogs eat them, but what about the chickens?
Thanks for the help,
Kathy