Tips:
Poultry vitamins are an inexpensive and easy way to provide vitamins and some minerals to our birds. They are available at feed stores for about $4. I use 1/4 teaspoon to a gallon of water and change the water daily. Give it a try and you will notice the birds perking up like they have been to the spa.Breeder Report:
Leng reports on his Border breeding season:
I just wanted to let you know that the soybean/broccoli mix worked
well for me. I ended up getting 21 chicks out of 4 hens this season.
I was consistent throughout the breeding season with feeding the
soybean/broccoli mix to the cock birds and non incubating hens twice a
day.
I was also very consistent with daily water changes and other
bird room chores.
I feed a small portion of the soybean mix in the morning and
another small portion in the evening a few hours before
the lights go out when I am home from work. I also start to add the
soybean/broccoli mix into the egg food for the hens with chicks that
are more than 8 days old.
I no longer feed any vegetables to hens with chicks that are less
than 8 days old after seeing healthy 3 day old chicks stuffed with
green peas in the evening die the next morning
with swollen red crops. I have no special reason for selecting the
8th day as the day when I start to introduce a small amount of soybean
mix except that the chicks look bigger and stronger after 8 days old.
Questions:
Wednesday:
Lissette asks "I need to know when to stop feeding my babies with egg food and boiled eggs?"
7 comments:
Lissette
It is important to stop feeding quartered hard boiled egg once the chicks are eating egg food well. The reason is that plain hard boiled egg greatly increases the protein in their diet and on a high protein diet they lose weight. If they lose too much they will not be strong enough to survive the baby molt.
I feed the egg food containing hard boiled egg till they have finished the molt, likely September, but decrease the number of times a day and amount as the summer progresses.
The birds are looking fantastic on the cous cous egg food recipe I recently posted. Currently, the older chicks are getting it twice a day and younger ones up to four times a day depending on how long they have been weaned.
Linda, Do you the Vi-dal every day? Do you think it would be good to use just before, and during song trials?
I use the Vi-tal vitamins every day but I stop all vitamins on seed and in the water a month before the first roller song competition.
Since rollers compete in an adolescent boys song, vitamins and minerals would make the song too harsh. I even use distilled water once they are caged to avoid any thing in the water.
I disagree with the use of "distilled water". I agree there is nothing bad in it, but there is nothing good either. May I suggest filtered water? I take a jug to the show to soften the tranistion to tap water in the holding room.
Hi Linda,
My eggfood mixture is 1 boiled egg to 100gr orlux dry to which I add about 1tablespoon of orlux sprouted seed and 2 tablespoons of thawed peas and corn. My birds love this mixture and it is what I intend on rearing youngsters on this year.
After reading Leng's report of chicks with stuffed pea crops, I'm worried that this might happen to me too..
I'm wondering whether you or any of the other bloggers have experienced a similar problem?
Secondly, I'm not home during thay day to offer a lunch time feeding, if I provided a dish of dry orlux and oats would that be a good substitute?
I dont want to give more eggfood in the morning than what can be eaten in an hour or so because I dont want any egg related outbreaks or spoiling.
I've found in the past that when given too much eggfood in the morning they pick out their favourite ingredients, scattering food in the cages which spoils in the sawdust and later causes disease outbreaks during mid breeding season, when it gets hotter..
Thanks,
Shawn
Shawn,
How exciting to be starting breeding season.
For breeding last season I used 4 cups dry nestling to six hard boiled eggs and then 1 lb of peas (thawed frozen peas).
The peas resulted in every Border feeding and I did not worry about how many peas I saw in the crop!
For a dry mix to keep in the cage for feeding try 4 cups of dry nestling to 1/2 cup of CeDe handrearing formula (has African grey parrot on the cover).
For weaning offer the handrearing formula straight to young weaning chicks.
It is 18% protein and you might be able to feed it straight depending on what you else they are feeding the chicks. It is not to strong for the chicks but I want to make sure it is not too much protein for the feeder if it is a border. If it is a foster of another variety, just use the handrearing straight as it is great for chicks.
Thanks Linda, will do as you suggested and let you know how it went.
Thanks again for al the excellent advice :)
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