Friday, March 1, 2013

Feeding the Sitting Hen

After laying her last egg, I only feed the hen her regular wheat germ oil blend coated seeds and a dish of hemp hearts along with water. Seems the hemp hearts encourages her to maintain a good incubation temperature and be content sittiing all day even without a male in her cage. She should not be feed greens or egg containing nestling food during sitting.
Hemp Hearts, a product from Alberta Canada,  is sold for human consumption and  available at my health food store. Since they are hulled hearts and won't sprout, they are not inactivated in any way. Sitting hens eat very little overall but they do eat some hemp hearts!

As I started to sit down for breakfast this morning, Lucca had a different idea!
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3 comments:

  1. UnknownMarch 1, 2013 at 1:13 PM

    Hi Linda,

    Do you stop feeding the hemp hearts when the eggs hatch? So basically you feed the hen hemp hearts from the time the last egg is hatched until the eggs hatch?

    Thanks,

    Vivie

    ReplyDelete
  2. Linda HoganMarch 1, 2013 at 6:38 PM

    I feed the hemp hearts free choice from the time the last egg is laid until the chicks hatch. I do not remove it, I just quit refilling it after chicks hatch. Probably once a week I add a little more on top. There is also hulled hemp in my seed mix.

    Hulled hemp will not sprout so it has not been inactivated in any way. It is expensive or I would feed it more often.

    ReplyDelete
  3. VerenaJuly 19, 2013 at 2:56 AM

    This is cool!

    ReplyDelete