Feeding
If you feed your birds a good quality product they use this to live healthy produce great feathering and in most cases produce a continous supply of eggs. But if fed the wrong stuff all these things will begin to slide which can be dissapointing and also upsetting for you. We feed our birds different food throughout the year in winter we feed an ordinary layers pellet and in summer we feed a breeders pellet wheat and a small amount of soya and maise this has proven to be beneficial to us also we would add bird seed towards early summer to give the birds the boost needed for breeding and give's us good healthy birds and good strong growers.
Pellets or Mash
Mash used to be the more common feed but in recent times the pellet has become the most used feed for poultry. Pellets are more convenient to use they flow out of feeders better if they are dry also birds find pellets easier to find on the ground if dropped, the pellets consist of a full range of dietry requirements for poultry. Pellets sill look like food when they hit the ground so if they fall they will be used Mash is cheaper and is now more used in the commercial raising of poultry it take longer to eat but it has its cons to it fouls water and if spilled it goes to waist . It mainly is used in commercial rearing to prevent feather pecking because are crowded and get bored easily so the mash keeps them busy.
Storage
We feel that storage of feed is very important, you can buy the best food in the country but if it gets damp it will spoil very quickly. Stale feed is a real no no for poultry keepers firstly it looses its vitamin content and secondly old damp food can become a place infested with dust mites. Food is only made to last for a maximun of three months after that it starts to lose its goodness and becomes stale. The best way to stop all this is to store the food in a dry clean container out of direct sun light and the containers should be cleaned out and washed well before refilling with fresh feed. Never leave food in its paper sack as this is a big no no as dampness sets in quickly also the sacks are a party ground for rodents eg: rats, mice and wild birds these bring in mites and disease which we try so hard to keep out. The main types of feed we use are chick crumb, growers pellets, layers pellets, breeders pellets and fattening pellets for our birds for the table. So overall keep the feed in either large storage buckets with lids or the black dustbins you can buy these from any local hardware or Woodies store.
