New show

[BUFFS]

did anyone see the first of the shows on the new horticultural channel,according to their expert you should give the birds fistfulls of cracked corn with veggie scraps"then as the weather gets warmer,you can give them some layers pellets,to promote laying",if i remember correctly.there was enough corn there to keep my birds going for 3+ days,have i been doing it wrong?,i thought it was pellets in the a.m. and veggie bits + any corn p.m..a few of the birds he had seemed a bit weedy looking to me and was surprised that "birds should survive down to -10deg ,his birds would be just annuals round here then...

[petal]

Yeah, mine get layers am then corn pm. Sometimes they get tomatoes etc for treats and sometimes they fight over a frog....

[petal]

what new horticultural channel? Is it on sky??!!!

[RichmondHens]

The traditional way of feeding just grain plus scraps to hens used to be ok when they were allowed to totally free range, like on a farm. The hens could forage ad lib for what they needed and would lay reasonably well kept this way.

Nowadays there are two problems with feeding hens like this - firstly most hens these days are kept in coops, pens or enclosures. Even with large enclosures you are still limiting the foraging area and therefore limiting the diet. Therefore the protein they would normally find themselves has to be provided by us in the form of pelleted feed. Secondly, "modern" hens have been bred to produce more eggs and therefore the protein demand is higher. I imagine that good old fashioned farmyard fowl only laid daily for a comparatively short first season and from then onwards production slowed. But to counteract this they probably lasted longer as their systems were not put under so much stress.

[BUFFS]

on chan 166 sky,every 2 weeks,started yesterday @9am,so next one is sunday week,covers various subjects,and not done by television "luvvies",generally not bad,good for beginners..except for chooks..