How to feed chickens in the country?

Eggs and meat obtained from domestic chickens are considered delicacy and have a high cost, so it is reasonable to raise the issue of breeding a bird in its home garden.

The breeding of chickens at the dacha is an undertaking that requires your constant participation. You will have to come there every day to check if everything is in order, to feed your pets and collect the eggs they have brought down.

At first, it may seem that the question of what to feed chickens is not particularly relevant nowadays, as specialized stores offer a large selection of balanced chicken feeds. This food for chickens and chickens contains all vitamins and microcells necessary for poultry.

Nevertheless, it must be remembered that when feeding the poultry only with mixed fodder, the quality of the domestic eggs will be the same as that of the shops. But if you want to get tasty and very useful eggs, then the bird needs to ensure proper nutrition.

Therefore, it is necessary to dwell on the issue of feeding in more detail.

What to feed chickens in summer

In the warm season, the bird looks reluctantly towards the filled mixed fodder, because there are many other more delicious food around. With free-range chickens eat different bugs, worms, larvae, do not forget to peck green grass and all that ripens in the garden. In general, if you can release them on free bread, then in the summer the problem of feeding will be reduced to a minimum. In the summer, it is desirable to feed the chicken with mixed fodder less often, none of us (except for the producers) know what it is actually made from and how useful. Eating it, the feathery cast doubt on and benefit the eggs they carried.

In the summer, chickens are content with any food leftovers from the owners table. The exception is salty and excessively sweet food, giving it to hens is by no means impossible. A treat for them is wheat.

If there is no natural reservoir at or near the site, the container with water should be changed once a day.

What to feed chickens in winter

In winter, in the absence of pasture, the issue of bird nutrition should be given more attention. You can keep chickens in warm or cold chicken coops. Experienced poultry farmers argue that the room is lighter and warmer, the better the bird feels, eats better. As a consequence egg production increases. But here there were pitfalls. The fact that the chicken - this is not an automatic machine for the production of eggs. Like nature, it needs a winter rest. Therefore, the premises for keeping the bird should be light, but rather cool to give chickens the opportunity to rest from the production of eggs. By the way, I want to note that most of the breeds of chickens tolerate 30 degrees of frost, while strengthening their immunity. From them in the spring you will get large, nutritious and delicious eggs.

It should be noted that, while wintering in such Spartan conditions, chickens continue to be carried at the slightest warming. Of course, in a smaller amount than in the summer, but still rushing.

For laying hens it is quite difficult to make a nutritional mixture by hand, so the main dish for them in winter is mixed feed, and the remains from the dinner table of the owners.

To ensure full nutrition of the birds, it is better to feed them with chicken feed in winter, since it includes all the necessary vitamins and microelements. Periodically, you can give a germinated grain.

If the bird is in the pen and can not move freely around the site, then in the henhouse, there must certainly be small pebbles, coarse sand or gravel, which, getting into the stomach, helps to process the feed.

The question of chicken drinking in winter is decided by itself, since they like frost and snow more than water. But if the bird does not go out into the street at all, then water can not be dispensed with. Before you feed the chickens, you need to change the water in the water bowl.

With the right selection of the breed, this bird will become the simplest in keeping livestock on your backyard, which will always delight in beauty and valuable food!