Don't waste a crumb of chicken feed nutrition - feed it to your mealworms

[@michellebarbour5777]

I'm always so happy when I notice you've made a new video - full of calm science and experience. In the UK, there is a complete pellet food called 'Marriages'. I've fed the organic pellets from this company for 8 years. always been briliant. The ingredients and protien sources and levels are printed on the sack. Perfect. I need to have the courage to follow your tips with the dust from the sack in creating a meal-worm farm.

[@chickensinmygarden]

Oh, do try raising mealworms - it's really so easy on a small scale, as long as you can get the live mealworms to start.

[@peterdavid2381]

Very good idea 👍 I also feed pellets and till now I scattered it over the wet food or the kitchen waste... because it's too expensive to throw away. All the best from Germany Peter 🐓

[@chickensinmygarden]

Absolutely! Have a great day 😊

[@dedikfarm1128]

Nice vidio my friend ..thanks for share

[@chickensinmygarden]

Thank you so much 😊

[@garyvee6023]

I use to have heaps of dust from my pellets, more than my mealworms need, so I added it to the chickens breakfast mash which I make every morning. I keep (nearly) all of kitchen scraps which I then microwave, throw into a food processor and blend up. I then add 3 or 4 large spoons of this, along with some of the dust and their pellets, pour hot water over it till it makes a porridge consistency. Once it cools I put it into bowls for each of the coops. I only feed my chickens the micro pellets now (Laucke Mills, Showbird Breeder (17%), Gamebird Finisher (22%) and Pullet Grower (16%) as I find the chickens don't seem to waste any and there is a lot less dust. 😊

[@chickensinmygarden]

I bet they love that breakfast mash! And so good for them too. 😊

[@vickyannpaintingwithoils]

This reminds me I still haven't taken on raising my own mealworms but I really should. ❤

[@XxBloggs]

The problem I have with pellets is that every time I buy them and try to get them onto it, they look at it like they don't even know it's food. They don't touch it.

[@chickensinmygarden]

That's interesting. What do they normally eat?

[@tatianaphilippova2903]

Same problem! My chooks eat grains, worms, powdered meat+bones, bugs, greens, veggies, fruits and healthy kitchen scraps (plus multi-vitamin and trace minerals additives) - pretty complicated to make this mix... When they see pellets, they just don't even touch them... I have to mix them with a bit of water to soften their geometrical shape, but still - lots of it always being left behind... Could it be that pellets look similar to pine pellets (cat litter in fact), which I add to chicken run to absorb some excessive water after rain?

[@chickensinmygarden]

Oh, now that's a possibility I hadn't thought of. And it makes sense because chickens identify food more by sight than smell or taste.

[@meljordan220]

I once added a little bit of water to some pellets in a dish and they still kept their same shape so they licked the same but my chickens ate them. Of course I don't use anything to absorb excess rain because my chickens run is completely covered. So the run stays nice and dry in the rain

[@tatianaphilippova2903]

@@meljordan220 mine is also covered and usually dry and neat. 😁But we are on clay soil and fertile highly absorbent layer is thinner than in most places. When it is pouring, soil gets so saturated with water, that water is literally everywhere (I can literally hear micro streams are flowing downhill under grass!) Torrential rains are now happening more often...

[@cautiousdissolute5780]

That's a cute sweater! 😂

[@chickensinmygarden]

It is, isn't it! My husband bought it for me. On line somewhere. It inspired the chicken character that I used throughout the video.

[@Pasakoye]

Looks like I landed on a great channel. Thanks for the video!

[@chickensinmygarden]

Thank you, and welcome 😊 Do check out my other videos - they never really go out of date. Do you have chickens? I hope everyone has the chance to keep chickens! Have a great day!

[@Itzz_Ryann]

Another lovely video!

[@chickensinmygarden]

Thank you so much 😊

[@frodehokholt3944]

My solution to the pellet dust is easier, once in a while I just let the feeder go empty before refilling it. The chickens will eat every dust particle:-) I really like the mealworm idea also:-)

[@chickensinmygarden]

I guess that's easier. Another option is to mix the dust with water and make mash - the chickens don't seem to like eating dust but they are happy to eat a wet "porridge" 😊

[@alisoneisinger2656]

Not having taken up meal work farming (yet), I mix the dust into yoghurt and my hens devour it.

[@alisoneisinger2656]

meal worm!

[@chickensinmygarden]

Excellent! I'm sure your chickens appreciate that!

[@ScaryFear]

Wow that's a great idea. Our last bag of feed was mostly dust. My flock wouldn't touch it. I need to watch your video on raising meal worms too. I don't think those worm shells are that great for my birds. You know the ones in fancy packages. They are just air. It's like pork rinds for people which are no good. Just air. So this is a great idea.

[@chickensinmygarden]

Yes those mealworms in fancy packages are freeze-dried and very expensive. If you can get a few live mealworms to start a colony it's very easy. Otherwise what I have done successfully is mix the dust with water and a few other ingredients and stir it into a porridge. They liked that.😊

[@monellearseneau3368]

I have just run into an interesting situation/maybe problem. I have seven 5 week old laying hens and one Rooster .😳Not planned, but I'm ok with it. He is showing off his attitude, so far he's cute and polite. My dilemma is I know he should not eat layer feed when it comes time to switch feed. How do I handle this. Any suggestions?

[@chickensinmygarden]

Interestingly, you are the second person this week to have asked this question :-) You're right that hens and roosters have slightly different dietary needs - simplistically, hens need more calcium and not too much protein, while roosters need more protein and less calcium. It's usual to feed a calcium-enhanced layer feed to laying hens but also to offer free-choice soluble calcium-rich grit, such as oyster shell. The hens will help themselves to the grit while the roosters (and any non-laying hens) will leave it alone. So, grit in a separate dish (not mixed with the feed) is a good idea. But the layer feed itself has a bit much calcium for roosters, so... 1. You could feed your hens and rooster separately. This kind of works if you're hand-feeding them but it's a bit tricky and it's better for the chickens to be able to help themselves to feed throughout the day. 2. You could have a separate feeder that is too high for the hens to reach, for the high-protein rooster feed. The rooster might still eat a little of the layer feed but he will prefer the higher protein and so mostly eat his high-protein feed. The problem is that it's very difficult to arrange a feeder that he can reach and the layer hens can't. 3. You could feed them all on something like grower feed or "all-flock" feed and ensure there is plenty of calcium-rich soluble grit for the laying hens. A lot of people would recommend this because it's pretty easy, works well for the roosters and is generally ok for the hens. 4. You could mostly feed layer feed to everyone but supplement the rooster with extra high-protein feed as generous treats. The high-protein treats will replace some of the high-calcium layer feed (i.e. he will eat less layer feed because he's not hungry, being full of high-protein treats) so the calcium content is not too toxic for him. 5. You could just feed everyone layer feed and risk the calcium toxicity in the rooster. It's not like he's going to get sick and die instantly, it's just that the excess calcium puts a strain on his kidneys, so eventually, with old age or some other illness, he might die of kidney failure. What I have done has been mostly a mix of 3, 4 and 5. I feed everyone a blend of grower and layer feed, make calcium-rich grit freely available, and supplement the rooster with high-protein treats. (To be honest, he often gives his treats to the hens anyway - roosters do that.) I don't usually keep a rooster in my flock for years and years - I keep one for breeding for a year or two and then replace him with an unrelated rooster, so they never get old enough to suffer kidney problems. One thing I haven't tried is having two separate feeders, one with layer feed and one with grower feed, in the hope that the rooster would just eat the grower feed and the hens would eat layer feed plus calcium-rich grit. It would be interesting to try this and see what the rooster does eat. But I'm pretty sure the hens would eat quite a lot of the grower feed - I've noticed them doing that when I have a mix of young non-laying pullets with older laying hens. As long as they have free-choice calcium, I tend not to worry for the few weeks it takes for the pullets to come into lay. I hope that helps. You have time to think about what might work best for you and your flock :-)

[@monellearseneau3368]

@@chickensinmygarden Thank you!! Truly appreciate your suggestions 💕

[@Itzz_Ryann]

What happened to all those leghorns? I really loved them,especially koo and Isabella

[@chickensinmygarden]

I had to sell all my chickens when we moved. Once we got settled we built my new chicken house and I started building up my flock again. I now have 9. Only one is a mottled leghorn "Pia". I had two, you can sometimes see them both in some clips, but Pippin died of an infection 😒

[@Itzz_Ryann]

@@chickensinmygarden aw what infection?

[@chickensinmygarden]

It was an infection in her reproductive tract, possibly Infectious Bronchitis. It damaged her shell gland. Unfortunately she kept producing and ended up with a bellyful of unlaid eggs.

[@michellebarbour5777]

@@chickensinmygarden Oh dear. Poor you. We all have to die of something ): x

[@chickensinmygarden]

Yes. I've had very few problems in my flock, for which I'm grateful.

[@stevehei8035]

Love the sweater where did you get it? 😊

[@chickensinmygarden]

My husband got it for me on-line somewhere, because "heihei" is the local Māori word for chicken. What I never knew about until I started this video was the 2016 Disney movie Moana has a chicken character whose name is Heihei and looks like this.

[@joyg8904]

I add nutra balancer to their snacks.

[@chickensinmygarden]

A few extra vitamins are always good. Do be aware of the selenium levels - I'm not familiar with Nutra-balancer but they mention selenium risk on their website.

[@perfstaas7188]

Lovely : ) Butt i dont belive you. I have never been able to finde a complet pelletfood EVER. I also belive that the laws fore feeding chickens is going back in time. So i was wondering what kinde of ANIMAL was in the chickenfood.

[@chickensinmygarden]

Where do you live? Here in New Zealand there are a couple of good brands. In the UK I have heard that the "Marriages " brand is good. Sometimes the organic brands are a good place to start looking. And yes I agree, animal protein is important.

[@perfstaas7188]

@@chickensinmygarden You have NOT told me what KINDE of animal there is in the food that you give your Chickens. I live in the mountains of Norway. I whas likely the last real chickenshepherd of realy truely free range chichens. I have followd you " a long time now". : ) So agaain, what kinde of animals is it in the food you serve your chichens in the pellets? : )

[@chickensinmygarden]

Westons brand, which I think is best, contains "meat and bone meal" and "blood meal" and "ruminant protein" so it's almost certainly beef although maybe some sheep meat. This link might be of interest chooks.co.nz/blogs/news/what-is-the-best-layer-feed I hadn't read that before I made this video but it's interesting how much aligned our views are.