How to feed laying hens: diet and feeding regimen

Having planned and successfully started a home-production business for chicken eggs, you are puzzled by many questions. First of all, a novice farmer is interested in how to feed laying hens, how to organize a room for them and maintain a regime in it. All this is not so difficult, not very expensive and, since there is a constant demand for products, it is certainly profitable. Let's talk more about feeding poultry.

How to feed laying hens

Diet hens, carrying eggs, should be high-grade and include vegetable (both whole grains and flour mixtures), animal feed and minerals. How to feed laying hens, if you have a breeding stock of a bird, from which you get eggs to incubate young animals? In feeds for them should be an increased content of easily digestible protein and vitamins (B, E). The source of vitamin E is the germinated grain, B vitamins are yeast. This category of birds in the diet also needs fish oil.

What kind of food is used for egg-bearing chickens

For this, cereals, legumes, oil cakes and meals in the form of concentrates are used. Also need fish, meat-and-bone meal, milk, cottage cheese, green grass, carrots, beets, potatoes, bran, coniferous flour, limestone, chalk, fodder phosphates, salt. In the main, the bird is fed with full-length feed mixtures, in addition to this, food waste, vegetable tops are relevant. Mineral fodder must always be in the poultry house. Before the beginning of oviposition (two to three weeks) in the body of the bird, it is necessary to create a reserve of calcium. Egg laying is phase, the first stage is characterized by intensive production of eggs, it lasts from 21-22 weeks to 48 weeks, reaching a peak at 28-29. During this period it is necessary to feed the bird with high-calorie, low-volume fodder. After 48 weeks, productivity and nutrient requirements are declining.

In the way to feed laying hens, the feeding regime is of great importance. Dry food is prescribed twice a day. If wet fungi are used, the frequency of meals is increased to three or four. At the same time, make sure that food is not in the feeders for longer than 30-40 minutes.

Here is an approximate layout of what to feed the laying hens (per head per day):

Grain - 50 g., Flour mixture - 50 g, hay flour - up to 10 g., Juicy feed (carrots, beets) - up to 50 g., Dry protein feeds - 10-15 g., Crushed shells - 5 g. , Bone meal - 2 g, salt - 0.5 g. Total amount of fodder for one chicken per day - 120 g. Thus, in a year the consumption will be about 44 kg. The volume of daily food when juicy and green forages is added to the diet is 170 g.

Water for a bird per head needs about 250-300 grams per day at a room temperature of 10 to 18 ° C.

A few words in conclusion

The content of laying hens at home is, of course, different from the industrial one: no even rows of cells, automatic drinking bowls, food distributors, harvesting units. But at home production the farmer knows practically every chicken in the face, its features and problems. He can effectively organize the case taking into account this. In the case of a bird disease, a farmer can easily see this among a small number of livestock and react promptly.