What To Feed Your Chickens

If you’re new to keeping chickens, every little bit of information is great. What to feed your chickens may seem straight forward, but there is a lot to it.

Your chickens need proper formulated feed that is correct for their type of age, their growth, and to help produce eggs. Here we’ll share the different feed and how it will affect your chickens. 

Layers Feed & Protein 
If your chickens are free range, they’ll often find sources of protein from the likes of insects and worms, however these account for supplementary values alongside their actual feed. 

Pellets contain rich sources of protein for your chickens. These are best kept dry, therefore using a chicken feed such as a hopper with a hat is essential! Grower pellets contain a higher amount of protein than most. The protein is essential to your chickens to aid their growth, suspense and ability to lay eggs. 

Mixed Corn 
This is classed as a treat only! Mixed corn is often a mixture of 80-90% wheat, and 10-20% maize; although the wheat contains around 10% protein, it still lacks sufficient nutrients and vitamins. The mixed corn however does keep the hens active! 

Vegetables, Greens & Fruit 
Vegetables should be given to your chickens daily; vegetables such as: 

• bokchoy
• silverbeet
• spinach
• endive
• chickweed
• cabbage
• veg peels (these should be boiled first)

are great for your chickens. However greens such as grass cuttings, weeds, offcuts from cauliflowers should be limited to a very minimal amount, similarly to lettuce. Fruit in comparison to mixed corn should be given as a treat. 

Grit
Grit is important in a chickens diet, therefore needs to be readily available. The grit helps to grind down the feed as chickens do not have teeth; oyster-shell grit should also be included in the original grit, as this contains plenty of calcium. 

Water
Although this isn’t food, water is a vital importance to every chickens diet especially when feeding. Fresh clean water will ensure the chickens stay hydrated, alongside stopping them from moulting and eating their feathers in search of calcium. 

Do you have any more recommendations? Let us know in the comments! 

Great British Bake Off Is Back

Last night saw the first episode of series 6 air on BBC1 and we couldn’t have been more excited!

The team of 12 bakers were challenged to create a traditional madeira cake and a walnut cake before taking on the showstopper task of baking the indulgent black forest gateaux. 

Considering it was the first episode of the series, we’ve already had tears and catastrophes and, as always, plenty of innuendos. 

Here are our top 3 

1. Mary - talking about Alvin’s walnut cake
   “caramel has flowed around the nuts but I rather like that.”
2. Ugne - talking about her madeira cake
   “hopefully the taste will be good...and my crack will show.”
3. Mel to Ian - talking about his decorative ideas for the black forest gateaux
   “I can’t wait to romp in your forest.”

For those that didn’t catch the episode, here’s our top picks:

1. Mat creating a gin & tonic Madeira cake, with 7 shots of gin! …but, that wasn’t enough for Mary, she couldn’t taste the gin at all!
2. Sue Perkins being caught white handed eating Marie’s cake mixture.
3. Stu not taking his hat off in front of the Queen of Bakers, that is Mary!

And the show stopper, that had everyones attention was Dorret’s mudslide Black Forest Gateau. No matter how much Sue tries to reassure her with “it’s just a cake”, Dorret refused to accept that by replying with “it is not JUST a cake.” 

Thankfully all is not over for Dorret (which we’re pretty happy about as we quite like her!). This weeks star baker was awarded to Marie, and we said a farewell to Stu and his rather scruffy hat. 

If you’d like to join with our GBBO live tweet, follow us on Twitter in preparation for next Wednesday!

The Benefit of an Eggshell

You’ve cracked your egg and now you’re left with an empty eggshell, what do you do with it? The majority will throw the shell into the bin, here we share what you can do with an egg shell. 

Garden Hacks

Eggshell Seedlings
Rinsing the eggshell thoroughly to ensure there are no traces of egg left in the shell, poke a small hole in the bottom of the shell to ensure maximum drainage. Once allowing the shell to dry out, add potting soil carefully alongside one to two seeds to each shell. 

Once the seedlings are big enough for transportation to a new pot, crack open the shell carefully - keeping the cracked shell - and put into a suitable pot. 

Cracked Eggshell
Whether you’ve kept the cracked eggshell from your seedlings, or simply from using your eggs previously, these will work wonders deterring away those soft-bodied insects from vegetable and flower patches. 

Simply scatter the cracked eggshell around the patches. Not only will the soft bodied insects stay away from the patches as they do not like to crawl across sharp surfaces, but eggshells are rich in calcium carbonate that your garden will be striving for. Continue to scatter the eggshells fortnightly to see your patches grow. 

Bird Feed
Have a bird feeder in your garden? Why not add some rich nutritious calcium filled eggshells to the feed, helping female birds to lay strong eggs and maintain bone health. Not only do the crushed eggshells give the birds nutritious value, they can be of great use for the building of bird nests.  

To do so, bake five eggshells at 250F/120C until dry (around 20 minutes), leaving to cool, then crumble and sprinkle into the feeder.