Beckys Free Range Hens

The problems with feeding the Girls a grain feed or with just plain wheat are as follows;

Firstly what tends to happen is that they will pick out what they like best and eat it first which would usually be the big tasty grains like the wheat and sunflower seeds, or another way to think of it would be the chocolate rather than the vegetables.

As you would already be aware its not recommended to live on a diet of chocolate for Humans, let alone for Chickens which in essence is exactly what will happen.

Secondly it's never good for any animal except the most specialized ones to live on a limited diet say for example in this situation just wheat, which is a very old fasioned idea that people have for feeding hens, probably an idea dragged from the depths of history when chickens didn't lay eggs every day and when wheat was one of the only readily avalible grains that could be fed to livestock.

Thirdly Chickens are not Vegetarians, in fact they love and require raw protein that they can find in Bugs, Worns, Maggots and Meat.

As they are using up lots of protein to produce that egg every day they need that protein replaced in there body every day and the best way of achieving this is through raw protein rather than through just plain vegetable protein which is why a mixture of both is a good thing, as you wouldn't feed them purely a meat diet either.

A good balanced diet is by far the best thing, a bit of meat (raw protein) for fast uptake of protein and a good mix of grains for trace elements and digestion requirements.

This is why we recommend a pellet feed as the girls can't pick out what tastes best to them but instead get a well balanced mouth full in every mouth full