Re: Lohman Brown hens

Jill wrote:
pecan wrote:
Jill, I see here you say not to feed grains.
I've just bought a vat full of oats (raw), and have also found a
couple of bags of grain in the storeroom of the house I bought - not
sure what as I haven't tried identifying it yet. Should I not feed
this to my hens. I'm going to be moving them soon, to the new house.

What sort of hens?
What age?
what productivity?
What is the quality of the grain? - protein levels?
What are your birds normally fed on?
can you supplement them with cholin and biotin etc?

Fatty liver affects the most productive most badly.
wheat and maize is worse than oats.
Barley should NEVER be fed to chickens without the enzyme that allows them to digest it, it bungs up their digestive tract and is not absorbed


I've been away!

The hens (most of them) are called Silver Hi-lines (sp?) and were bred to lay eggs. They are about 18 months old now, and eggs are not prolific - in fact, they never have been very prolific and I think I bought them from a suspect breeder. That's 8 of them. Four of them are descendents of ex-champion parents, and get broody regularly. Of the four - two I call pyjama chickens, as they are huge and shaggy grey-white chickens, one is black, and one a charcoal colour. No idea what breeds they are from. The eggs are paler than the ones laid by the hi-lines, and these chickens are a little younger than the others.

I also have two reddish hens, that were hatched from this lot. One is laying, not sure about the other.

The hens have all been moved now, but are very upset, and aren't laying at all, except for the odd egg I find. I kept them completely closed up in the coop for four days, but the turkey male kept flying in and attacking the ***. As the *** could not get away, I have now opened up the coop, so they roam freely during the day, and the *** can escape. I haven't seen any more fighting, and I have seen the hens using the special laying boxes I built. I'll see if things stabilise in the next few days.

I wanted to make money from eggs, but I'm more or less resigned to now having a whole lot of white pet chickens roaming around. As long as I can afford to feed them all, this does not bother me, but for a long time last year things were REALLY tight around here, and I was considering disposing of the white hens.

The turkeys laid eggs, sat on them for a good long time, and then suddenly attacked the eggs and went back to roosting in the coop. Not sure what that was about. Two ducks disappeared, so now I only have one female. I was told today that if I only have one it will pine and die. Is this true?

Catherine
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