What is mash, how to prepare a balanced nutritious diet for domestic laying hens without resorting to feed - this worries every breeder. In order to lay eggs and also build muscle mass, the bird must receive a full complement of microelements and vitamins, including calcium. The use of ready-made mixtures is fraught with poisoning and even death of chickens. We study the experience of professionals and amateurs and prepare the mash ourselves.
What is mash
This is the name for a special composition that is fed to both adult hens and chicks so that they grow normally, do not get sick, and develop proportionally.The basis of the mash is crushed grain. The mixture is prepared wet, then nutritional components are added to it.
Of course, a chicken is not a pig; you cannot feed it with household food waste in the full sense, but you can use some leftover food from the table. This way you can vary the composition, simultaneously reducing its cost.
Advantages and disadvantages
The advantages of a self-prepared mixture include the following criteria:
- Cheap, easy to prepare. Good feed will obviously cost more.
- Naturalness. The nutrition contains only natural products, no chemicals or preservatives.
- 100% control of proportions and dosage, since everything is done with your own hands.
These were the advantages, but what about the disadvantages? They are also present. The mixer is not intended for long-term storage; it should be used as quickly as possible. Feed the bird a stale mixture, get ready for negative manifestations - diseases, death of chickens.
Sometimes it is more economically profitable to use cheap feed, and it also takes much less time.
Which is better: compound feed or mash
The question is far from clear-cut and does not have a clearly defined answer. Compound feed is cheap, available, can be stored for a long time, and does not require additional preparation before use. But there is a risk of poisoning, since it is unknown what the composition was combined with, what was added to it, and how it will affect the chickens.
The mash is simple in essence, consists of natural ingredients, and is extremely nutritious. But it requires time to prepare and does not allow storage in its finished form. Many poultry farmers alternately use both options, combining them wisely.
But the majority still lean toward mash as the optimal combination of microelements and nutrients.
How to cook it yourself?
At home, top dressing is prepared from grain; wheat, barley, and corn are suitable. Fine gravel is added to stimulate digestion.
It is permissible to enhance the mash with components to increase egg production and other additives.
The approximate composition is given below:
- cereals;
- boiled potatoes;
- meal;
- vegetables;
- bone flour;
- salt;
- chalk;
- greenery;
- yeast.
If necessary, add eggshells, broth (meat or fish), and milk. An excellent, balanced composition will be obtained if you use several types of grain at the same time.
For adult layers
In winter, laying hens traditionally produce fewer eggs than in other seasons. To prevent a complete drop in performance, a mash is prepared for the poultry.
To do this you will need (components are given in grams):
- barley and wheat grains – 30 each;
- corn – 20;
- any greens – 20;
- wheat bran – 5;
- meal – 10;
- crushed shells - 3;
- chalk – 2;
- salt – 0.5.
The product is mixed in water, meat broth - your choice. The approximate proportions of the mash are calculated using the formula 272 kilocalories per 100 grams of dry feed mixture. Give the prepared mixture twice or thrice a day.
For chickens
The recipe for a nutrient mixture for chickens differs from the composition for adult chickens. They are fed more often, and the nutrition itself should be more dosed, aimed at uniform growth.
The most suitable base for kneading is whey or water. Supplements (chalk, vegetables) are given to chickens on the 5th day after hatching from the shell. At 7 – finely chopped green shoots, crushed millet, and fish oil are introduced into the diet.It is advisable to put sand and fine gravel in a separate feeder.
Newborn chickens are fed using a special method: a hard-boiled egg (mashed), cottage cheese, greens, mixed into a homogeneous mass in milk. From the age of 10 days, grown chicks can begin to be fed with mash according to the following composition:
- barley, corn grain – 13 grams;
- ground bone flour – 1 gram;
- meal - 0.5 grams;
- boiled potatoes – 4 grams;
- curd mass – 2 grams;
- greens – 7 grams;
- minerals – 1 gram;
- milk – 15 milliliters.
The components are indicated taking into account the approximate diet, they can be varied at your discretion. After this feeding, the chickens grow healthy and quickly gain weight.
