What do bantam chickens eat

Bantams are not picky eaters, and people often mistake giving them anything edible. It's a bad tradition that chickens are treated as scavengers to clean up the scraps left from human meals.

The truth is quite the opposite and if anything can be harmful to the bantams, it's too much scrap food. Often masked with different flavors, human food is full of salt, fat, spices, sugar, and other dangerous and fatal additives. Bantams can and will eat most scraps, but it's up to humans to dose the amount and avoid harmful products. Chocolate and anything with too much sugar in it, coffee, citrus peels, mouldy or rotten food, food with too much salt in it, and anything that is processed or has unknown ingredients in it must be excluded in total.

See here for a complete list of all foods chickens can and can't eat. The best advice is to avoid scraps in general, subsequently avoiding the risk of harming the birds. Human food that has been supplemented with vitamins or minerals may turn out to be poisonous to chickens. As mentioned above, the pellets chicken food has everything your chickens need to live a happy and healthy life.

And with the addition of occasional treats and free-range, you will create a perfect little environment for all to enjoy. Like my content? Sign up to be on our email list. How much will bantams eat? What is the best feed for bantam chickens? Chickens are omnivorous, which means they will consume food of both plant and animal origin. Below: Free range is best for all chickens, not just bantams.

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Fresh water needs to be available at all times and should be provided in a hanging water dispenser off the ground to keep it clean. Bantam Chickens and their coop should be sprayed with chicken safe insecticide every six weeks to kill and prevent mite and lice infestations.

Worming with a broad-spectrum wormer needs to be carried out every three months. Chickens are an animal that love to roam around and forage. When possible they should be let out to roam the garden throughout the day, however it is very important to remember to lock them back in their coop each night before dark. The skill with chicken keeping is to make them work for you, not against you, and as they can be quite destructive you should take careful consideration before letting them loose amongst your favourite plants.

If your backyard has low fencing it may be an option to trim their wings. For their foraging time outside the coop it is a good idea sprinkle a scratch mix or other grain feed around the lawn so your chickens can scratch and forage throughout the day. Chickens naturally love having dust baths, where they will flap, roll and sit in a particularly dusty patch to spread the dust throughout their feathers.

This is their natural way of ridding themselves of lice and other bugs, so it is important for their well being. If there are no dusty patches within your yard, you should try to provide your chickens with a large clay planter dish filled with fine dirt and sand instead.

Respiratory Infections: Usually caused by bacteria infecting the respiratory system of birds due to vitamin A deficiency, however can be caused by many other factors such as fungi, parasites and environmental toxins. Worms: These parasites live in the gastrointestinal tract of poultry and can cause malnutrition or intestinal obstructions and if left untreated can be fatal. Infestations can cause anaemia, a drop in egg production and reduced fertility. Without treatment, serious infestations can lead to death.

You are using an out of date browser. It may not display this or other websites correctly. You should upgrade or use an alternative browser. Do you feed bantams the same as standard size???

Thread starter wheatnroses Start date Aug 19, Sort by date Sort by reaction score. Jun 18, 23 0 Can someone please tell me how to safely feed my little ones. This year I ordered some bantam chicks. Silkies and a few Frizzles, they are so adorable I just love them and they are a scream to watch and play with.

I started them on med chick starter but will need to change them soon to a layers feed. I am afraid that the pellet form I feed my standard size girls will be too large for them to eat safely. I want to keep them safe and happy not to mention healthy. TXchickmum Crowing 8 Years. Apr 21, 2, North Texas.

They love it! I feed crumbles to my standard chickens, as well. They seem to prefer it. Jun 9, 87 I do feed my bantams layer pellets because I want to feed organic, and organic crumbles are not available at our local feed store.

The bantams seem perfectly able to digest those big pieces. I think it's fine because the ingredients are ground up and compressed together into a pellet. I would think that is easier to digest than a whole corn kernel, for example.

A pellet becomes mushy and falls apart when wet, but a whole grain doesn't. That's my reasoning anyway. I'm sure someone else will disagree! Thank you all for your input on how to feed my little bantams. I feed the larger chickens pellets and will also feed them to the bantams.

It sounds like I won't need to change from the regular size 2 grit either. It was mentioned that whole grain doesn't fall apart like the pallets, would it be ok than to feed them scratch grain since it is ground except for the wheat? I do give all my birds a bit of scratch each day as a treat, but with the bantams in mind, I cut it with a birdseed mix, meant for wild finches, of finely chopped sunflower hearts, hulled millet, and nyger seed My bantams never seem to have a problem with the scratch grains, but I don't give them very much of it.

I've worried, just as you do, and try to avoid giving them large, hard to digest pieces of food.