Vegetarian or non-animal based diet

shaneo · **Joined:** Sat May 28, 2011 10:27 am **Posts:** 1

Hello fellow members

.

This is my first post.

I have 4 chickens and hope to get more.

I would like to feed them on non-animal based pellets.

I have 2 questions regarding this :

Is it appropiate to feed chickens this way?

If so, where can I source such a diet?

Kind regards,

Shaneo

PS I live in the Latrobe Valley, 150 kms SE of Melbourne.

Phoebe · **Posted:** Sun May 29, 2011 2:50 pm

Hello Shaneo,

If you are not going to use meat meal as a source of protein, you will need to use crushed peas, crushed lupins, cotton seed meal, soybean meal, or some other plant source of protein. Pullets less than 18 weeks of age will starve to death within a couple of weeks without adequate protein even if you feed them all the oats and bran and table scraps they can eat.

We find it best to buy Chick Starter (20 to 22% protein) for day old to 5 weeks old chicks and Pullet Grower (18 to 20% protein) for 6 to 18 weeks pullets.

Layers need less protein than chicks and pullets. Layer Pellets for hens over 18 weeks are 15 to 17% protein. We have found Peters Free-Range Poultry Mix (minimum protein 15%) the best 'natural' blend for our layers. The Peters poultry mix is a quality, balanced food free of animal by-products, as well as artificial colours and flavours. Although it is a complete diet for layers, we find it necessary to provide our hens with additional shell grit.

Hope this helps,
Phoebe.

purefeather · **Joined:** Wed Sep 29, 2010 6:36 pm **Posts:** 736

G'day Shaneo, I'm a vego and have been for over 40 years (good god has it been that long).I wouldn't dream of imposing my beliefs or diet on my poultry. Their feeding preference is hard wired , nothing you or I can do is going to change that preference. We can definitely control their feed/feed intake but be prepared for some losses.

andre · **Joined:** Tue Oct 13, 2009 5:21 pm **Posts:** 612

You can provide them with feed that has no animal products and I for one prefer them to have this sort of diet. This is because I think meat meal is not a good product.

I feed my chickens a mixture of grains and soy.

However they certainly also eat cockroaches, bugs, worms and even baby mice on occasion so they are definitely not vegetarian.

FlyingFowl · **Joined:** Tue May 31, 2011 12:04 am **Posts:** 1

But isn't natural for chickens to eat things like bugs, worms and insects? so you would always want them to scratch around and find some natural foods

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