Everyone loves chocolate.
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Its sweet flavor makes everyone’s mouth water.
But can you give it to your chickens too?
No, you should not give chocolate to your chickens.
All the chocolates contain methylxanthines theobromine.
This chemical is highly toxic and harmful to chickens. Do not feed any chocolate to chickens.
To enjoy the sweet chocolate, the chicken should have taste buds.
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But chickens do not have taste buds to enjoy the sweetness of the chocolates.
They cannot feel the sweet taste of the chocolates.
So, there is no use of feeding chocolates to the chickens.
Chickens foods at Various Age
If you own a chicken, you need to provide a balanced diet to the chickens.
This diet should contain adequate protein, vitamins, minerals, and salts.
These nutrients are essential for the proper growth of their body.
They also protect them from various deficiency diseases.
Commercially Prepared Rations
A packaged food is a food that we buy from a shop.
It passes through various processes during preparation.
These processes reduce the nutritional value of food.
So, the packaged food is not as nutritional as you can feed from your home.
All the available foodstuff is more nutritious than packaged food.
You can provide good dietary food prepared from home.
They are easy to digest and provide the best proteins, vitamins, and minerals.
You can feed the food leftovers at home.
The fruits and vegetable fragments are also useful for the chickens.
In addition to the routine food, you should consider giving some special treats food to the chickens.
These special gifts will make them interested in food, and they will not get bored with the daily routine meals.
You can modify the everyday foods by adding different additional materials.
Some items like watermelon, banana, mango, or grapes can be an excellent option to include in their diet.
You can add other dairy products like cheese very rarely.
All these treats should not be too regular. If you make the chicken overeat, it will cause the chickens obese.
Overeating will invite the disease. They may get diarrhea also.
Homemade Food: Not Always a Good Idea
If you want your chickens to get healthy and energetic, then you should provide a healthy diet.
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A proper diet is a key for good health not just for humans but for chickens too.
If you do not offer healthy food to your chickens, they may suffer from malnutrition.
The malnutrition can invite various deficiency diseases.
Feeding a chicken is not a casual task to feed your chickens.
You must have a basic knowledge of the nutritional value of all the poultry foods.
If you provide a wrong diet, it can cause serious illness to the chickens that may lead to death.
Several diseases affect chickens as a group.
So, you should take the utmost care while planning the diet for the chickens.
It is better to undergo basic training about poultry foods before actually starting the business.
Type of Food Depend on Age
All chickens indeed need a healthy and balanced diet.
But the same type of food is not adequate for all the chickens of different age groups.
The age factor of the chickens is essential when you are planning to buy foods for your flocks.
If you are purchasing the foodstuff, you should know that the baby chickens need different foods than mature chickens.
A baby chicken needs more calcium and protein-rich food as compared to a fully-grown chicken.
When you are planning to increase the number of your animals, then you need to put them separately according to their age.
You have to put a different type of food for the adult and to the babies.
The adult chickens can digest some special diet treats like fruits and some vegetables.
But the baby chickens cannot absorb all type of foods.
They need to complete essential starting foods.
The adult chicken may need more share of the outer layer food.
You should not keep the adult and the baby chicken in the same coop.
It will be challenging to provide them different foods in the same coop.
You may have to plan the feeding of the various animals at different time slots.
Food for Adult Chickens
Most of the rations that we buy from the shop are rich in calcium.
Its primary purpose is that the hen requires extra calcium for the eggs paying.
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The egg-laying process requires extreme calcium.
If the calcium-rich food is not available, then the hen will use the body’s calcium to complete the egg-laying process.
Lack of calcium will affect the physical health of the hen in the long term.
Extreme consumption of calcium from the hen’s body will lead to the health problem of the hen.
In the long run, she will become malnutrition and will not be able to lay good and quality eggs.
Starter food. The starter food is for the young chickens.
This food is rich in proteins and has less calcium.
A young chicken requires less calcium.
So, this diet is suitable for the young chicken.
If you keep the adult and the young chicks in the same coopt, it is difficult to provide the correct type of food.
If the baby chickens eat the food meant for the hen, it will be detrimental to their health.
Their bones may overgrow abnormally and may lead to some disability.
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Many people indeed keep chicken at their home for their domestic needs of eggs.
But hardly a few of them understand the correct diet requirements of the adult and baby chickens.
A proper and healthy diet is the key to the growth of the chickens.
