AUSTRALIAN POULTRY FORUM™

Actually I can remember my Mum saying they used to feed their chooks pollard and bran when she was a child (she is 87 now), so I guess that's the kind of thing people used to feed chooks before prepared pellets etc. were around.

I haven't had a chance to buy some mash yet, but I bought some molasses yesterday, and this morning I put warm water and a little molasses with Pikelet's grower food. Well, she went absolutely nuts for it! I don't think we'll have any more trouble getting her to eat her grower food!

By the way, Book, our older chook, can't get to the grower food, we put it on the deck which is fenced and has a rickety old gate to keep the chooks off (they were making too much mess on the deck!). However Pikelet has worked out she can squeeze under the gate, being so much smaller than Book! This has turned out to be really handy since Book can't get to the grower food, Pikelet can eat her grower food undisturbed, plus she has somewhere to go if Book chases her! So we're putting up with having to clean the deck rather a lot. We estimate by the time Pikelet grows enough that she can no longer fit under the gate, she will probably be ready to go onto layer food.

Hi, Elle Jay ,

You can get pollard at your local stockfeed, lots of the old timers up here feed their chookies pollard. Molasses is wonderful to get the little ones to eat their num nums, though I am not sure how often you are allowed to feed it it to them.

Thanks Petite Poulet. I was planning to give her the mash with molasses every morning, does anyone know if this would be okay? I am only using a teeny bit of molasses on the end of a teaspoon, as it's prettty strong.