Is it possible to give raw potatoes to chickens: how to properly and what to feed
Wishing to diversify the diet of birds, many are wondering if chickens and hens can be given raw potatoes. After all, most laying vegetables are eaten fresh. You can feed birds with potatoes, from it they gain weight faster. True, the tubers must first be boiled. It is forbidden to give raw potatoes to chickens. Such food will take a long time to digest and can lead to digestive upset.
Can chickens be fed potatoes?
The main food for birds is crushed grain and compound feed. True, in such products there are not all the useful substances necessary for laying hens.Poultry farmers recommend using vegetables as additional feed. Potatoes are rich in minerals and carbohydrates. It can be given to chickens from 15-20 days old.
Raw tubers
It is not recommended to give raw potatoes to birds. This is a very heavy and rough food, it is slowly digested, poorly absorbed. Layers may vomit or have diarrhea after eating raw potatoes.
Fresh potatoes are poorly digested in the digestive tract, can lead to atony of the goiter and stomach.
Boiled potatoes
Rejected small tubers can be used as bird feed. Before you give the potatoes to laying hens, they need to be washed and boiled. Boiled potatoes are easily digested by the bird's stomach. True, you need to introduce it into the diet of chickens gradually.
Chickens at 15-20 days old are given 5-10 grams of boiled potatoes first. By the age of one month, the dosage is increased. The norm for an adult laying hen is 40-50 grams per day. It is not recommended to give more of this food.
When feeding, the emphasis is not on volume, but on variety. The more vegetables and grains included in the daily diet of laying hens, the better. Usually boiled potatoes are kneaded, compound feed, crushed grains or bone, fish meal are added. True, chickens are more willing to eat whole boiled tubers.
Potato Peels
With great care, you need to give chickens potato waste. Green cleanings should be discarded immediately. After all, they accumulate a large amount of corned beef. This poison can cause poisoning. Cleanings themselves are gross food. Birds usually refuse such food. Cleanings without green spots can be boiled, chopped and given to laying hens.
What impact can it have?
Boiled potatoes enrich the diet of broilers with vitamins, minerals, amino acids, carbohydrates.Once inside, the potato works like an alkali: the acidic environment in which most pathogenic bacteria and fungi develop is neutralized. Potatoes improve the functioning of the digestive organs, normalize metabolism, and increase immunity.
Boiled tubers should be given to laying hens every day. Birds fed on such food gain weight faster, get sick less, rush better.
Potatoes are considered an essential component in the diet of chickens in the winter.
Advantages and disadvantages of including potatoes in the diet
This vegetable is considered a low-calorie food. 100 grams of potatoes contain only 77 kilocalories. Most of all in potatoes carbohydrates (almost 85 percent). Proteins are only 10.5 percent. This vegetable is not rich in vitamins. Root crops contain some vitamin C and B. But potatoes are rich in macro- and microelements.
Vegetable is recommended to be introduced into the diet of birds with rickets, joint diseases, pecking, lack of calcium.Most of all in potassium potatoes. This macronutrient normalizes metabolism, improves the functioning of the nervous, muscular, and vascular systems. Calcium, phosphorus, silicon contained in the composition go to the formation of bone and muscle tissue.
Potato is considered an alkaline food. It reduces acidity, normalizes digestion. If you feed chickens with boiled potatoes, they gain weight faster and become larger. Laying hens increase egg production.
What potatoes should not be fed to chickens
Fodder varieties of potatoes are used for feeding laying hens. They have a higher content of protein, minerals and carbohydrates useful for birds. True, if there is no fodder, chickens can be given food potatoes, that is, the ones that people eat.
The birds are fed with tubers unsuitable for seed purposes. Usually, small or injured root crops are fed to chickens. The potatoes must be washed, rotten tubers are discarded, then boiled in a sufficient amount of water, otherwise it will turn out to be a paste.
In no case should laying hens be given green-skinned roots. Such potatoes are harmful to birds, both raw and boiled. Green potatoes contain a plant poison - solanine. In high concentration, this substance is found in potato tops. Heat treatment does not affect solanine in any way. If a chicken eats a green potato, it may develop diarrhea, vomiting, and convulsions. It is better to refuse to use low-quality feed so as not to poison the poultry.
You can't feed sprouted potatoes to chickens. Glycoalkaloids are formed in potato sprouts, which affect the liver and nervous system of laying hens, and sometimes lead to their death. Sprouted potatoes can be used for bird feed, after removing all sprouts.
Laying hens are not given potato tops, unripe and young green tubers. Ripe potatoes can be fed to chickens, but only boiled. Potatoes that have been stored in the cellar for a long time have a minimum level of solanine. This vegetable is best suited for bird feed.
Recommended
Is it possible to give sauerkraut to chickens: how to feed and how much to feed, benefits
Many farmers wonder if chickens can be given sauerkraut or fresh cabbage. Birds can consume these products, but they must be used correctly.
Is it possible to give raw potatoes to a cow: benefits and harms, feeding rules
Find out if raw potatoes can be given to cows, about the benefits and dangers of a vegetable. Here is information about the features of feeding, in which cases it is not recommended to use it.
Is it possible to give raw potatoes to pigs and how to
Farmers are not always aware of whether raw potatoes can be fed to pigs and how to properly introduce them into the diet. That is why animals often suffer from disorders in the gastrointestinal tract.
