Emily Wansbrough, Smallholder Nutritionist at Smallholder Range by Allen & Page, offers some winter animal feeding advice to keep the season of good will ‘really good for everyone’…
As we prepare for the festive season, our lives get busier. Whether we’re preparing to visit loved ones or organising an elaborate dinner for the whole family, it can all get somewhat chaotic. So, it’s important to ensure that our birds and animals get everything they need from their diet at this often cold time of the year, which may mean some simplification to make life just that little bit easier.
Here are some top tips to keep the season of good will, really good for everyone:
CHICKENS AND WATERFOWL
As egg production tends to wind down for many birds through the colder months, it can be tempting to reduce their feeds. However, they still need nutritional support for their moult and general health, including good levels of high-quality protein to support feather growth. A balanced layers pellet with a protein level of around 16% is ideal for feeding year-round as it provides nutritional support, including the required vitamins and minerals for your bird’s wellbeing.
A non-medicated layers pellet, such as Smallholder Range Natural Free Range Layers Pellets, can also be used for waterfowl to provide a nutritionally balanced diet. There may be less chance of your birds free-ranging due to harsher weather and busy schedules surrounding the holidays, so ensuring that the birds have access to a balanced feed like layers pellets will ensure they are getting everything they need nutritionally quickly and simply.
ENRICHING CHICKENS’ LIVES
Entertainment can also help enrich their lives if they are stuck inside due to weather, your time or another avian flu lockdown. Hanging vegetables such as cabbages in the coop for your hens to have a peck at can provide hours of fun! Mixed corn always goes down a treat and, when scattered on the floor of the coop, can create an excellent foraging activity. It is essential to ensure that they eat their layers pellets before treats, though, to ensure that they get their balanced feed first. Hens, especially, are very canny and often wait to fill up on treats instead of eating their nutritionally balanced feed, which could lead to deficiencies in essential nutrients.
RUMINANTS NEED FIBRE
As the cold weather hits and the grass stops growing, it is important to ensure that your natural grazers have access to good quality forage in appropriate quantities to ensure they are getting an adequate fibre intake. Considering how you feed forage is also important to reduce waste in the run-up to the winter months. When housed indoors, there can be much more hoof traffic, resulting in forage being trampled into the floor or bedding and contaminated. Feeding forage from raised feeders can be useful in these situations, as well as when feeding outdoors, to avoid forage being lost in the mud surrounding high-activity feeders during our typical British winters.
Winter grazing is also likely to be nutritionally deficient, so providing a high-quality, balanced feed alongside their forage is ideal to ensure they are getting a balanced diet. Species-specific feeds will be specially formulated to provide the right combination of vitamins and minerals for the animals they are intended for. The Smallholder Range produces balanced feeds for sheep and goats (including pygmy goats).
This article extract was taken from the December 2024 edition of The Country Smallholder. To read the article in full, with further tips on feeding, including nutritional information for pigs, you can buy the issue here.
