4,777 answers about horses & farm animals
Horses and farm animals run on routine — feeding schedules, hoof and health care, safe fencing and calm handling, in all weather. This page gathers the horse and farm animal library of KinsLe Answers in one place, organized by topic from daily care to travel and senior animals. Every answer is original, written by KinsLe, and tied to a real KinsLe feature.
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409 answers in Feeding & Nutrition — page 15 of 18
Yes — rolled or whole oats are a sound, well-liked grain treat for chickens. On a frosty morning a bowl of plain oat porridge made with water goes down like a feast, and dry oats scatter well as an alternative to the usual scratch grain. Oats bring energy and useful fibre but run lower in protein and calcium than a…
Yes — mealworms are one of the most natural treats you can offer, and hens hunt them with real enthusiasm. They are rich in protein, which earns them a special place during the moult and for hens in full lay, but they are rich in fat too, so a small handful scattered per hen is a treat, not a topping for the whole…
Yes, chickens can eat lettuce, though the leaf you choose matters. Crisphead and iceberg types are mostly water and crunch, fine in small handfuls but liable to loosen droppings if the flock gorges, while darker leaves such as romaine bring more vitamins to the plate. Wash leaves well, shred them so they do not get…
Yes — grapes are safe for chickens and most hens will run across the run for them. Unlike dogs, chickens handle grapes without any toxicity worry; the limits are sugar and choking, not poison. Halve each grape lengthways so small beaks can manage it and no whole fruit can lodge in a throat, and wash shop-bought grapes…
Yes — plain cooked rice is a safe treat for chickens, served warm or cold. The tale that rice swells inside a bird and harms it is a myth, yet cooked rice is still the sensible choice, being softer for beaks and crops than dry grains straight from the bag. Serve it plain and fresh, never salted or fried in oil, and…
Yes, in small cubes and only now and then. Chickens are not built for much dairy — they produce very little of the enzyme that handles milk sugar — so a little plain cheese passes through happily while a generous handful can mean loose, messy droppings. Cheese is also rich and salty, which makes it a garnish on the…
Yes, chickens can eat cabbage, and most hens enjoy tearing into it leaf by leaf. It is a fibrous, vitamin-rich green that suits a flock as an occasional treat rather than a daily side dish, because cabbage-family vegetables are best kept to modest amounts. Shred it or hang a halved head at beak height and the leaves…
Yes, chickens can eat bread, but think of it as junk food for hens: a few small pieces of plain bread do no harm, yet it fills them up with calories that carry almost none of the protein and calcium laying birds need. Never offer mouldy bread — that is genuinely dangerous — and keep portions rare and small so the…
Yes — chickens can eat apples, and most hens love them. The flesh is a safe, hydrating treat; just core the fruit first, because apple seeds carry a compound best kept out of a hen's diet, and chop or halve the apple so the whole flock can get at it. Serve sound fruit only, and keep portions small so the flock still…
Safe goat treats, in moderation, are pieces of apple or carrot and browse branches from safe species, willow, hawthorn, and blackberry bramble, offered as extras on top of a forage-based ration rather than instead of it. The never list for goats is short and absolute: rhododendron and azalea, yew, laburnum, and…
During the molt, feed hens a higher-protein ration, commonly around 18 to 20 percent protein, because regrowing a full set of feathers draws heavily on protein, and add protein-rich extras from generic classes, such as dried mealworms, in small handfuls after the main ration. Expect laying to pause while the molt…
Hold one principle and apply it in both directions: forage stays the constant base at every level of work, and hard feed follows the work itself. As work builds, raise the hard feed gradually, stepped over days rather than switched overnight; when work drops, including on rest days and through a layoff, cut the hard…
Cattle at pasture need loose mineral and plain salt available free-choice all year round, in a feeder kept dry and covered so rain never cakes or wastes the supply. The feeder moves with the herd's rotation, set up in each new paddock near where cattle gather, because a station left behind in an empty field serves…
Alpacas need a mineral formulated for camelids, offered free-choice as loose mineral in a dry, covered feeder they can reach at any hour, alongside plain salt, because their needs shift with forage, season and life stage and each animal takes what it chooses. Winter is the alpaca-specific watch point: through the dark…
Keep layer feed available as the base all day, with free-choice calcium as oyster shell and grit in separate pots, and water kept unfrozen from dawn. Lay follows day length, so as natural light shrinks, egg numbers ease unless light is added; keepers who light commonly bring the total to roughly fourteen hours with a…
Never feed chickens these scraps: dried or uncooked beans, avocado, chocolate, green or raw potato, rhubarb leaves, and anything moldy or spoiled. Each carries something toxic to chickens — beans and potato in their raw states, avocado flesh and skin, the stimulants in chocolate, the acids in rhubarb leaves, and the…
Run the whole check set before you talk price: the hay smells sweet, never musty; mold is absent; dust stays low when a slice is shaken; it was baled dry; weeds are absent; color and leaf are retained; moisture feels right in the hand; and bale weight is honest when you lift one. Refuse moldy or dusty bales outright,…
Move sheep onto a field when the grass stands at about 6–8 inches, and move them off again at about 3–4 inches, before they graze the plants bare. Rest each grazed field for commonly three to six weeks in the growing season, which lets grass rebuild and also rests the worm cycle, since larvae wait in an empty field…
Keep him on high-fiber, low-sugar forage and restrict rich grazing, using strip grazing or a grazing muzzle as the working methods. Make straw his forage base, add late-cut hay as the step up when he needs more, and give no rich feeds at all. Watch his weight and condition monthly with a tape or a scale plus eye and…
Plant browse and herbal leys as keeper-chosen examples: willow, hawthorn, and blackberry bramble for browsing, and chicory and plantain within herbal leys for grazing variety. Fence young plants until established, because goats strip bark and leaves faster than new growth can replace them. Rest planted areas in…
Start with a vet, teeth and worming review, because pain, poor teeth or parasites — not feed quantity — are often why a rescue horse is thin. Then build on forage: small, frequent hay meals at first for a very thin horse, rising gradually toward free access to good hay, fresh water and salt, with any concentrated feed…
Energy and protein needs rise in the last part of pregnancy, when most foetal growth happens, so increase feed quality gradually then rather than feeding more all year. Build the extra feed around good forage, add a balancer or a feed made for breeding stock as your vet advises, and hold body condition steady rather…
A balanced ration in the run-up to lambing keeps forage as the base all the way through, then steps concentrates up gradually across the last six weeks before lambing. Ewes carrying twins get that step-up earlier and in smaller, more frequent meals, and condition scored on the 1-to-5 scale usually aims for around 3 to…
Offer creep feed from about two weeks old, using a pellet formulated for piglets, in a creep area the sow cannot enter, so piglets learn to eat solid food while still nursing. Serve it little and fresh several times a day, timed alongside the sow's feeding times, when piglets are already awake and active, and clear…
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