.>i have pigeons and they have free acces to
>>different seeds , flax is far from being  their favorite .
>>jean-claude

>>My chickens won't eat flax, either. They get no wheat or corn, and lots of bugs and seeds. I've not had my eggs analyzed, but they are bright orange-yolked, and the yolk is so dense it can almost be cut. I guess the earthworms are free-range...<<

Ginny and Jean-claude,

That is odd, my chickens LOVE flax seed (not ground, whole and therefore fresh) and will fight over it!  Ground flax oxidizes fast, if you buy it already ground, it may not be fresh.  I buy brown flax seed, it is more nutritious than golden flax, I pay US $12.50 for 50 lbs.  Most flax seed sold in the US is grown in Canada, BTW.

Do the chickens like yogurt?  Most do!  If they do, I would start adding some flax seeds into the yogurt, start with just a little at a time, increasing the amount of seeds till you are getting a good feeding of flax into them.  The yogurt will help them digest the flax also.

Nice to have a thread about one of my other interests!

In the US, the omega-3 eggs are produced by feeding a diet containing about 10-15% flax seed AND (I don't remember the percentage) fish meal pellets (ground menhaden dried and pressed into pellets, with vitamin E added as a preservative, it is very high in protein, so it raises the protein percentage of the feed nicely, my feed mill will add more if I ask for it).

I use a custom-made game bird ration that includes fish meal, as well as a fancy pigeon seed mix (my ladies love the great variety of seeds in pigeon mix).  My hens refuse to eat whole oats, which are part of the game bird feed recipe, so that the chicken yard litter, when put into the garden, grows huge oat plants. I bought whole barley to see if they like it better, if they do, I will have it substituted for oats in my feed.  Barley is said to be very nutritious for chickens, and a good balance for pH but perhaps a bit fattening (good for adolescent birds and meat birds, but you don't want a laying hen too fat, it makes passing an egg difficult).

I have a huge organic garden and feed the chickens fresh greens every week, it is great that where I live, collards, kales, mustards, and lettuces and all the green leafy stuff grows well all fall, winter, and early spring.  Where I live, it is not safe for the birds to be outside a secure fenced area, so they have a HUGE yard with wire on sides, on top, and on the ground 2 ft out from the sides, to prevent foxes and raccoons from digging in. I bring the stuff in that they would forage for.

I feed them table scraps, melon rinds, apple cores, scrap veggies from the farmer's market, sometimes some yogurt (they like fruit flavored yogurt (it provides them with beneficial digestive bacteria).  They LOVE meat, and will eat it any chance they geet, although I prefer to increase the amount of fish meal if they start craving protein.

If they are developing coccidia (a form of diarrhea so common the germs are inescapable) which is extremely common in young birds, I add some ground cinnamon to their food, or powdered hot red peppers.  Cinnamon is more gentle, and kills germs as well as parasites.  If you like garlic, garlic juice in their water is healthy for their immune systems, though too much makes the eggs smell fishy or garlic-y, which I don't care for at breakfast or in pastries!

>>what seeds ? I am looking into having chickens now and procrastinate about it because i want to find a source of good organic  whole seeds . do they like lentils ? peas ? <<

Jean-Claude, if you already have pigeon food, that sort of pigeon seed mix that contains many kinds of seeds is also healthy for chickens, about 10% of my chicken feed is a deluxe pigeon mix containing many grains and seeds.

You may have to look a bit, but should be able to find quality organic feed for chickens, especially if you live in Canada.  If you live in a cold dry climate (or have a cool dry basement) the feed would keep well, and you could buy a lot at a time, I get a discount if I buy at least ten 50-lb bags at a time.  I store mine in metal trash cans that were never used before, rodents can't eat through metal cans.

>>I saw somewhere also that grains were disturbing their hormonal balance and was the reason they were producing lot of eggs . so it looks to me that aiming at a big quantity of eggs is not healthy for us to eat them .<<

Grains shouldn't upset the hormones of chickens unless hormones were ADDED to the feed.  Grains are seeds, and chickens are seed and bug eaters (also a bit carnivorous, if one starts bleeding, the others may peck it to death, my chickens will catch and eat mice when possible.)

Having said that, corn is like candy to them, it is less nutritious than other grains.  I seldom give my hens what Americans call "scratch", because that is mostly corn.  I use pigeon seed for a treat for them, or flax seed.

>>will rather not having to buy feed and harvest little . do you know of a breed that can forage very well on their own ?<<

Jean-Claude,

Some of the VERY oldest and rarest breeds are not good layers (like Russian Orloff or Hungarian Yellows), although part of that may be inbreeding when there ended up being too few to carry on the breed.

However, most heritage breeds produce 100-250 eggs a year on range, when quality food is provided in addition to range.

Some are dual purpose breeds so that you can eat the spare roosters as soon as they get big enough.  (Half the chicks that hatch are male, but it is unfair to the hens to have too many roosters about).  I eat my spare Welsummer and French Marans roosters and (French) Salmon Faverolle roosters, the Marans and Faverolles have especially lovely meat.  The Faverolles are meaty birds and the Marans are huge and big boned with darker meat than modern commercially raised birds.

Aren't you in Canada?  What part?  I

 have a Rare Poultry Breeders moderated list (RarePoultryBreeders2 at Yahoogroups, my list has the 2 in the name, the other list is not moderated, and has lost some of the wiser, older experts).  My co-moderator lives in Canada and I bet Wayne would be a good help to you to find a breeder who can sell you chicks of a breed that is a decent layer and well suited to the climate you live in.  He is knowledgeable and a very helpful man.

There is a native Canadian breed called the Chantecler developed in and for Canada, it is bred for small comb so there is less to freeze in severe weather, is good for meat as well as eggs, and is a very decent layer (around 100 eggs a year), I am pretty sure they lay brown eggs.  The partridge marked ones are excellently marked for camouflage and are incredibly pretty (white birds on bare ground might as well have a sign saying "eat me!" for hawks!)

Hope this helps!

laurie (Mother Mastiff)

P.S., Ginny, if I ever knew you had chickens, I had forgotten, do you belong to any poultry lists?  We sure have a lot of interests in common!