The Role of Key Nutrients in Chicken Feed: Raising a Healthy Flock

As a chicken owner, your priority should always be ensuring that you raise a healthy flock. Whether the purpose of your chickens is to lay eggs, be used as meat, or to simply have as a pet, choosing the right chicken feed is incredibly important. To that end, it’s important to select a feed that bolsters a chicken’s growth potential, rather than hinders it.

Why Do Nutrients Matter to Chickens?

Like all other living creatures, chickens require adequate nutrients in their diet if they are to be expected to grow properly. The best non-GMO bulk chicken feed for natural nutrition will bolster a chicken’s development including bone development, muscle development, and ability to lay eggs if they are a hen. However, choosing chicken feed with poor nutrients can lead to a number of consequences including:

• Major digestive issues that impact a chicken’s daily life
• Stunted bone or flesh development from malnutrition
• Deformed eggs that are not viable for use or for hatching
• The development of unhealthy feathers
• Inability to maintain a healthy body temperature
• More vulnerable to potential predators due to the weaker status

On top of all of this, a number of sick chickens can have a major negative effect on a flock as a whole, as other chickens may develop anxiousness or stress at seeing members of the flock succumbing to unknown illnesses.  

What Are the Primary Nutrients Chickens Need?

First and foremost, just like all other living things, chickens need water both on its own and in the feed they consume. Beyond this, however, there are eight primary nutrients that chicken feed should include:

• Calcium
• Phosphorous
• Salt
• Protein
• Methionine
• Lysine
• Fat
• Fiber

All of the above nutrients are important for the development of a chicken, but the amount of each nutrient changes depending on the age, breed, or purpose of the chickens in your flock.

What is the Role of Each Nutrient in a Chicken?

Understanding why nutrition is so important for chickens requires breaking down each of the listed nutrients above. By describing what each of these nutrients does in the body of a chicken, an owner can better understand why they should be feeding their chicken the adequate amount of these nutrients:

Calcium

Calcium is important to the overall health of a flock of chickens. Its primary benefit is that it is needed to make strong eggshells. However, calcium also is used to support a number of systems in chickens including the circulatory system, cardiac system, nervous system, and the digestive system.

Phosphorous

In a chicken, phosphorous is required to ensure skeletal growth continues as it should. A number of factors can impact the amount of phosphorous a chicken needs including genetic strains, current intake of the nutrient, environmental conditions, and more. However, a healthy chicken with strong bones will need phosphorous to make it happen.

Salt

For those out there who are raising chickens as meat, salt helps to change the structure of muscle proteins in a chicken so that they retain juices better. Later on down the line, this helps to produce a chicken that is more enjoyable to taste.

Protein

Protein plays a major role in the biological functions of a number of living things, and chickens are no exception. General growth, immune system health, egg production, simply adapting to an environment, and more are all areas where adequate amounts of protein can help.

Methionine

To those unfamiliar with the amino acid Methionine, this helps to influence a bird’s ability to absorb other amino acids into its intestines. It is a sulfur-containing amino acid that is absolutely essential for a healthy and productive digestive system in a chicken. This amino acid is most commonly given in large quantities to chicks in the early stages of development, with smaller quantities throughout the remainder of the chicken’s life.  

Lysine

Another amino acid, Lysine is a vital part of chicken nutrition. This amino acid helps with protein synthesis, in particular, which helps maintain the general bodily functions of a chicken and helps to stimulate growth as well.

Fat

Fat helps a chicken absorb fat-soluble vitamins that they intake and can also help the general absorption of other chemicals. They also supply energy to chickens while keeping them healthy at the same time.  

Fiber

Fiber helps to improve gut health in a chicken, primarily by regulating the number of beneficial microbes that are in the large intestine. Fiber also helps a chicken’s body enhance the natural immune functions it performs, which can keep a chicken healthy for longer.

How to Choose the Right Chicken Feed: Factors to Consider

With many chickens being able to lay eggs for 3-4 years, ensuring they stay healthy and able to lay for that entire amount of time is extremely important. To that end, keep some of the following factors in mind as you look to choose the right chicken feed:

• Think about the current age of the chickens you are trying to feed and the nutrients they require
• Consider the purpose of the chickens in your flock as you think about what food they need
• Take a look at the nutrient list on chicken feed to see what type of additives, if any, are included in the feed
• Consider if one chicken feed brand will be applicable to multiple breeds of chickens if you have more than one
• Consider whether or not the feed you are looking at has GMOs

The Bottom Line

Ensuring the maximum amount of nutrients can be found in the feed you give to your chickens is important. Keep in mind that a chicken’s age will have an impact on the amount of feed they need. For example, chickens actively laying eggs will need feed that cuts back on protein but increases calcium intake, whereas molting chickens need feed that is high in protein. Take factors such as the above into account when browsing the aisles of chicken feed the next time you go shopping.