The Barastoc Essentials Range
Welcome to the Barastoc Essentials range for all your poultry needs, we have tried to tailor a feeding plan to suit any backyard chicken owner. Our Essentials range is the backbone of our laying hen offering giving you flexibility to adapt your hen’s diet whilst maintaining consistent quality and confidence that she is getting everything she requires.
We understand when first starting with your first flock it can often be confusing what to feed your birds. You may be wondering if all chicken feeds are the same, right? They’re definitely not! Poultry have very specific needs, from a day old chick right up to a high egg producing hens and that’s why we will try to give you the tools needed to make the right choices.
The Day Old Chick
After a chick has hatched, it requires guidance to be able to navigate its way to food and water. Making sure that feed is the right size is essential. Barastoc Chick Starter is fit for purpose and specifically a small crumble designed for ease of feeding for that small beak in the first few months of life. A crumble, for those new to the term, is a pressed pelleted feed that then gets passed over a roller to form a smaller form, this feed type therefore does come with a higher percentage of smaller ground material and can look visually smashed up.
During this key growth phase, we recognise that the young chick is not only eating for its body’s maintenance requirement (day to day necessary functions) but also for growth and development, so selecting a high quality feed with highly digestible ingredients is important. Typically the young chick is only consuming 50g per day once reaching approximately 8 weeks of age, so be sure you are not over purchasing this feed and keeping it as fresh and clean as you can. Barastoc Chick Starter also contains an anticoccidial which we will touch on shortly as this is a high risk period for coccidiosis.
Grower Phase
From approximately 8 weeks old onwards the young chick is now termed a pullet. The young pullet is rapidly changing and so is her skeletal mass. During the growing phase a lot of the structural bone is laid which is then going to support the young immature birds as she transitions into a laying hen. Barastoc Pullet Grower is the next stage in our Essentials range which is designed to support the young pullet up until point of lay. The young pullet’s intakes are still relatively low being approximately 95g per day, so keeping the diet nutrient dense is a must to make sure we maximise every mouthful consumed.
The texture of this feed is also a crumble, but slightly larger in appearance than Barastoc Chick Starter, as the young bird starts to grow and get bigger so does the presentation of the feed. Barastoc Pullet Grower also contains an anticoccidial as an aid in prevention of intestinal coccidiosis. Coccidiosis is more prevalent in the immature gastrointestinal tract and therefore an easy way to avoid critical damage by the parasite is to provide a feed containing anticoccidial.
Ready for Lay
There are 4 main factors that determine whether a bird is ready for lay and in return drive egg production. Body weight, sexual maturity, day light hours per day and nutrition are all crucial elements that affect not only the age and time a hen comes into lay, but her success as a layer during her laying days. Once your birds come into lay it’s crucial to put them onto a laying diet as soon as possible. A laying hen’s diet should be between 15-18% protein, 4% calcium and a complete diet balanced with essential vitamins and minerals.
The Barastoc Essentials range is comprised of 4 laying diets, so you can choose to tailor a range that suits your flock. All are nutritionally balanced and designed for laying hens, fortified with bioavailable calcium, phosphorus and vitamin D3 to support the building blocks of great egg shells.
Barastoc Golden Yolk, Australia’s favourite everyday laying pellet, which has been formulated to provide hens with everything they need, along with enhancing their digestive health with Poultry star (Poultry specific pre and probiotic blend) and enriched with Vitamin E and selenium. Golden Yolk is presented as a pressed pellet which aids intake and reduces wastage.
Barastoc Everyday Layer – is the first of our layer feeds presented as a mash (pressed pellets and cracked grain presented in a loose format), this allows the birds the opportunity to selectively consume different elements of the diet as desired, encouraging natural foraging behaviours. Feeding a mash feed can also suit more commonly when you have mixed breeds of bird within your flock and can be easily blended with other diets.
Barastoc Top layer and Barastoc Champion Layer are the remaining two feeds in the Barastoc Essentials range. These two feeds have been designed to provide the birds with a higher nutritional platform. These feeds can also be used as a nutritional tool that a poultry owner can use when intakes are compromised and they need to increase the density of the bird’s diet e.g. during summer or times of stress to ensure she is still getting everything she requires. Barastoc Top Layer is presented as a Mash offering and Barastoc Champion Layer as a pellet to suit.
What to consider when choosing and moving through the range
- Always transition diets over 5-7 days, to reduce the impact of feed rejection and wastage.
- Always provide access to clean fresh water, birds typically consume 2x water to feed. Without access to water, feed intakes will be compromised.
- When choosing feeders, remember to assume all birds will eat at the same time and will have sufficient space so as to avoid behavioural issues.
- Birds are highly driven by texture, so changes in feed composition and texture can cause wastage or birds to leave different elements of feed behind.
- Remember to consider all birds in your flock, not only allowing for age and stage of life but also size of the bird if keeping different breed birds.
If we look at Mash, Crumble and Pellet styles there are some difference to think about:
Mash |
Crumble & Pellets |
| Encourages natural selection | Consistent intake |
| Ingredients are physically visible | Less attractive to wild birds and rodents |
| Can slow down intake | Ingredients can’t settle, so you know the bird is receiving all nutrients |
| Easily blended with other feeds | Cooking process ensures greater nutrient digestibility |