science

Poultry feed

Poultry feed is a science topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Poultry feed rather than just read about it. In short: Poultry feed, also known as chicken feed, is food for farm poultry, including chickens, ducks, geese and other domestic birds. Before the twentieth century, poultry were mostly kept on general farms, and foraged for much of their feed, eating insects, grain spilled by cattle and horses, and plants around the farm.

Key takeaways

Poultry feed belongs to science; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Poultry feed to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Poultry feed from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Poultry feed, also known as chicken feed, is food for farm poultry, including chickens, ducks, geese and other domestic birds. Before the twentieth century, poultry were mostly kept on general farms, and foraged for much of their feed, eating insects, grain spilled by cattle and horses, and plants around the farm. This was often supplemented by grain, household scraps, calcium supplements such as oyster shell, and garden waste. As farming became more specialized, many farms kept flocks too large to be fed in this way, and nutritionally complete poultry feed was developed. Modern feeds for poultry consists largely of grain, protein supplements such as soybean oil meal, mineral supplements, and vitamin supplements. The quantity of feed, and the nutritional requirements of the feed, depend on the weight and age of the poultry, their rate of growth, their rate of egg production, the weather (cold or wet weather causes higher energy expenditure), and the amount of nutrition the poultry obtain from foraging. This results in a wide variety of feed formulations. The substitution of less expensive local ingredients introduces additional variations. Healthy poultry require a sufficient amount of protein and carbohydrates, along with the necessary vitamins, dietary minerals, and an adequate supply of water. Lactose-fermentation of feed can aid in supplying vitamins and minerals to poultry. Egg laying hens require 4 grams per day of calcium of which 2 grams are used in the egg. Oyster shells are often used as a source of dietary calcium. Certain diets also require the use of grit, tiny rocks such as pieces of granite, in the feed. Grit aids in digestion by grinding food as it passes through the gizzard. Grit is not needed if commercial feed is used. Calcium iodate is used as supplement of iodine. The feed must remain clean and dry; contaminated feed can infect poultry. Damp feed encourages fungal growth. Mycotoxin poisoning, as an example, is "one of the most common and certainly most under-reported causes of toxicoses in poultry". Diseases can be avoided with proper maintenance of the feed and feeder. A feeder is the device that supplies the feed to the poultry. For privately raised chickens, or chickens as pets, feed can be delivered through jar, trough or tube feeders. The use of poultry feed can also be supplemented with food found through foraging. In industrial agriculture, machinery is used to automate the feeding process, reducing the cost and increasing the scale of farming. For commercial poultry farming, feed serves as the largest cost of the operation.

Poultry feed terms Mash refers to a nutritionally complete poultry in a ground form. This is the earliest complete poultry ration. Pellets consist of a mash that has been pelletized; that is, compressed and molded into pellets in a pellet mill. Unlike mash, where the ingredients can separate in shipment and the poultry can pick and choose among the ingredients (many times picking out just the corn and leaving the rest), the ingredients in a single pellet stay together, and the poultry eat the pellets whole. Pellets are often too large for newly hatched poultry. Crumbles are pellets that have been sent through rollers to break them into granules. This is often used for chick feed. Scratch grain (or scratch feed) consists of one or more varieties of whole, cracked, or rolled grains. Unlike other feeds, which are fed in troughs, hoppers, or tube feeders, scratch grains are often scattered on the ground. Hence, a large particle size is desired. Because they consist only of grains, scratch grains are not a complete ration, and are used to supplement the balanced ration.

Illustrations

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Poultry feed

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Poultry feed claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In science, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Poultry feed before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Poultry feed ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Poultry feed

In research: Poultry feed appears in science research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Poultry feed in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Poultry feed is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics Animal feed, Poultry farming, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Poultry feed outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Poultry feed in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Poultry feed means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Poultry feed out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Poultry feed in simple terms?

Why does Poultry feed matter?

Because it connects several science ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Poultry feed?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Poultry feed.