Chickens not eating pelleted feed???

[RojoMarz]

Is the feeder that they did eat from and you removed, the same or different style of the one you left? If different, perhaps they don't like the bucket feeder with ports?

 

[Fluffy Scramblepants]

Is the feeder that they did eat from and you removed, the same or different style of the one you left? If different, perhaps they don't like the bucket feeder with ports?

Same style.

 

[Mr Spot]

If they get hungry enough, they will eat the pellets.

 

[Fluffy Scramblepants]

Ok—so I took out the remaining feeder last night and left an empty terracotta dish out. Next morning I headed out to them with a small bowlful of pellets and poured it in the dish. They all congregated around and began devouring the pellets.

By early afternoon, the pellets were gone and I placed a dish full of greens with them. They huddled around and began devouring the greens.

I decided to come back a little later to place more pellets in the terracotta dish. Even though there were still some fresh greens left in the other dish, they immediately gathered around the pellets and started chomping on them.

Perhaps the pellets appeared more tempting in the dish than the port-feeder. In any case, I think I’m going to conduct a little experiment of my own. I’ll give them free choice of greens and pellets, and see if there is any effect on egg quantity or quality. If nothing suffers I’ll keep up with daily greens; if I get soft shells or decreased production, I’ll cut back on greens.

 

[Fluffy Scramblepants]

My bird-brains.

 

[Mr Spot]

Ok—so I took out the remaining feeder last night and left an empty terracotta dish out. Next morning I headed out to them with a small bowlful of pellets and poured it in the dish. They all congregated around and began devouring the pellets.

By early afternoon, the pellets were gone and I placed a dish full of greens with them. They huddled around and began devouring the greens.

I decided to come back a little later to place more pellets in the terracotta dish. Even though there were still some fresh greens left in the other dish, they immediately gathered around the pellets and started chomping on them.

Perhaps the pellets appeared more tempting in the dish than the port-feeder. In any case, I think I’m going to conduct a little experiment of my own. I’ll give them free choice of greens and pellets, and see if there is any effect on egg quantity or quality. If nothing suffers I’ll keep up with daily greens; if I get soft shells or decreased production, I’ll cut back on greens.

Looks like they got hungry : )

 

[Fluffy Scramblepants]

Ok—it’s been a little over three weeks since my last post, and I’m just here to give an update. I continued to give my chickens free choice of greens and pelleted feed. (I was clearing my winter garden so there was a glut of greens!) The amount of pellets they ate during those three weeks was markedly reduced (which was great for my pocketbook). One day I fed them scrambled eggs because we had so many eggs.

There was no decrease in egg production thus far that I have noticed. Also, the shell quality has remained firm. I will continue to feed them as many greens as they want and will report back again.

 

[csfarmsmarket]

Hey everyone--I'm puzzled as to what is going on with my chickens. I went out of town for a few days, and when I came back I noticed that my chickens ate a lot less food than I had expected. (Laid plenty of eggs though.) One of their two feeders was halfway empty and the other was almost completely full. I removed the half-full feeder about three days ago and left the full one in their enclosure.

This evening I went to check on them and I took a peek inside their feeder, and the feed level has hardly moved AT ALL. Maybe an inch?? Its a hanging five gallon bucket with three ports to stick their heads in and eat. No blockages. Nothing has changed in their setup. 8 eggs today from 10 chickens.

Since I've been back home I've been feeding them various chopped greens in their dish from my vegetable garden. Scraps of rutabaga, turnip, and rapini leaves/stems. They love them and snap it all up. Could this be why they are eating so little of the pelleted feed? Makes me wonder what the protein content of these greens are... Anyway, they all are active and happy. Just never seen such a drop in pellet consumption before. Any thoughts? Feed is Producer's Pride mini-pellets.

have you tried making the pellets into a "mash"? Just add water. If they still won't eat it then it's the feed. Try some Keefarosa Chicken Crack.