Chickens Not Using New Feeder

[Plushness]

Those chickens look healthy, but a lot smaller than I expect 8 wk CX to be. By feeding them a non-meat bird feed having a lower protein from the beginning, you may have unintentionally achieved your objective, namely having healthy CX you can keep as pets for as long as possible. Just keep doing what you're doing, they look good.

Since you can't take them outside, you may need to make them a dust bath inside the garage, or on a patio or something (in a pinch the bathroom might work because it's easy to clean), because dust bathing is an instinctive behavior that helps them get rid of dead skin and any parasites (not that you'll have parasites much inside). A container of dirt from the yard is usually sufficient, it doesn't have to be super dusty. Just large enough for them to lay in it. [I've had a few chicks that tried to dust bathe in their grit bowl while still in the brooder around 1-2 wks old.] It's good that you have more than one chicken - it's important for their mental health to have a flock, even if it's just 2 birds.

Anything you can do to take them on field trips, or be exposed to grass, so they have opportunities to scratch in the dirt will make them happy. Scattering chicken feed or scratch in their enclosure may give them something to hunt and peck for. Also, treats of sprouted greens, legumes, and basically any type of sprouts people eat would be a nice healthy fun thing for them to play with and eat. I'd recommend training them to come when you call for hand feeding of treats (if you haven't already), that way if they ever get out or run off for some reason, you can give the food/treat call, and they'll come running back.

Might consider planting a large sheet pan with grass or wheatgrass, sprouting it in the sun on a balcony or window (in dirt), and then putting it in their enclosure so they can play/eat it.

They make chicken harnesses, and some folks take chicken on walks... As long as you have a plan for keeping them safe from predators, they may enjoy it.

Eventually, around 5-6 months old (?), your hen should start to lay eggs with or without roosters being around, so you may eventually get some eggs from her, maybe 150-200 eggs per year is what I think the estimate is.

At 3-6 months, you may start to have trouble with some of your roosters, if it hasn't started already. I do encourage you to consider rehoming one or more of them, they can be very difficult for beginners. There are a number of excellent articles on this site about rooster behavior. Shadrach is one member who is super knowledgeable about roosters - I learned a ton by reading his posts and articles. I'd encourage you to become as knowledgeable as possible about rooster behavior as soon as you can, since they do not interpret our behaviors like cats and dogs do, but speak an entire language of their own. There are a number of schools of thought about roosters, and if they're trainable or not, etc. They can do quite a bit of physical damage to adults and especially children if not managed well. Now is the time to lay the groundwork for how your rooster(s) will treat you in the future. About half is behavior based learned behavior, and at least half if not more is genetic.

Also, I'd encourage you to wear wraparound safety glasses if/when you ever have your chickens near your eyes. They can/will peck out eyes with no warning. Eyes are very attractive to them and must be pecked, apparently.

Have lots of fun with your awesome chickens!!!

Thank you very much for all the advice you can give! This has been very helpful to understand more about this topic. I can for sure say I'll be able to move forward with more confidence（＾ｖ＾）