Chicks eating alot of food

[SteveMadonnaJ]

This Saturday we will have our Rhode Island Red pullets for a week (they are approximately 2 wks old). They have nearly gone through a 5 pd bag or Nature's Best Organic Chick Starter/Grower food. Is this normal? They are growing and prospering very well.

 

[DawnKD]

I bet a lot of it is getting beaked out of the feeder and you need to raise it a little higher so they can't waste as much. The chick starter is generally pretty flaky/light stuff and they do like to throw it about as they scratch and do their lil chick things.

 

[SteveMadonnaJ]

I bet a lot of it is getting beaked out of the feeder and you need to raise it a little higher so they can't waste as much. The chick starter is generally pretty flaky/light stuff and they do like to throw it about as they scratch and do their lil chick things.

It is raised, and very little is wasted

 

[EggSighted4Life]

How many chicks?

 

[SteveMadonnaJ]

How many chicks?

8 .... sorry

 

[MeepBeep]

You never mentioned how many you had...

Here are the average weekly feed consumption levels for full sized laying pullet chicks, from week 1 to week 9

Edit scrap that chart, it was for broilers...

For layers you can expect each one to eat about 10 lbs of food in the first 10 weeks...

So with 8 chickens you are looking at about 80 lbs of food in the first 10 weeks, this of course is proportional to their size, less now more later...

***Edit I see you posted 8 chicks, you should expect to have fed them about 5 lbs of feed in the fist two weeks...

 

[EggSighted4Life]

I always buy the 40# bag of feed. 5 just doesn't go far enough, but they won't tell you that at the feed store cuz the smaller bags make more $. If it last to long, you can mix with the next bag of feed.

 

[EggSighted4Life]

My first bag of starter lasted for 12 weeks for 3 barred rocks. And another 2.5 weeks for the next 10 more chicks. I actually do fermented feed.

 

[scrambled please]

It is normal, they eat a lot, I agree the feed stores don't say anything, I was sent home with 3lbs. My next bag was 40 or 50. $$$$

 

[Rock Home Isle]

This Saturday we will have our Rhode Island Red pullets for a week (they are approximately 2 wks old). They have nearly gone through a 5 pd bag or Nature's Best Organic Chick Starter/Grower food. Is this normal? They are growing and prospering very well.

We started 6 Welsummers, beginning the end of March. They've gone through most of a 20 lb bag of chick starter, and I picked up another bag yesterday after work.

They are happy healthy birds, and they eat their food with relish. Now that they are outside, I suspect that I'll see a reduction in their feed consumption. They are very good foragers.