How many times/day do you feed your chickens?

[TLMAlexGro]

Mine always have access to food. even when they are free ranging i keep their food container full, i have one that holds 5 lbs of food. I feed chicken scraps whenever we have them and I go outside as treats.

That's how our hens are cared for. I always keep the container full (the few times it has gone empty they let me know by tipping it over), and they free range otherwise. Any time we have scraps I toss them back to them. I also usually have a container of freeze-dried worm treats on hand.

 

[ChickenLegs13]

The thing about feeding free choice feed to free ranging chickens is they'll eat more feed than forage. If you only feed them once a day in the evening, they will forage harder during the day then in the evening they will only have to top off their crops with a small amount of expensive feed and your feed bill will go waaay down.
Just saying that's how I do it, not saying it's the "best" way or that everybody else should do it.

 

[flo12345]

Mine get food all day. I fill up the feeder about every other day and it seems to work great for me

 

[Kleo]

Our girls are spoiled.. Each morning they get 2 plates of fresh spinach (or other greens) with shredded cheese and sunflower hearts on top but always have their layer mix available in their run. During the day they come to the door for more seeds and also have cracked corn and wild bird seed scattered about to peck on. Every evening just before bed we give them a big helping of warmed up frozen peas. They love to be hand fed their peas, all 8 of them. Their crops are full to get them through this cold Maine winter. Yes, they are big girls with a lot of fluff to keep them warm. PS Plus other meat scraps that we have go to them.

 

[CasadasHens]

Kleo, your chooks eat better than I do !

 

[luvussomechicks]

we used to leave our feed out to eat as they will. But they all of a sudden, just started eatting it up in 2 days, way overeating. So we have to feed them once to twice daily.

 

[Granny Hatchet]

does anyone feed their chickens, well, chicken? i just cant bring myself to do it.

 

[Cheyen]

I've never fed my chickens chicken... not intentionally, anyway. I feed bones and innards to the cats outside. Sometimes the chickens just can't resist...lol.

 

[Chicken-Man]

Just make sure they have full access to food and water at al times and when needed just fill em up. they will eat and drick when desired.

 

[twinzmom]

We feed 2x a day with warm oatmeal mixture that may contain corn, or other cooked vegetables and leftovers. We have feed pellets also available all day in the coop.

We are also lucky enough to have a Hannaford grocery store here that gives us their day old fruits and vegetables. We signed up for twice a week and find we have planets of greens and strawberries etc for the whole week. We have an extra fridge in our basement that we keep it in. They also give us day old bagels and pastries, our chickens won't eat them so we give them to a guy up the road that has pigs. Works out really good for us and lowers our feed bill too.