#'s of feed per 52 Chickens

[Q127]

Greetings to All:
I currently have a mixed flock of RIR's/ BR's/ GC's/ BSL's/ Ideal236's/and a couple of others (50 hens,and 2 Roo's) that are eating me out of house and home.
I am currently using hanging feeders ( a & a 30 # & a home made that holds about 40#'s).

My question is : Am I feeding to much as I have to refill them every 3 days (2 feeders).
They have access to these feeders (laying pellets 24/7)..

Thanks to all in advance for your advice & help in this matter!

 

[lazy gardener]

Are you saying that you're going through about 140# of feed/week? If so, you've got rodent infestation, or your flock is wasting a lot of feed, most likely both! My flock of 27 birds are getting fermented feed, which cuts down on the amount of feed they eat, b/c they better utilize the nutrient in the feed. They also don't waste any of that feed, and b/c it doesn't get spilled/wasted, there are not rodent issues. 50# lasts me almost 3 weeks. They also get about a qt. of scratch/day. Is your feed kept in a metal container which is kept covered? You might want to put out some traps, and see what you catch! Be sure those traps are set up so that non targeted animals can get in them. I'm guessing that you have rats, perhaps mice rats, and even bigger animals coming by which like chicken feed. Some of those bigger animals also like to eat chicken just as much as they like chicken feed!

 

[Q127]

Yes my feed is kept in metal cans until I place it in the feeders, you are about right on the amount as well.Thank you for the tip on the rodent issue. Will try the traps , and see what happens. If they are wasting feed something is defiantly cleaning it up between my going out to feed/collect eggs. interesting , something I never had thought of.
Thank you again for you're suggestions.

 

[Bridebeliever]

I highly recommend fermenting feed too! It reduces waste, reduces consumption, is a very healthy diet for them and reduces poo smell! I love it! I'm sure I would love it even more if I had 50 birds! (I have 10.)
http://naturalchickenkeeping.blogspot.com/p/fermented-feed.html?m=1

 

[Q127]

Thank you for you're response , I will check out the option of fermented feed (sounds interesting). I am currently feeding a commercial laying pellet ( Nutrina) it would seem that if it gets wet it would simply disintegrate into mush or am i mistaken on that?

 

[lazy gardener]

Yes, it does turn into a mush, much like cooked oatmeal consistency. They gobble it up. I put out a feeding in the morning for them, then based on their crop condition, I give them some scratch or more FF when I get them into the run mid/late afternoon.

 

[Wickedchicken6]

Hi! We have 52 chickens too!

Our flock consists of mostly EE's, then Silkies, OEGB, a couple of bantams and 4 Guinea fowl. Six of them are a year and a half old, most are 4-5 months and there's a few younger ones. We moved them into the winter coop four days ago and they've eaten about 3/4 of a bag (55lb) of grower/finisher, about 1/6 of a bag of scratch grain and a couple of margarine dishes of wheat/millet. It's been as cold as -10C. Today it's just 0C in the coop. We have no rodents in the coop (Darn, nasty rodents!

)

I thought I'd chime in what our birds eat for comparison in case it can help.

 

[Egghead_Jr]

To save on feed until you figure out your rodent problem you can bring your feed in each night. Or you can measure out feed for the day. Depending what else your birds get for feed and any free range forage it's hard to say how much they should be eating. My birds still have some forage this late in the season and average 0.18 lbs of pellet feed per day each. Come winter with no forage it's closer to 0.23 lbs each and that varies on how much food scraps they get from the household. None of your birds are heavy large fowl so wouldn't be eating more than 1/4 lb per day as only feed source. But in the range of what my birds eat (medium large fowl- Plymouth Rocks) that's still only 9.36-11.96 lbs per day for 52 birds. Meaning a bag of feed should last 4 to 5 1/2 days. Even if you guessed 0.33 lbs per day (what heavy large fowl might eat if sole feed- Brahma, Jersey Giant) a bag of feed would last you 3 days.

That much feed being taken is a problem both in feed waste and if rodents a serious infestation. I've battled rodents and finally started using chunx bait in tamper proof bait boxes. I keep a box right in the run at all times. 2 years using it and no a problem. Once was a dead chipmunk that didn't make it back to burrow so picked it up and put in trash before letting chickens out in morning. If it is rodents your past the time for trying traps, they work a bit in keeping pests at bay but wont be enough once overrun.

So there is no confusion of poison and bait station I mean:

 

[whitg]

We have 36 full grown mostly RIR. At one point we had 52. We were going through about 175-200 lbs of feed every 2 weeks at that time. There's not alot of waste though with the feeder we have now. It seemed to help putting the feeder on sinder blocks when we had a store bought feeder. Hope that helps.

 

[MicroMaverick]

Are you saying that you're going through about 140# of feed/week? If so, you've got rodent infestation, or your flock is wasting a lot of feed, most likely both! My flock of 27 birds are getting fermented feed, which cuts down on the amount of feed they eat, b/c they better utilize the nutrient in the feed. They also don't waste any of that feed, and b/c it doesn't get spilled/wasted, there are not rodent issues. 50# lasts me almost 3 weeks. They also get about a qt. of scratch/day. Is your feed kept in a metal container which is kept covered? You might want to put out some traps, and see what you catch! Be sure those traps are set up so that non targeted animals can get in them. I'm guessing that you have rats, perhaps mice rats, and even bigger animals coming by which like chicken feed. Some of those bigger animals also like to eat chicken just as much as they like chicken feed!

What is fermented feed? I feel like I'm going through an awful lot of food for my 38 chickens!