Recent content by schmamy

  1. schmamy

    how quickly should 11 chickens be going through a bag of scratch feed?

    I gave my friend the benefit of the doubt and calculated 35 days. 40 might actually be more appropriate - we bought feed on 11/8 and again on 12/14, but I don't know exactly when they ran out and refilled. 150 pounds of feed / 40 days = 3.75 lbs/day. Not *per chicken* - that's TOTAL. More than...
  2. schmamy

    how quickly should 11 chickens be going through a bag of scratch feed?

    Um. Except that the math is way off. 3 pounds of feed per chicken per day would be 33lbs/day - at that rate it would take less than a week to get through three bags of feed. But 150# of feed in 35 days comes out to about 4 lbs/day - less than 1/2 lb per day per chicken. ? what am I missing...
  3. schmamy

    how quickly should 11 chickens be going through a bag of scratch feed?

    Fred's Hens : The bigger question here might be the total feed. 100 pounds of regular feed, plus 50 pounds of scratch in 30+ days for 11 chickens? That, my friend, is far more the issue, not so much the percentage of scratch to feed. If your friend went through 150 pounds of feed in 30-35...
  4. schmamy

    how quickly should 11 chickens be going through a bag of scratch feed?

    Quote: Wow - that's a LOT less feed than our friends are using. The chickens are free to be out in the yard all day, but I believe they're just leaving feed available in the coop. Is that a bad idea? How do you know how much they need and whether they are getting enough from what's available...
  5. schmamy

    how quickly should 11 chickens be going through a bag of scratch feed?

    they went through about two 50# bags of feed in that time. interestingly, my friend thinks egg production has gone *up* since we started giving scratch (it had gone down for a while when the weather got colder)...
  6. schmamy

    how quickly should 11 chickens be going through a bag of scratch feed?

    We've just started buying our chickens scratch now that the weather has gotten cold. I'm wondering how much they really should be getting. I know it's a treat. I bought a 50# bag on 11/8 and our friends needed a new one already this week (we don't have chickens at our house--friends of ours have...
  7. schmamy

    coop floor - what do you absolutely *need*? different in winter?

    OK, I deleted my question about breaking even because it was an irrelevant comment that was getting more attention than my main question! I saw the chicken coop yesterday.Concrete floor and poop everywhere. It stinks, and it's pretty gross. I don't know what their method is for cleaning (didn't...
  8. schmamy

    coop floor - what do you absolutely *need*? different in winter?

    Quote: Isn't that the case for any pet/hobby/passtime/activity? That's what I'm asking. Is raising chickens only worthwhile as a hobby/pets/a fun pastime? If the daily maintenance work was on me, I would not be doing it for these reasons. The appeal to me is getting high-quality eggs--that's...
  9. schmamy

    feeding scratch for the winter

    Our chickens free range, and we haven't been giving them scratch since their pre-egg-laying days. It sounds like it's a good idea to give them scratch over the winter for added warmth overnight and to replace the extra calories they burn keeping warm. How should we give it to them? Just mixed...
  10. schmamy

    coop floor - what do you absolutely *need*? different in winter?

    We have some backyard chickens at a friend's house--we share all the costs, we did the upfront work and the research, they do the day-to-day maintenance. We're prepping for winter, and my friend told me: We are not using pine shavings on the bottom of the coop. It was just more mess to clean...
  11. schmamy

    new to chickens - lots of questions about our coop

    also, can someone fill me in on "poop boards"?
  12. schmamy

    new to chickens - lots of questions about our coop

    The chicks range from about 5-7 weeks old. We don't have a run--just a coop, and a large fenced-in area. I know once they're bigger they may very well fly over the fence, but for now, it keeps them contained. So far my friend has been letting them out for several hours at a time and they're...
  13. schmamy

    new to chickens - lots of questions about our coop

    We've gone in with some friends to raise chickens. They have an existing coop on their property that was used by previous owners, so we are splitting costs and we did all the front-end research and work, and they're doing the day to day maintenance. My friend just emailed me with a bunch of...
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