50lbs a week????

[briteday]

17 hens, 2 roos...50 pounds of Flockraiser lasts at least two weeks. Sometimes they get castoff produce and table scraps, sometimes not. They are outside all day but the pickings are slim this time of the year.

 

[Buck Creek Chickens]

I go through 1500 lbs in 5 weeks

 

[Happy Chooks]

Quote:
Holy crapola!

How many chickens do you have?

 

[lishah2000]

I have 30 chickens (9 are still growing), 6 ducks and two turkey and they go through 50 lbs. a week, sometimes a little more. 7 of the chickens free-range and hardly eat any of the feed. A majority goes to the growing birds and the ducks and turkey. The pen with the babies and broodies goes through three times the amount of feed that the adults eat. The ducks (the pekin mostly) will eat as much as I put into the bowl, then hit the chicken feeders, so I have to "ration" them so they will forage more. They ate even more when they were growing.

 

[Mac in Wisco]

Quote:
Sounds about right for cold weather. Not sure of the amount that a duck eats, but if you figure .3 lbs per bird, per day, for a week, that's 46 lbs of feed...

 

[bibliophile birds]

i've got 22 9-week olds and a 50 lb bag is lasting me 3 weeks at least.

 

[felidaet]

The replies here seem to really vary. I wonder if the type of feed makes a difference. Crumbles vs. Pellets. And Layer vs. Flock Raiser vs. Grower vs. other....

I am feeding my 17 pullets (see list of breeds at the bottom of this post) Purina Layena pellets. We are using 50 lbs about every 2 - 3 weeks. I also mix in about 2 - 4 cups (rough guess) of flax seed mixed in with each 50lb bag. I do not see any waste. They don't free range very often because any free range time has to be carefully supervised to keep the hawks away. They get about 2 cups of scratch once every couple of day. I am also leaving fresh pumpkins in the run but they are eating them very slowly.

At this rate of feed consumption, selling my extra eggs @ $3.00 a dozen is paying for my feed. I am pleased to be breaking even this time of year. I am getting 6 - 9 eggs a days right now. The average is probably about 7. I am not keeping written records. In early October I was getting 13 - 16 eggs per day. I am anxious for longer days so that production goes back up.

 

[Rafter 7 Paint Horses]

Is flock raiser a crumble?
If so, and if your hens are grown, why not switch them to a laying pellet. We have to feed pellets instead of crumbles or we would go completely broke! Our chickens waste way too much of the crumbles, they scatter it around and then trample it into the ground. We almost cut our feed in half switching to pellets.

And every little bit helps with over 400 chickens.

I don't raise ducks, but we get them in trade every once in awhile, and they eat 3 times as much as a chicken (at least the ones we had did).

Jean

 

[klevesque]

I have 24 hens and 1 roo who are all 10 weeks old today. I bought 50 # on Nov. 21 and am praying they have enough to last the night.

So that's 50# in 11 days.

 

[Mac in Wisco]

That's really not a lot of feed for that many birds in cold weather, sounds like they are right on track to me. Would a layer ration be cheaper for you? I'm not sure if you'd want to use it until the ducks are older though.

According to the Purina website, Flock Raiser is not a layer ration, it is used as a grower in mixed flocks. They recommend switching to Layena at 20 weeks of age.