About how much feed do chickens go through in one week?

[Den in Penn]

Do they actually eat hay? My flock loves eating grass and now with it in short supply I wonder what I can give them.

They will mostly just scratch around in the hay looking for any goodies that may have come along with the hay. You could give them alfalfa hay. They will eat the leaves in it and not the stems but it will add to their diet and still give them something to pick through.

Hi all,

Yet another question. My pullets seem to be doing great. I have egg layer pellets available all day for them and supplement with some grass, worms, stuff I find in the yard. A little scratch for treats and meal worms too. Not a lot of those things. But, my question is, it doesn't seem like they are eating the pellets much at all. I put plenty in the covered feeder when I got them a week ago and there is still plenty left. Should I not be giving them any treats to get them used to eating the pellets? Any suggestions or advice is welcomed!!

Thanks
Eric

Yes cut the treats till you are sure they are eating the feed. they may not have had pellets before.

 

[Bellacoby]

Thanks, the hatchery did say they were on pellets... So I guess if they get hungry enough they will eat the pellets right?

 

[Den in Penn]

Yes they won't starve themselves. I'm sure that different mills feed taste different, just like Mom's recipe tastes different from the same one made by someone else.

 

[Bellacoby]

thanks!

 

[bbishop]

1 heavy scoop to 3 groups of hens

 

[Roan]

Okay, resurrecting this thread. I've been doing some calculations for the last 2 days just to get a feel for what my birds are eating. It comes out like this:

1 Black Australorp Rooster
7 Rhode Island Hens
3 Barred Plymouth Rocks
18 Ameraucana Mixed Hens
7 Ameraucana Mixed Roosters
1 Small Duck

So a total mixed flock of 37 birds with the majority being Ameraucana mixes, which are light birds having not taken the bulk from the RIR and BR mothers that laid them.

I feed them 13 scoops of laying pellets per day.
1 scoop = 1.1 kg = 2.45084882 lbs

So I'm feeding them 31.526103466 lbs per day

In the evenings, I gather 5 scoops of leftovers.
That's 12.12542441 lbs
So they are consuming 8 scoops
Which is 19.400679056 lbs!

Fed Left Over Consumed
Scoops 13.00 5.00 8.00
Kilograms 14.30 5.50 8.80
Pounds 31.53 12.13
19.40

Per bird it goes:

Fed Left Over Consumed
Scoops/Bird 0.35 0.14 0.22
kg/bird 0.39 0.15 0.24
lb/bird 0.85 0.33 0.52


At this rate, we will go through 50 lbs of feed in 2.57722937716 days!

So, my question is, what am I calculating wrong??? There is no way we can actually be going through 50 lbs of feed in less than 3 days.

Our birds are free range and though it's winter now, we've gotten no snow and they're always in the tree line scratching through the leaves.

We bought 3 bags of feed on 12/17/14 and I've been feeding them this ration every day since and have at least 2 bags left in the bin! So I know my calculations are way off. Can someone help, please?

 

[Memeschix]

My Chickens won't eat their crumbles, which are in a hanging feeder. How do I change that? I have tried putting mealworms in the feeder.

 

[MeepBeep]

My Chickens won't eat their crumbles, which are in a hanging feeder. How do I change that? I have tried putting mealworms in the feeder.

Don't offer them anything else, when they get hungry enough they will eat the crumbles...

At this rate, we will go through 50 lbs of feed in 2.57722937716 days!

So, my question is, what am I calculating wrong???  There is no way we can actually be going through 50 lbs of feed in less than 3 days.

For 37 birds during the winter that doesn't seem off to me at all... I'm too lazy to go count my mixed flock of peas, chickens and guineas right now but I'm in the area of 60ish total I believe and I'm going through 80-100lbs of feed a week in addition to also giving them one or two 5 gallon buckets worth of random mixed fresh vegetables, bread, fruit, yogurt, cottage cheese and whatever every day... Without the daily fresh offerings I would be going through at least 200lbs of feed a week... I also heat the coop to 37°F so they don't consume as much as if they had to endure the even cooler temps...

We bought 3 bags of feed on 12/17/14 and I've been feeding them this ration every day since and have at least 2 bags left in the bin!  So I know my calculations are way off.  Can someone help, please?

Is there food left over each day or are you truly 'rationing' it and thus short changing them?

 

[Roan]

For 37 birds during the winter that doesn't seem off to me at all... I'm too lazy to go count my mixed flock of peas, chickens and guineas right now but I'm in the area of 60ish total I believe and I'm going through 80-100lbs of feed a week in addition to also giving them one or two 5 gallon buckets worth of random mixed fresh vegetables, bread, fruit, yogurt, cottage cheese and whatever every day... Without the daily fresh offerings I would be going through at least 200lbs of feed a week... I also heat the coop to 37°F so they don't consume as much as if they had to endure the even cooler temps...

Okay, Thanks. That's a lot of food! Can you give me a ballpark figure of how many birds you have total (you know, give or take 100 lol)?

Is there food left over each day or are you truly 'rationing' it and thus short changing them?

No, there's always food left over.

 

[RogerTheChicken]

63 chickens and we use 3 50lb bags a month