Am I feeding my dual purpose too much? They were really fat inside.

[Germaine_11.20]

Hi! When I processed some of my hens they had alot of internal fat.

Am I feeding them too much? And if so, how do I know just how much to give them.

I have to restrict free ranging due to predators. When I put food out there they alway look like I starved them, but after butchering I can see they aren't!

Any advice?

 

[bigredfeather]

How old were the hens? I think some fat on retired layer is to be expected. I doubt you're over feeding. My hens act like I never feed them everytime I fill up their feeder. If you think about people, generally as we get older, we tend to carry some extra pounds w/ age. Same thing w/ chickens.

 

[Germaine_11.20]

The RIR's are one year old. They are really not that big for RIR's. I bought them day old at the hatchery.

I am making room for the birds that will be laying soon and the RIR's have drastically tapered off the egg laying the last 2 weeks.
They are molting. And the feed to production level is just not cutting it when I will have oodles of layers in a month or so.

But the amount of fat inside really surprised me. I am not sure if you can overfeed chickens or not. I wish I had taken a picture.

 

[jaku]

I wouldn't worry about it.