Am I not feeding enough? Or is this normal?

[BrattishTaz]

Fred's Hens :

If you ration feed, as I do, you should feed heavy in the morning. If the feed trays are empty in the afternoon, you know they need a bit of additional feed in the afternoon.
Ration feeding requires more "hands on" observation and management.

I also ration feed. I feed less in the morning, they freerange all day, and then have a larger quantity of feed in the evening. I rarely give treats. I have found they try to wander and get in trouble more if they are "full" in the AM.​

 

[Animalian]

maybe you could weigh them and compare it to the 'average weight' of the breed. I did this morning and apparently mine a fine lol

 

[MIKE555444]

If I were to feed this method, I think I would steadily increase their feed until I see a little left in the tray at night..... then back off just a very little.

I don't normally do this but once every 2-3 months when I am treating for mice/rats under the building(I don't want the rats to have a choice to come in at night and eat the feed rather than consume the bait). Once all that rat poison underneath has been ate I will go back to the all you can eat buffet

 

[Fred's Hens]

Quote:
I also ration feed. I feed less in the morning, they freerange all day, and then have a larger quantity of feed in the evening. I rarely give treats. I have found they try to wander and get in trouble more if they are "full" in the AM.

Your range is likely more rich than ours is. In either case, the goal is to provide all they can and want to eat during the day, with nothing left over night.

 

[Fred's Hens]

Quote:
You are right. This is how one determines approximately where the base line in feeding portion. This is the primary goal of ration feeding. Rodent issues. I don't personally see how one can keep chickens without rodents soon becoming an issue. Rodent populations are a constant battle, thus ration feeding provides no food for them over night. This management method does require a bit more hands on, but I believe in it.

 

[suki'smom]

Thank you all for the input, I am glad to hear that my birds are normal.

 

[Oregon Blues]

I weigh my birds' food and they are fed twice a day; once when I let them out for the day and then again when they are put up for the night.

They have learned to get in there and eat what they are given. Food dishes are empty most hours of the day and night, because the Tweetie birds will eat as much as 8 pounds of feed in a day. With the price of feed, I can't afford to set out an all-you-can-eat buffet for the sparrows.

My birds get a third feeding in the early afternoon that is green plant material and usually some fruit. They also get to wander around and eat whatever bugs they can find all day.

I watch their condition to make sure they don't lose weight. On the other hand, it is not really good for them to be over-weight, either.

If birds have food available all the time and they aren't maintaining condition, I'd wonder about the quality of the feed, and I'd also de-worm them.

 

[Oregon Blues]

With that many birds, you should be feeding somewhere between 12 and 17 pounds of quality food a day. How much does the feed weigh in those coffee cans?

 

[Oregon Blues]

I use a 3 pound cottage cheese tub and it holds 2.63 pounds of the pellets I feed, which are a heavy small pellet. I can get a lot of them into that tub. If that is a 1 pound coffee can you are using, you might be giving short rations.

 

[Fred's Hens]

Quote:
Might wanna check your math on that one.

34 chickens, times 4 oz equals 136 ounces, or 8.5 lbs per day. 17 lbs of feed per day seems awfully high for 34 birds that are not yet in lay. Maybe I missed something there. Even at 5 ounces per bird, that is only 10.6 pounds of feed.
I do agree that when folks here on BYC reference a "coffee can" or "a scoop" it would be nice to know what size they are talking about. Coffee comes in all kind of sized cans.