are my chickens too skinny...?...I think they might be...

[Gillian S]

that's cool. it certainly is worth a shot!!

i'll grab some this week.

 

[ChickenLegs13]

I had switched to pellets to cut down on wastage. My feed bill decreased greatly over several months until I figured out it was because they weren't eating much. I switch back to crumbles and started using hanging feeders to cut down on wastege. My usage increased but it wasn't due to wastage, it was because the hens were eating the crumbles. My hens regained their weight and production increased.

 

[Gillian S]

I'll definetly give the crumbles a go then!! they seem to eat a lot of those grains but not put on any weight. Granted the 2 young girls are still growing - one of them is massive in comparison to the others! but Cersie is an adult and has very little muscle mass on her breast. I'll try find out how old she is.

 

[KayTee]

Whenever you change feed you need to keep a special eye on your birds for a bit, to make certain that they are eating well.

I got caught out once when I bought a different brand of pellets. All the girls seemed to be going to the feeder and eating, but one girl started to look a bit skinny, and when I looked closely I saw that she was going to the feeder, picking up the pellets and then dropping them again - not actually eating them. I weighed her and realised that she had lost quite a bit of weight! I changed back to the original brand of pellets, and she put the weight back on again. For some reason she just didn't like the new pellets (they were shinier and harder than my usual brand). None of the others had a problem with it - just her!

Do you weigh your girls regularly? It is a very useful thing to do, as it helps you pick up on problems early on. I use a suitcase weighing scale and a large shopping bag. I do it once every four or five weeks, in the evening, when everyone is in the coop - one or two girls a night until everyone is done (I only have 5 birds at the moment). Some birds of the same breed can weigh more than others (a bit like us humans

) but if you have a record of what each bird weighs you can easily see if one is losing or gaining too much weight.

 

[Gillian S]

That's a good idea, to weigh them. i don't have scales though, so I'll have to work on that.
I usually wean all my animals onto new diets over a few weeks, hopefully since I only have three chickens they'll be easy to observe The food intake etc.
As a general opinion - Should 6 month old chickens be starting to lay?

 

[KayTee]

If you have a kitchen scale and your girls are quite docile then you can sit them either directly on the scale or in a bowl or box on it. My girls are not happy to sit still for any length of time, and one is waaaaay too big for the bowl, so I use a luggage scale (that I bought very cheaply off Ebay or Amazon, I don't remember which!) and an old shopping bag. I hang the scale off a beam in the coop, and weigh the bag, then I add the chicken and weigh it again. As long as the bird stops wriggling around for 5 seconds, you can get an accurate measurement.

As far as the egg laying goes, it depends a lot on the breed, but also the individual bird. Most hens will start laying around 6 months old, but I have two sisters, one of whom laid the day after I brought her home last September, and the other who was sick when I got them, and didn't start laying until this February! So one laid at around 6 months, and the other at 11 months! You will see when it is about to happen - they will start to show an interest in nesting boxes (and other possible laying sites) during the day time - poking around at the nesting material in there.

 

[Gillian S]

that's a good idea! I'll give it a go with a box on the kitchen scales. I actually think they may be Isa Brown chicken too... I'm really too new at this to know for sure and I didn't think to ask them. My big chook called cross layed an egg the next day and my small girl Bow, is getting all ''wanting a rooster!", if you know what mean

so i'm hoping she lays soon. The diet I am giving them is 15% protein and there is a no grind crumble that is 17% protein. does this sound like a better diet? This is yet another pic of the chooks with my daughter this time - she loves them

 

[casportpony]

Hi Fellow Chicken People!
I'm a little worries about my chickens body condition score. Their keel seems to be fairly pronounced, with little muscle mass on the breast. I am hoping I could pick some of your brains to see if I could find out what a healthy chicken feels like and what I need to feed them if they are underweight.
thanks in advance

Here's a picture:


Gonna guess that between 2-3 is ideal, but can't say for sure... 1 is definitely way too thin and 4 is too fat.

-Kathy

 

[Gillian S]

thanks Kathy,
That really helps. at this stage they are a 1

. I'll keep trying to get the weight on them.

 

[CuriousChicken]

How are your babies doing, I got a feral hen recently and she is a 1 on the scale. At the moment she is eating like 3 small horses so I hope to see some weight on her soon.