Are they refusing the pellet? or do they really eat that little?

[FLchook]

Because of the waste/mess I decided to switch from crumbles to pellets. I have 5 americana chickens, and used to fill their 1 gal food bowl each day. They would empty it by afternoon, and that was with them free ranging for bugs ect. With the pellets I've gone 2.5 days before I had to fill it. Are they just refusing to eat it, or was there just that much waste??

Just afraid they don't like it, and are starving themselves.

 

[Chickie_Banana]

Chickens will not starve themselves, once they get hungry enough they will eat it. It might just be because you switched and they are still adjusting to the new feed.

 

[Bear Foot Farm]

It's probably less waste since a chicken won't starve itself when food is there

 

[saladin]

Quote:
Trust me; they won't starve themselves. They'll eat when hungry.

With the pellets there will be a lot less waste. It is most likely they don't like the pellets, but they will get use to them. Don't giveup now if you are trying to make the switch.

 

[hennyannie]

I had this same thing happen during the switch. Ireally think that alot of the crumble was going through the floor of the coop.
So I think this is why is seems they are eating alot less. They did go through more when they got more used to it later however.

 

[Mac in Wisco]

That sounds about right to me. Five hens should eat around 1.25 - 1.5 lbs per day, which isn't much. I usually figure feed to be roughly 5 lbs per gallon of volume, so your gallon feeder should last several days. If you are having to refill it, they are eating it. As you said, they were wasting a lot with with the crumbles.

 

[Judy]

I was lucky and mine didn't object, but I've read of lots of instances where chickens didn't like the change to pellets. It's evidently more compact because mine eat less in volume of pellets than granules, but they certainly aren't losing weight. I agree, stick to it, go very easy on treats, and they will eat when they are hungry.

 

[MareeZoCool]

Sounds as if your chickens are as finiky as mine. LOL! Toss a cup of raw old fashioned oatmeal in with those pellets. my girls love the variety and seem to adore pecking & searching for their favorite bite.

Keep feeding those layer pellets, your chickens will gobble them up.

 

[Spoof]

I noticed a decrease in consumption by half when I switched to pellets. Built one of the automatic trigger feeders and am down to about 1.5lbs of pellets to 7 LF. They do free range in the evening for a couple hours, though at no point did they ever go through an entire gallon - that's a lot of feed!

 

[ky-chicken-farmer]

i noticed a huge change when i switched to pellets. My birds wasted alot when i was feeding crumbles. Like others have said, a chicken wont starve if there is food around