Mine did the same. They'd not touch the pellets and would beg for more scratch. I also completely stopped with the scratch because they were all losing weight. X2....good post!Just a side note. The reason I have stopped feeding grains/scratch is the birds prefer it over the breeder pellets. They will fill up on the grains and miss the nutritional value of the pellets. I have tried feeding all kinds of stuff and concluded the birds do better on the nutritionally balanced pellets. I feed chick starter grower to about three months and then the pellets. I do feed a small amount of black oil sunflower seed to birds I am conditioning to show. The high oil content does help feather quality. Just five or so a day per bird. This of course is from my personal experience. I have done lots of dumb stuff and made plenty of mistakes.
Tim
P.S. and please don't kid yourselves......birds do better on feed that contains ANIMAL protein. All this vegetarian diet feed crap is pure B.S. Chickens are omnivores.