Chicken not interested in pellets help!

[Sweet Road Island Reds]

I have a hen she almost two not problems with eat before until about a week ago. She wasn’t interested in the food I set out. She would eat the sunflower seeds and corn. Other than that she’d pick. She will eat grass and wet pellets but it’s 7 degrees this morning so they are inside. She has been eating eggs she goes crazy for those. She’s been acting normal running to me when I have food until about today and yesterday. She’ll stand there next to the food like she’s cold and close her eyes. Other times she’ll take a few bites. This morning she just stayed on the roost and went back to sleep. What am I doing wrong? They have 20% protien food and probiotics in the water everyday. Her poops look normal she even has big ones. Her comb is still a nice red. (Even if something is slightly off her comb will change color.) she’ll run outside and scratch she’s herself just bored of the food.

 

[Painted Calls]

Cut out all treats and only offer the pellets. Was she previously on crumble and you just switched to pellets?

 

[Sweet Road Island Reds]

They have been on pellets for over a year.

 

[Painted Calls]

Cut out all treats so all that's available are the pellets. Sounds like she just prefers the "candy".

 

[Sweet Road Island Reds]

what if she doesn’t eat? I check her crop multiple times a day and it’s almost always empty.

 

[Painted Calls]

Unless there is something wrong with her health wise, she will eat when she's hungry.

Take away all treats and monitor her. Check her crop at roosting time. It should not be empty then. If it is, then try making mash out of her feed the next day and see how much she eats.

 

[SpicyDisaster]

When we first introduced scratch to the girls several decided to snub their pellets. So we stopped the scratch and within a few days they were back to eating normally. The little punks.

 

[LavenderDaFlerf]

When we switched our chicks to pellets they wouldn't eat them for three days. I took away all treats and they ate when the got hungry.

 

[Sweet Road Island Reds]

I did what you said. I took away any treats from her pulled her aside and made some mush. I took a handful of pellets and a good swish of the probiotics and water. She ate a lot more than a I thought she would. She’s a finicky eater you know I can’t hand feed her it has to be on the floor. Anyways she ate pretty good I thought. I know she’s hungry by the way she was eating it. She has to of been eating more pellets at night. There’s no way she could make a golf ball sized poop with less than a golf ball of pellets. I think this all started when my other hen got sick and I brought back the treats to spark her appetite. So she found out if she didn’t eat I would feed her the good stuff. Now she will only get mush and whatever she can find in the coop. The others too because they’ll kick all the food out for the seeds.

 

[Painted Calls]

I did what you said. I took away any treats from her pulled her aside and made some mush. I took a handful of pellets and a good swish of the probiotics and water. She ate a lot more than a I thought she would. She’s a finicky eater you know I can’t hand feed her it has to be on the floor. Anyways she ate pretty good I thought. I know she’s hungry by the way she was eating it. She has to of been eating more pellets at night. There’s no way she could make a golf ball sized poop with less than a golf ball of pellets. I think this all started when my other hen got sick and I brought back the treats to spark her appetite. So she found out if she didn’t eat I would feed her the good stuff. Now she will only get mush and whatever she can find in the coop. The others too because they’ll kick all the food out for the seeds.

Chickens are like children. They will always choose the potato chips and candy (treats) over their vegetables (balanced feed).

In the future, you can always give them a treat by making mash out of their feed. For some reason they think it's the best thing ever.