Chickens are wasting feed

[LAGelinne]

My five hens are fed Mule City Layer feed in a hanging feeder. It has sunflower seeds but not many. These seeds are their favorite thing so they scatter the feed with their beaks looking for the seeds. As a result, the entire floor of the run is basically uneaten feed. What can I do? Are crumbles better? During the day their door is open so they go back and forth between the run and a 25x25 foot fenced area. For a couple of hours in the late afternoon and evening they free range on our two acre property of lawn and woods. They get table scraps a few times a week and yogurt and time or two. What is the beat method of feeding that won’t waste feed and attract mice?

 

[Three Little Bunnies]

I give my laying hens pellet feed, they actually seem to waste less. My little chicks get crumble and it is a disaster. I use a metal hanging feeder for the big girls. It is adjustable, so I keep it on the setting that lets the least amount of feed out. I would try to get feed without the sunflower seeds. They might waste some feed looking for the seeds, but they will eventually figure out that there are none. Another option is to give them wet feed. Not too much, though, or it will mold and smell. All of my birds love mash.

 

[ColoradoPip]

I have read other people say the same thing about their flocks only eating what they like when given the choice.

There are many answers to "what can I do?"
- Some do not refill the feeder until the other food on the ground is mostly eaten
- Try various styles of no waste feeders, there are many options to buy or DIY
- Shift to pellets/crumbles/mash which is not whole seeds

Rodents:
- No waste feeder to keep food off the ground and either cap the food, or remove it completely, at night.

IIRC, sunflower seeds are super fatty and you might want to limit them anyway.

 

[blackdog043]

Try raising the feeder to the back height of the chickens, if it's not that high already. It might help some, but they are after the sunflower seeds. The other options are change feed or change the feeder.

I use no waste feeders with crumble to feed my flock.

 

[rosemarythyme]

One option is to try fermenting your feed. When everything gets wet and starts sticking together, it makes it harder for chickens to pick out specific pieces and encourages them to eat everything in the bowl.

If that still doesn't work, consider switching to a different feed that does not have BOSS in it.

 

[Mtnboomer]

I use pellets only. I tried crumbles and they made a mess of things too. I would avoid feeds that have potential favorite bits mixed in it as opposed to more uniform contents (no favorites to pick out) and then supply treats, seeds, grains etc on the side.
When i used the crumbles, and they made a mess, I did not refill the feed as often. After a day without their favorites to dig for, they ate the spilled feed on the floor. So long as it remains dry, the spilled feed is still edible. If it gets wet or just damp from the ground it can mold or spoil and should be removed.

 

[Acre4Me]

Good suggestions above. To use up the current feed, I would not give them feed today and see if they “clean up” their mess. However, I would not do this if the feed had gotten wet and sat there for an undetermined length of time. You can make a mash with it until it is gone. But, I would not buy pellets that have large BOSS in it.

FWIW, we will give the chickens scratch occasionally ...to get them back in the run, for example. So, my feed store started to carry Kalmbach brand “Henhouse Reserve” feed. This is basically whole grains (like scratch) and additional nutritional pellets bc it marketed as a whole/complete feed. I figured this would begreat as a treat of scratch but more nutritious. To limit the mess, I put this into a large metal pan that they all gather around to eat. What do you think is left in the pan when they all leave? Yes, the extra nutritional pellets! Since I’m not giving them much of this “scratch” like product, they aren’t walking away bc they are full. They eventually eat these pellets bc I’ll put the pan back in the run the next morning and they will eat those pellets as there isn’t any more exiting whole grain bits left.

You could also hang your feeder over a large pan so the tossed feed ends up in a pan, rather than the ground in the run, which will potentially attract rodents. A hot water heater pan will be larger, but might be too large. TSC sells galvanized pans and there might be a wide/shallow one that would work.

 

[Al Gerhart]

Anytime you use a mixed grain feed or something with "treats" in it like sunflower seeds you are just asking for the birds to rake feed out of the feeder. Our feeder has about a two inch lip in height, with an additional turn inside of about a half inch.

Even with that, mixed feed is asking for waste to happen. We do have an additional feeder lip extension that stops even the worst feed rakers but 95% of the time it isn't needed if you stick to a uniform type feed. You shouldn't be feeding treats free choice anyway, messes with a healthy diet for the laying hens.