Chickens not wanting to eat Layena?

[operationindigo]

My girls just started laying and I switched them over from purina flock raiser crumbles to the layena pellets. It's been in the feeder for a few days now and they don't seem to be very interested in it at all - it seems hardly eaten. The weather has been really cold here the past few days too, so I can't really figure it out. With the crumbles, I was refilling the feeder about every day and a half. The layena has been sitting there for days. Do you think it could have anything to do with the change from crumbles to pellets? My first thought was if they're hungry enough, they'll eat. But when it was still sitting there today I was a little worried. What should I do?

 

[operationindigo]

I also noticed one of the girls has some watery poop too since the change. Is this normal for a change in food?

 

[denco5]

I tried to switch mine from crumbles to pellets but they wanted nothing to do with them. I went back to crumbles

 

[cackleberrycam]

This is probably because they are not used to it yet and are still very picky. Chickens love routine and this kind of messes it up their usual eating routine. They will probably eat it soon. Another thing, Do you give you chickens large amounts of scratch grains or kitchen scraps??? If you do, then I would think that that would be one of the reasons that they will not eat it. When chickens are given large amounts of scraps, they tend to get obsessed with them and will not want to eat anything else. I hope thins helps!

 

[operationindigo]

Actually they really only get veggie scraps on the weekends, and they really don't get scratch. I put out oyster shell every few days, feed when empty, and they get greens like kale from the garden no more than a few times a week.