Chickens won't eat from protected feed?

[Peppercorngal]

I like to use the 10 pound feeder that you can place on the ground or hang. I just place them on the ground. The chickens scratch at it, but they can't scratch the feed out. Some like to eat from the bottom and Harvey the rooster and taller chickens like to eat from the top! I have 4 of them placed throughout my 2 runs as I have 40 chickens.

 

[City Farmer Jim]

I like to use the 10 pound feeder that you can place on the ground or hang. I just place them on the ground. The chickens scratch at it, but they can't scratch the feed out. Some like to eat from the bottom and Harvey the rooster and taller chickens like to eat from the top! I have 4 of them placed throughout my 2 runs as I have 40 chickens.

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I see that you have a chicken swing...do they use it much? I tried one when they were younger but they didn't really like to use it. Those are the same feeders I use with great success, easy to clean and fill and little to no waste. There are 2 round pans in one of the pictures...water in them? Where did you purchase them and are they metal ?

 

[Peppercorngal]

I see that you have a chicken swing...do they use it much? I tried one when they were younger but they didn't really like to use it. Those are the same feeders I use with great success, easy to clean and fill and little to no waste. There are 2 round pans in one of the pictures...water in them? Where did you purchase them and are they metal ?

I have only seen one 5 week old chick use the swing one time and I think it was an accident. I think he was "getting away" from a hen. The round pans are for water. One is metal, bought at Tractor supply and the other is rubber, it's an oil pan thing. I think I bought it along with a cat box that I use for water at Dollar Tree. It's very hot in summer here and all total I have 8 large water pans for my chickens. Two in each run and four in shady spots around the free range area.

The cat box:

This is a mortar mixing pan. Great for water!

 

[City Farmer Jim]

I now have 3 more metal pan...my girls love to wade in them and we only had one..everything else we had was to deep...its hot here tooo 95 plus for 3 straight weeks now..keeping them cool as possible is now much easier.

 

[docdubz]

Man my birds are something else. All of the large feeders are sold out by me so I bought one of the small ones to supplement the 2' long tray feeder. Ive been keeping the tray feeder in the chicken tractor and the new small one outside in the run. The tray feeder is up on blocks and they still either fill it with straw or flip it over. And I just went outside to freshen their waterers and look at what I found.

I have no idea how they figured out how to unscrew the feeder jar... But they did... And I explicitly made sure it was on good this morning.

 

[docdubz]

I filled their food up last night and closed the lid. I came to their chicken trailer just now to find that they refused to touch it all night because the lid was on. I put it up on extra blocks so they weren't able to get straw in it but we're still able to reach and yet they didn't. As soon as opened their tractor they ran out to eat from the feeder that I had sitting uncovered outside of the tractor.

I don't get it. The holes on the two feeders are about the same size. And at a minimum they could at least reach the top layer in the red feeder but they didn't touch it all night.

 

[City Farmer Jim]

Chickens bees smart like dat.."MaMa always says" we have always used the Harris farms 3 quart red and white feeders when they get moved from the brooder. I hang mine so they have to stand full upright so its strictly eating no scratching allowed(much) at meal time lol