Crumbles!

[ellie_may12]

My father bought crumbles for the chickens instead of pellets this time. (He buys my chicken food in Mississippi for me and hauls it down here to Louisiana, because it costs less and there is no state taxes on feed in Mississippi) The crumbles are about a dollar cheaper than the pellets. Anyway, I have a gravity feed bucket feeder that I made out of a tray and a plastic bucket. With the pellets they have had very little waste, but since I put the crumbles in they have spread chicken feed all over the coop!

The crumbles are about a dollar cheaper than the pellets. I'm wondering if that is because they know that the chickens will waste so much of it.

Anyway, what is the best feeder for minimal waste if I decide to continue using the crumbles? Or is it just best to get the pellets?

 

[Imp]

Lots of people have posted that they have switched from crumbles to pellets because of the waste.

Imp

 

[TexasVet]

My chickens won't eat the pellets, and neither will the chickens of several of my friends. I have a mixed flock too, so the pellets are too big for the bantams. All I buy now is Layena crumbles.

Kathy, Bellville TX
www.ChickenTrackin.com

 

[catdaddyfro]

The problem I've seen with feeding crumbles esp. to the older chickens compared to chicks. Is that they will scratch and pic all of their favorite little morsels out and waste the rest. That's why pellets are better because they cant be so picky about what they can pick out of the feed as it is all combined in the pellets.

I feed laying pellets to all my hens from big layers to small bantams. My chickens have no problems with the pellets being too large, shoot you oughta see some of the stuff a chicken can swallow thats a whole lot bigger than a little layer pellet. Sounds like some of the little squirts are spoiled to crumbles.

catdaddy

 

[ellie_may12]

Mine have been on the pellets up until this week when Dad bought the wrong stuff. We will definately be going back to the pellets. I'm thinking about building a bucket like this to feed them the crumbles.

I don't think I'm going to do the PVC pipe or the bottle, just a bucket with the holes that will keep them from scratching the feed out so much.

 

[A.T. Hagan]

The gap between the bottom of the tube that holds the feed and the floor of the pan that it flows out into is probably too big. For pellets it usually needs to be larger so they'll have room to flow. For mash or crumbles it needs to be tighter so too much doesn't flow out at once.

You may also need to raise the height of the feeder. I find the lip of the feeder pan should be just a bit higher than the height of the birds shoulder blades when they are horizontal so that they have to reach up over the lip a little to get at the feed.

These two things will usually cut feed waste down a lot.

As for the pellets versus crumbles versus mash thing chickens are very habitual creatures. They get set in their ways about what they like and don't like. I find it's usually easiest to ease them into new food types by mixing the old feed and the new about fifty fifty until the old feed is used up. I've fed all three over the years and each of them were good or bad depending on the palatability of the feed.

.....Alan.

 

[SimplyForties]

Pellets work better in my feeder so I feed pellets. The chickens eat those and then, when the doors open, they go 'round to the guinea coop and eat whatever's left of the guinea's game bird crumble. The best of both worlds!