Do you just keep feeding and feeding and feeding them????

[theFox]

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They already have a job, and that job is eating you out of house and home.

Chickens consume a lot of feed when little and again when cold weather hits.

Didn't they offer you a tonnage discount at the feed store?

 

[welsummerchicks]

i'm buying by the bag, not the ton. I don't think this place even sells by the ton. I think that when they are out on pasture, they will not need as much commercial feed.

Gloat...I have about 3 acres of clover/alfalfa/timothy/orchard grass. I can't even put my horses out on it, there is too much alfallfa and clover. I am counting on the chickens to eat the alfalfa down so I can let the horses out on the grass!

 

[bigdaddyabc]

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Leftover Big Macs....now why didn't I think of that. Those would hafta stick to their ribs better than grass and chicken feed. My mixed (age, size, and breed) flock of 45 does 100 pounds of feed every two weeks. Plus they get all the lawn clippings, weeds, garden scrap, buggy tomatoes, buggy cukes, and leftovers they can eat........and they CAN EAT it all. I even give them a coffee can of mixed grains and seeds every day or so for a healthy variety. I bought them 70 pounds (yes, that much) of cabbage leaf culls from my local grocer. That actually required some work on their part. It took them 3 days to polish that off.......while they still had their feed available. Perhaps "eat like a bird" is a bit of a misnomer. No date I ever had that "ate like a bird" cost me this much to feed. I am calling McD's to see what they do with the Macs they don't sell right now........

 

[Christie Rhae]

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Lol! I agree! At times I think my chicks are geniuses! Other times I think they must be retarded. lol!

 

[woodmort]

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Lol! I agree! At times I think my chicks are geniuses! Other times I think they must be retarded. lol!

Yup on the latter, especially when they stand outside an open, but meshed covered window and try to jump through it because their siblings are on the other side--at the same time there is a perfectly good ramp leading to an open hatch 6 inches to their right.

BTW, my 32 2-week old chicks were pounding down about 50 lbs of crumbles at the same time 10 pullets who were a month older than they were eating about 5. As soon as the big group got to go outside, the feed consumption dropped to about half.

 

[theFox]

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A lot of feed stores will provide volume discounts, sometimes called customer loyalty rewards. You might try asking.

I never buy one bag at a time the chick teens are just eating machines if you put it in front of them it is gone, the big girls are dainty eaters compared to them.

In any event forage cuts into the feed bill, but if you live where the ground cover goes away or gets buried in the winter you will notice that the feed bill tends to follow temperature.