Feeding Amounts

[BlueTannery]

Hello BYC:
Disclaimer. I'm very new to this whole chicken-keeping thing, so I'm somewhat inexperienced and I'm trying to get my feet on the ground.

I'm a student at a Montessori school, where we keep a flock of seven hens and one rooster. We've had the chickens for about a year, but recently another class gave us the responsibility and we happily took it, and I was placed in charge of the Chicken Committee.

The chickens have around half an acre of pine-strawed woods to roam, fenced in, with lots of shade but areas to sunbathe if need be. They have a coop that is large enough for each of them to roost, and we gather between three and five eggs a day from our flock.

As we inherited around a dozen chickens, we decided to cull it down to our favorites and rehome the rest. They're currently happy and well fed, but we have a few concerns moving forward.

1) We've been feeding them intermittently, and we're currently in the process of discovering how long our fully-filled feeder lasts. Current estimates place it at around four days, but we're going to get closer to the exact soon. I'm not sure how much each chicken separately eats, but if someone could provide an estimate in chicken feed weight per day I'd really appreciate that.

2) We don't know how often to refill their watering buckets, but if there's a way I could get an estimate on how often I'd appreciate that. Currently we've been refilling and washing them out every four to five days, making sure they're clean and not full of leaves, pinestraw, and chicken poop.

3) We created a compost pile with some melon rinds, used straw, chicken poop scraped off the coop's roof, and general extra biodegradable food that leaves our kitchen at lunchtime.

4) The coop is not super-well maintained, as we're not really sure how often to refresh its straw and dirt supply. If I could get an estimate on how often to clean it, as it keeps eight chickens, I'd really appreciate that as well.

5) We don't really know how old or what breed the chickens are, as we didn't raise them and we don't have contact with the breeder who did. One appears to be a Dominique, but we can't be totally sure on any of them. They're all mid-sized and easy to handle.


Any questions? xP

Thanks in advance for your help,
Blue Tannery (representative of Riverstone Montessori Academy)

 

[HeritageGoose13]

2) We don't know how often to refill their watering buckets, but if there's a way I could get an estimate on how often I'd appreciate that. Currently we've been refilling and washing them out every four to five days, making sure they're clean and not full of leaves, pinestraw, and chicken poop.

It would be best to refill their water each day or at least every other day.

 

[barneveldrerman]

They eat about 0.25 or 1/4 a pound per bird per day. Their waters should be checked every other day or so. The coop should be clean when it gets dirty and just before it will stink! I don't use straw because it doesn't absorbe as much as other products but is fine to use. Every so often I clean the spider webs, the windows, and sift out the poop.


Hope this helped!

 

[Pork Pie]

Once you've done your feed calculation then you are set on that one. Personally i would change their water daily. Alternatively, you may consider using a nipple feeder system (google "chicken nipple feeders" - even just attached to a plastic bucket would be fine and this would reduce the frequency of changing the water.

I sweep my coop every day, and scrub it out twice a week - the floor of my coop (actually a shed) has concrete floors so cleaning is easy.

All the best to you and your chicken committee!

 

[BlueTannery]

Thanks everyone for the help!
We've narrowed the feeding schedule down to every three days or so, they have a feeder that they're totally content with.

We also started a small compost pile to take care of the extra poop, and since for a while they were locked inside the coop during the nights, they've developed a habit of pooping inside the coop. We've been doing our best to minimize this habit, mostly by leaving them out more and cleaning the coop every week.

As far as watering goes, we're looking into totally redoing it. We used to have four buckets that required cleaning every other day or so, but in reality I only think we need two or so. Cleaning should be simpler with less buckets and easier to manage.

Thanks again for all the help! This website is great