feeding laying hens

[hawkeye]

let's hear your opinions
is it best to feed once or twice a day or have food available all the time. i have 12 hens

 

[daryl]

I like to give them pleanty in the morning but only enought to last untill around 1:00pm then give just a little when I get home from work around 5:30pm. so when I put them in the coop for the night there not hungry and pecking around inside the coop where there is no food only poop..There is fresh water inside but not food untill winter sets in.Thay have a huge run to forage for bugs and grass ect.

 

[sephiroth]

I feed in the morning only as much as they want at once. Then they forage and free-range all day. Before cooptime I offer them as much feed as they want.

These days they're really not eating a lot of feed.

 

[Uppity Peon]

I use a hanging feeder. I am careful not to have food out at night because I don't want a rodent infestation. There is food available all day in the feeder, but when I lock them up for the night, the feeder comes inside. I mix grit with the food because our soil is almost all clay.

Soon I will switch to layer feed, and then I will probably leave oyster shell out. I don't think that will support a rodent population.

 

[K-Chick]

I feed in the afternoon when I pick up the eggs, and I fill 3 feeders with a scoop each and it lasts til I come the next day.

 

[Davaroo]

Quote:
Much of this had to do with convenience for you. Some people are around home all day, so feeding at multiple times is doable.
Others work 12 hour shifts, or out of town, and keeping a full feeder is a better option.

In the old days it was recommended to feed once on the morning, once at noon and once before dusk.
The first feeding was a wet mash* or ration-type feed.
The noon time feeding was to be green feed, hung where the birds had to jump and work to get it
The last feed was a wet mash* or ration-type feed.

In between these feedings, scratch is kept tossed in the litter or the chickens are allowed to forage out of the pen if that luxury is available.

Whats best? Doesn't really matter, to be honest. Its more important that you pick a schedule and not deviate from it. This greatly simplifies the matter, but gives you something to consider.

* A wet mash is officially a "stew" of kitchen and garden scraps. It's just boiled til softened, drained thoroughly and mashed up. It is fed while warm. Everything can go in it that isn't otherwise to be eaten by the humans in the house. Mix it with stale bread crumbs if you can - otherwise just feed as much as they will eat up in an hour.
Fed early, it starts them out on a good footing. Fed just before roosting, it puts them to bed on a full warm belly... at least that's what its proponents believe.
A wet mash has also been thought of as a mix of grains, soaked in water or skim milk and fed to the chickens, usually as the last meal of the day.

 

[hawkeye]

thank guys
i have hanging feeder in the coop the door is open all day i give them scratch corn in the evening, i just wanted to know what every one does.
i have a new flock 6 marans 6 barred rock

cluck cluck its all good

 

[kcfuerst]

I have a hanging feeder that holds 21 lbs of food. I leave it full 24x7. As their mainstay, the feeder is inside the coop so no problems with rodents or other critters. My girls always go to bed stuffed to the gills with free-range goodies that they pack away for an hour before dark, fruits grass, bugs, you name it. No one goes to bed hungry. I doubt that they will, but if any of them got a hankerin' for a midnight snack, it's available.

 

[Davaroo]

Quote:
If you could watch them out in the coop at night you'd find they don't get "a hankerin'", as you put it. They remain on the roost in the dark.
Now when they wake up, that's different. Having a full feeder then is a good thing.
Some will also recommend that they go to roost with a belly full of grain feed or wet mash, especially in the winter. Reportedly, it keeps egg laying in top form.
But if what you are doing works for you, then it hardly matters.

 

[Mayzu]

: Just feed them in the morning. I feed mine in the morning and they are plump, energetic and healthy. Only about 3 cups (but I only have 2 hens and a duck) and they lay HEAPS sometimes even twice daily...