- Thread starter
- #11
PurpleCArTires
Crowing
Very good info thank you! It didnt even dawn on me to weight the feed lol.One way to check that:
weigh each chicken, or at least specific ones that you can recognize, and write down the weight.
Then feed the fermented feed once or twice a day, while letting them have free-choice dry feed.
After a week or two, weigh those same chickens again and check against the weights you wrote down. If they have all gained a noticeable amount of weight, then they really are eating more. But if they have not gained weight, then they really do need that much.
No, it wasn't enough.
Feed tends to at least double in size when you get it wet, so that was probably only 1/4 cup each when it was dry.
A common estimate is 1/4 POUND per laying hen per day (or more for large breeds).
Someone weighed a few feeds once, and 1/4 pound is about 3/4 CUP of feed.
(It varies from one brand to another--weigh some of your own food, dry, if you want to be sure.)
So 1/2 cup wet is probably about 1/3 of what each birds needs per day. They would still need to eat about 2/3 the usual amount of dry food to make up the difference.
If you want most of their food to come from fermented feed, take a scale and weigh out 7 1/2 pounds of food per day. That should be at least close, although they may need more yet if they are large breeds. (After you weigh it once, you can measure how many cups it was, if you prefer not to use the scale every day.)
I can also weigh a few of the girls and see if they gain weight. Excellent idea!