Food quantity and weight

[Bibbianna]

Hi, i am new at raising chicken, i have 2 and have been feeding them as much as they wanted to eat, but I now think that was not the best thing to do. They are 20 weeks old and quite big... So I started limiting their grain intake and giving them extra greens for 2 weeks now. One of them just started laying eggs. Just this week though, one of my girls seems to have difficulties walking. Could she be too big? I have been giving about a cup per day of grains per chicken plus greens (brocoli, peas, salads...). Is this still too much or not enough? It's winter here but I've managed to keep the coop between 5 and 15 degrees Celcius most of the time so her feet are not frostbitten. I also clean the whole coop once per week and lay new bedding. Any advice would be very helpful

 

[Bibbianna]

This is her last week

 

[Bibbianna]

Oh and this is a temporary coop... Therefor the cardboard boxes... When all the snow melts in the spring we're planning on building them a real coop. This one is a very big outside walk-in closet (with window) that is attached to the house. I have 2 red lights in there and a bloc heater.

 

[donrae]

From the looks of things, I think your birds are Cornish cross meat birds. Unfortunately, they're not bred to live long and healthy lives. They're the backbone of the meat bird industry and are bred to grow to enormous sizes fast, they're usually butchered at 8 weeks. They often develop leg issues, fluid in the abdomen or congestive heart failure from their weight.

Since they're already at such a large, size, and one is having issues, I would advise to butcher them, or sell them as meat birds. I've never heard of reversing any of the leg issues or having one successfully lost weight, sorry. There are threads here about folks who have kept them as pets for up to a year, but that was with limited feed intake from the start and lots of free ranging and exercise.

With layer chicks, feeding them all they wanted would have been the right way to go. You didn't do anything wrong at all, you just got the wrong birds. It's a bummer, but we see it happen from time to time here.