Free Range and Feeding

[Hardemans]

We recently opened the door on the run and let the birds out. We have a few acres and they have all the room they want to roam and eat. These chickens range in age from 4 weeks to 12 weeks.

Almost immediately the food consumption dropped. We expected it to drop a little but they are eating about 1/4th of what they ate before.

Is this normal? Should we keep them in occasionally to make them eat their food?

Thanks

The Hardemans

 

[Stiggy]

They will be foraging and getting food that way. However in winter / bad weather they will eat more. My advice would be to leave them feed in a feeder so they can eat what they choose when they choose so that if there is bad weather then they will eat more. also once the bugs etc are eaten down then they will be eating more food again but not the levels that they were before.

 

[ChirpyChicks1]

My chickens were in a run 24/7 for the first 14 months of their life. Now they free range everyday and it was shocking how little feed they were eating. Their egg counts dropped big time too so I started putting the feeder outside the coop/run and they have started eating a bit more and laying more eggs. Apparently they thought if they hung around the coop too long I'd lock them back up lol. Around a month ago I bought a new bag of feed because I was getting low that normally I'd run out in a few days, that bag of feed has yet to be opened

 

[Stiggy]

My chickens were in a run 24/7 for the first 14 months of their life. Now they free range everyday and it was shocking how little feed they were eating. Their egg counts dropped big time too so I started putting the feeder outside the coop/run and they have started eating a bit more and laying more eggs. Apparently they thought if they hung around the coop too long I'd lock them back up lol. Around a month ago I bought a new bag of feed because I was getting low that normally I'd run out in a few days, that bag of feed has yet to be opened

Impressive!

My girls free range ( bar winter, but they have a massive tunnel house / new house and run when built for that) and they come and go as they please, they are only shut in during wet cold days ( winter here) but all other days they free range. They eat less food like you've said but still go back into the run to eat their mixed grains etc and they don't leave the run until they have a belly full of hot mash on overly cold days haha