I find that pellets are less wasteful. I buy the mini pellets and mix with the crumble for a week and the next week 3/4 to a 1/4 and then just mini pellets. I keep my silkies on the mini pellets and even all flock is mini pelleted. For my leg horns I switched the same way then did mini pellets mixed with regular ones, same technique until completely on regular pellets. (because the regular pellets are less expensive)I'm in the same predicament. Do you offer 24/7? I switched because I was going a bag of crumble every 2 weeks for 18 chickens.