help, my chickens are pigs

[ezekielSM]

My girls are all about 3 months old give or take now, and they go through three 8-12z (not sure what size the glass is!) acrylic glass of grower feed a day.

I feed them one to two cups' worth in the morning, then another before I tuck in at 11 pm or so. Sometimes around dinner time if they're expressing hungries to me, but most of the time they're good.

 

[sumi]

I made the mistake of feeding extra when winter started, thinking they'd need a little boost. Egg production dropped overnight. Then I ran out of chicken food over a weekend when I couldn't get any and I fed them a bit less than usual. Suddenly they laid like crazy, so I started experimenting... I told a farming friend what happened and it's worked for him too. The tricky bit is figuring out exactly how much to feed to get the best from them. It look me awhile.
Due to a recent outbreak of break-ins in our area we seldom leave the house for even a few hours. We got burgled twice during the day! If we have to go somewhere I ask someone to house sit and look after the chickens and feed them for me.
Had an interesting and pretty cool experience food-egg-wise this past week: I was given a whole lot of dried corn on the cob, which we've been cleaning and preparing for my chickens. It's very time consuming, but, hey, free food! I'm not complaining! I soak the corn kernels in boiling water for a few hours and then grind it up so my debeaked layers can eat it. I soak the lay pellets overnight, mix it with the ground corn and feed it to them wet in the mornings, then just the corn, wet, in the afternoons and evenings. Over the 7 days prior to us getting the whole corn I fed them cracked corn which I normally buy. I got a total of 161 eggs over that period. Since I've started feeding them the ground up corn I got 207 eggs over 7 days! 46 Extra eggs for that week... I still feed them the same amount. I feed it wet so they can pick it up with their blunt beaks and also so I minimize waste. I've been using an old fashioned meat mincer to grind it, but a food processor should do the job.

 

[mulewagon]

If you're going through a lot of feed, visit the Predators and Pests section and look for discussions of rats. You might be feeding more animals than you know! I would add a good dose of cayenne pepper to the feed, to make sure. (It'll repel rats, but chickens can't taste it).

 

[greenSearcher]

"You should have an azure standard drop in your area. Google them. Prices are good & the delivery 1 time a month delivery charge is about the same as sales tax --- and there is no tax on your order. We get about half our families groceries from them each month."

I do have a drop, but in May they didn't ship my feed, and since I advertise Organic eggs I had to find something else. Finally found Coyote Feed Mills, near Austin, price is the same per pound but shipping is $80. Once I get the chest freezer, I will order enough for 6 months, paying shipping only 2x a year. The chickens love the feed. I really have almost zero waste, and I use the standard hanging feeders sitting on pavers. The last order of 8 50 lb bags has been feeding my girls since the third week in May, and I still have almost 4 bags left. I was going through almost 4 40lb bags of the pellets from Azure a month. I still order other things from them, but no longer the feed. I have to have a consistently reliable source since I am one of just a few producers of organic eggs in my area. Finally am getting sales to match my production, w/o having to go to the flea market to sell the excess.

 

[ChickieBooBoo]

My layers all free range and I don't feed them anything, they forage for all their food.

 

[greenSearcher]

Quote:
I am thinking that using a 2- 45 degree bend elbows connected together should provide enough slope for the food to flow into the feeding tube. I will put one of these feeders into the new coop's run. Already have the PVC pipe. That way I have my current extra feed for babies when I do another hatch in the spring.

 

[jcatblum]

Quote:
I do understand! That is the downfall with azure- I have even had my stuff dropped @ the wrong place 2 times before! It took me 3 months of ordering dried apricots before I finally received them! If I told my husband I needed another freezer for chicken feed I don't think he would go for it! He thinks they don't need groceries ordered for them! They are just chickens!!! Silly man!

 

[Jenniferlynne11]

I've got 6 gals, and we go through about 1 50 # bag of feed each month during the fall & winter then when the weather was suitalbe for free ranging...(they now are outside from early am to dusk...) the feed consumption has been cut in half...we've got alot of land for them to forrage for bug & such...so we were thinking they were just enjoying mother nature's buffet and the feed was their late night snack...still getting 5-6 eggs/ day...so all's well....

 

[hillbillycitygirl]

I got a 50# bag of the regular layer feed that I typically get and a 50# bag of cracked corn, I am going to mix the two and see if that helps. They seem to waste alot of food, just pushing it onto the floor...its always so dusty. I am hoping the cracked corn helps the situation. We are also going to install some of those super awesome PVC feeders...so totally excited about that...I know this will help keep our one naughty goat out of the hen house too, I will make the feeder holes just big enough for the chickens but too small for her face.

My chickens think I am the queen of treats, they are currently being housed at my inlaws house because we had to temporarily move into a rental and couldnt keep them here, and whenever they hear my van pull up they all go running into the coop, begging for treats...I have created monsters lol.

one other question...I have a few girls that never seem to want to leave the coop, they just chill in there all day, every day...any suggestions to get them outside?