I have 14 chickens between 6-9 months of age and I go through about 100 pounds of feed every 3 weeks. Is that normal? Seems like a lot to me!
That does seem like a lot. I have 3 bantams and a 4lb silkie mix, and they have been working on the same 50lb bag of feed for a good 4 months now. There is at least half of the bag left also.... I have taken to keeping it in the freezer to prevent it from going stale. Granted they are a quarter of the size and I have fewer, but it still doesnt quite add up to that much if I do the math.
From my math, you should be using about 4lb of feed a day, give or take. Sounds like you either have a tremendous amount of waste, or a serious rodent issue.
Depends on the type of chickens. If you have leghorn type, it may be too much, but dual purpose would eat 1/3 lb per day and that times 21 days would be 97 lbs. If it's winter where you are they tend to eat the maximum. There is sometimes some waste also, so that is about right. Leghorn types would eat around 73 lbs. on average in 3 weeks. It also depends if it is 3 weeks, just less than 3 weeks or a couple days more than 3 weeks. Also depends on how cold it is. Unfortunately chickens eat a lot more than people might think. Your chickens are also at the age that they may still be growing & laying eggs at the same time.
It does depend on the type. Growing chickens and chickens in lay eat more than bantams, show birds not in lay, older birds and very young chicks. For my production flock of 6 chickens, 50lbs of food lasts 2 months if that is their sole diet. Of course they get treats here and there. Sometimes I supplement the grain during winter, molt, etc. meaning the feed can last up to double that amount of time. 100lbs of food is a lot, unless you have really large birds who are slow at maturing. Sometimes chickens will eat out of boredom or lack of specific nutrient. Try adding a bit of fat scraps, chicken supplement blocks or a flock block. If its boredom, they are picking at the cheap block rather than your feed!
I go through 50 pounds in two days. Mind you my flock is made up of ~35-40 chickens, 20 very hungry ducks, and two ol' turkeys. But most of my food goes to ducks. A production layer should be fed 130 g of feed/day. While there are no numbers for layers I tend to feed about 260-300g/day/hen. Chickens will eat more in the winter because they need it so I bumb it up to as much as 350g/day.
Our current flock is 6 standards and 4 bantams. We go through about 50 lb of crumbles in one month, though that amount used to be much higher. Here's what we did: 1) The first step in reducing the amount was to get rid of the trough feeder we had used, and to switch to one of those round plastic feeders with baffles around the feeding tray. There is much less spilling now. Switching from pellets to crumbles also made a big difference. 2) Hanging the feeders in a box helped to greatly reduce the amount of spillage and spoilage. The feeder hangs on the inside of an open wooden box and is protected from rain/snow. 2-3 birds can feed at a time. 3) We sacrificed the compost pile. It doesn't grow anywhere near the same as it used to. Anything that is safe for chickens goes to the chickens, and we keep a container in the kitchen to collect the scraps. Folk who get eggs from us also bring their scraps. They really like doing that! 4) During mowing season, we collect a couple of bags of clippings each time, which go to the chickens. When we weed the flower beds, the weeds go to the chickens. That is what has worked for us. Basically, we tried to minimize spillage and maximize the amount of supplemental food. We'll be doubling the size of the flock next April, and I'll be interested to see how well our little strategy holds up. Since we won't likely double the amount of table scraps, it is likely that we will wind up buying more feed per bird.
@Chemguy , Are you saying you switched from pellets to crumbles? I always thought that they wasted more crumbles.
Yes, we switched from pellets to crumbles. Our birds have the habit of trying to rake through their feed as if there was a prize somewhere inside. They seem to do this less with the crumbles. We did the switch at the same time we hung the feeder in the box, and the spilled feed doesn't go bad as quickly. Any spillage gets eaten, too. So, it could be that it is the box and not the feed switch that did the trick.
