How many pounds of feed for a flock of 25 in a week?

[klevesque]

Hubby thinks that my new chicken adventure will cost more than we can affort.

Our chicks are due to arrive next week.

How many pounds will 25 of them go thru in a week?

We are getting Austalorps, BO, NHR, BR, and Red sex links.

 

[bigredfeather]

I would guess by the time they are 20 weeks, you would go thru 70-80 pounds per week, maybe a little more. If you compare that to the number of eggs you're going to get, it won't be too bad. You should get almost 10 dozen eggs per week most of the year. It's hard to guess how much they'll go thru as chicks. Mine typically waste as much as they eat.

 

[horsejody]

It also depends on if you free range or not. A chicken can do a pretty good supplementing its feed by foraging. They also like table scraps.

 

[digitS']

Of course you know, klevesque, that their feed consumption will change as they grow.

The poultry industry is very interested in your question since feed is a major cost to them. But, they aren't feeding Buff Orpingtons . . . altho' some of your others may still be found in commercial operations, somewhere.

Leghorn-type pullets probably don't eat one-half of what your Orpington will eat.

Okay, out with your calculator

Table 3, Body weights and feed requirements of leghorn-type pullets and hens

And if you need to convert the numbers to pounds:

Grams to Pounds Conversion Calculator

Steve

 

[klevesque]

So they eat a lot! They won't be able to free range until the spring since I am in Maine and my babies will be too little to take outside this winter.

I guess I better break the news to hubby that will be spending a lot on feed this winter.

Does roughly $25-30 a week sound right?

 

[TinyBirds]

I'm not an expert by any means, but I think when they're little they probably won't eat more than a bag per week (here that's around $13), and once they're older, you can probably get by w/ feeding them mixed whole-grains (around $8/ 50lb-bag) and if there aren't enough bugs/grass around, then supplement w/ fish-meal around 3 lbs per week. Old farmers used to give them meat and fish scraps instead, but I don't know if that needs to be ground up somehow or if they can just eat it as-is. Or if you have a place to store food (where rats can't get it) then you could probably call the nearest mill and order wholesale in bulk for the winter, but then the cost would be up-front rather than spread out each week.

 

[thekla]

I have about 70 chickens that are 5-6 months old and right now they are eating about 10 lbs of chicken feed a day, plus a couple scoops of scratch grain, a scoop of lamb and rice dog food, and various veggies, and other leftovers, plus whatever they find free-ranging during the day, so with only 25 you shouldn't need more than 50 lbs a week (once they are older - as babies much less) even if you don't give them anything else, but mine will eat almost any leftovers and love mac and cheese, spaghetti, hotdogs, almost any fruits and veggies ( check with local farmers etc for overripe and damaged ones at a bargain, many farmers market sellers will give you greens such as carrot tops and squashed tomatos etc at the end of the day if you bring your own bags and ask nicely, unfortunately many chain stores no longer will give out their scraps and throw them away which I think is almost criminal as a waste, but apparenty they are afraid of being sued, but smaller community markets sometimes will give you scraps and older produce for free. Just get creative and look around your community, there is a lot of useable food going to waste and many businesses would love to have their scraps used rather than pay to discard them.

 

[AkTomboy]

From what I have read in a few books and my own lil tests show its about 2 lbs of food per large breed chicken as an adult. Our feed is 28.50 per 50# bag. So tell the hubby that you have it better than me

You will also need grit but thank goodness they dont eat as much of that as they do feed

 

[klevesque]

Ok, I feel better now. They won't eat us out of house and home. I didn't know that they can eat table scraps!

 

[briteday]

Yikes! I have lots of pullets:

3 sussex
3 delawares
6 EE's
3 silkies ... that's 15 birds

and 6 more RIR hens...that takes us up to 21 birds right now.

100 pounds of feed lasts me 6-7 weeks. My birds free range all day, get a very limited amount of scraps (watermelon rinds from dinner, a few leaves of wilted greens, or a plant pulled from the garden) daily...for all of them to share. They may see one measuring cup of cracked corn once per week. They can have all the bugs they can find in the desert (pretty few and far between) and eat all the sagebrush they want. But they are pretty thrifty on the feed compared to everyone else it seems. My pullets are all around 22 weeks old and most have started to lay already, and look like large, healthy birds. In fact the delawares and a couple of EE's look like monsters compared to the Rhode Island reds. We got a giant green egg today from one of the EE's, daughter scrambled the triple yolker for dinner. Our RIR eggs are always in the extra large to jumbo category (USDA weights).

When I was raising the latest batch of chicks this spring ( the current 15 plus 6 more for the neighbors = 21 birds total) I only bought 150 pounds of Start N Grow until I moved them out to the coop at 10 weeks and they joined the hens. That's 15 pounds per week. But I'm pretty frugal with keeping them from wasting or scattering their food. When I moved the little ones out to the coop I switched to Flockraiser (can be fed to both young and egglayers, layer feed is not good for little ones).