How Much Can They Eat?!?!

[texasgirl]

How much should I be feeding my 5 young hens? They free range during the day and I give them a few handfuls of chick starter a day. They bother everyone they meet for food and seem like they would eat as much feed as I would give them.
Should I leave a full feeder out all day?
They all look fat and happy to me but I don't really know how much they should be eating.

 

[justusnak]

How old are they? What type of free range do they have? I ALWAYS have full feeders for my chickens. Some days they eat it, some days they would rather forage in the woods. But, full feeders are better. They will stop eating when they are full. I say..." fill em up"

 

[cookinmom]

I agree. Keep the chick feed out for them at all times. The big meat chickens are the ones you don't want to feed too much, because they'll eat themselves to death, but regular laying hens you don't have to worry about.

 

[aran]

this seems almost unbelievable but Ill put it out there.
We have 7x 6 week olds and 14x 2 week olds and so far we have been through 100lbs of chick starter! I just bought 2 more 50lb bags of the 20% protein stuff.

This in addition to the older ones being outside to eat bugs/grass/kitchen scraps etc.


I am curious about when to feed grit, what to feed for grit and when to change to regular laying food and oyster shell.