How much do you feed your chickens????

[RooptyDoo]

How much do you feed your chickens? Do you give them a limited amount or do you make sure the feeders are full all of the time??? I have about 60 chickens and they are eating ALOT. I am wanting to limit their food but I dont know how much I should limit them to. They are going through 1 50 # bag every 5 days. These last few days I have been giving them 2 scoops in the morning, 1/2 a scoop at about noon, and 1 scoop at night. Plus they get scratch and treats. What do you think I should do?

 

[Teach97]

if you aren't freeranging I would guess you might be shorting them a bit on the feed...are these full sized birds? say you have 50 birds that means they are getting 1/5 lb per day or 3.2 oz of feed per day...

 

[farmerlor]

That actually sounds about right. My 17 chickens go through a fifty pound bag in a little over two weeks. They free-range and get LOTS of kitchen scraps and sometimes I just cook for them.

 

[RooptyDoo]

No they do not free range right now. About 35 are silkies and the other 25 are standard size.

 

[gritsar]

A 50# bag every five days sounds about right.
Right now my 15 LF birds are going thru a 50# bag about every 7 to 9 days and they free range all day besides.
I keep food and water available to them 24/7.

 

[groverlvchx]

I just started growing fodder for my chickens in the hopes that they will slow down on the feed. I get 50# growing grain (rye or wheat or whatever) and sprout it and grow it to about 3-4 in grass, (no dirt, just in a bin) and give them some every day. They love it! I've heard they lay better, too. Mine aren't laying quite yet. There's a really long thread about growing your own fodder on this site. So many ways to do it! Lots of great ideas. Some even grow fodder for their sheep, goats, alpaca, etc. You can check youtube for info, too. hope this helps!

 

[Spangled]

How much do you feed your chickens? Do you give them a limited amount or do you make sure the feeders are full all of the time???

What do you think I should do?

I don't know what you should do. I think we all are trying to do our best for our chickens and because there are so many different situations, we all end up doing things a little differently. The good news is that chickens are remarkably adaptable and seem to end up doing very well under a lot of different conditions and management techniques.

I let mine eat what they want. The feeders aren't full or they bill it out all over the place, so I just give them enough for a day or so and feed them daily. They aren't ever without feed because I don't like them digging around in the litter and ingesting poop-covered deep litter, though much of the time they are out free ranging.

I use two feeders for adults. One for balanced feed and one for a grain mix making sure that the grains I choose are cheaper per pound than the balanced feed.

After a couple of weeks, they adjusted and eat what they need and egg production leveled out and everything is cool. Or I believe it is.

Maybe your chickens don't bill out their feed onto the floor, but I bought a few of those plastic feeders with the prongs that go out over the feed tray. That helps a little here.

They say that Leghorn layers need 4oz per day to maintain body functions and to lay an egg. (In case you need some sort of reference for how much to feed.)

 

[Going Quackers]

With that many i tend to agree with PP's that sounds about right, i free choice feed my chickens, they have a hanging feeder in the pen, it is kept full. They also get grains tossed down, BOSS and various other fruits and veggies to offset, plus whatever they can forage in the pen itself.

I know when i had 17 ducks i went through quite a bit of feed, even though they did have foraging ability just what happens when flock sizes get into larger sizes.