How much feed does your pastured poultry go through?

[gottsegnet]

I just read that pastured poultry will supplement up to 20% of their diet from the greens and insects they catch when pastured and I'm thinking that there is no way 80% of my hens' diet is made up from the puny amount of feed they eat.

Their feed is available to them all day, every day but they really don't eat that much of it. And I suspect some of what is being eaten is going to the mice I hear scurrying about if I go in at night for any reason.

They all seem happy and healthy and are laying very well. They are eating less than half what they ate over the winter and they weren't laying then.

 

[gwill23]

I am new to chickens I have 12 hens at the moment (8 Orpingtons, 3 Plymoth Rocks, and 1 Black Turken adopted from a friend).

They are eating a 5 gallon bucket every week and are laying 8-9 eggs / day. So one 50lb sack of layer pellets every 2 weeks. They are out all day in the garden and around the house. They roam about 5-10 acres or so. They don't go back in the coop to eat except when they go in or out to lay, before I let them out in the morning, and maybe some on their way in at night.

 

[Heathercp]

My chickens don't seem to eat much of their bagged rations either. They free range all day and get lots of scraps. I've got 6 layers and four adolescents and get between 4-6 eggs/day. I've got some kind of veggie or fruit scraps for them almost every day. Any weeds I pull in the front yard get tossed out back for the girls and we dump the grass clippings out back, too. (We don't treat our grass with any chemicals.) I've had them for 5 weeks now and am just finished up one 25lb bag of food.

 

[big medicine]

When I see these type of threads the first thing that comes to mind is "how old, or what condition is the feed in ? I try to feed about what they will eat in a day, or at most they clean up any left before I let them out in the morning. If by chance there is any left in the hanging feeder in the morning, I always give the feeder a little spin to make sure the leftover feed is spun out into the pan and the first eaten. Depending on your climate, feed can draw a lot of moisture and get stale, especially if in the feeder for a couple days, or in a open bag exposed to the air. Try taking your bread out for tomorrows sandwitches today, or putting the milk on your cereal a couple hours before you eat it. If your feed is fresh and kept dry, your birds are laying, look and act healthy, you are probably OK. If you have a rodent issue, leaving feed overnight where they can reach it will keep them fat, happy, and breeding like, well rats. A hanging feeder can be raised at night, maybe a little tin foil on the rope if the try coming from the top.

 

[gottsegnet]

Thanks. Yes, I'm getting ready to hang the feeder. I'm not sure the mice are eating all that much, but since I know there are mice out there, they've got to be eating some. (We put our cat in with the chickens occasionally so it smells a lot like cat. They are in a section that we have blocked off at the moment because the door is broken and raccoons or anything else could get through the door if it weren't boarded over. I think we'll be able to get them more under control when we fix the door and our cat can have full access to the whole shed again.)

I only have four hens and they seem to eat maybe a cup of feed a day (I should measure it then I'd have a better idea. Maybe it just seems like that because of the little pigs my chicks are!) They go through it on rainy days when they don't go out or on days when I keep them locked in the run. But on days like today when it is sunny they spend all day roaming about the yard, up and down the hedge and only return to lay an egg. We're getting three to four eggs a day.

They do get excited in the morning when I dump the leftover feed and give them new, but that seems to be when they eat the most.

They do get scraps, too. They love carrot peelings, left over oatmeal and spaghetti. And my shoelaces. They fight over them, but fortunately they are attached to my shoes!

I was just wondering if that 20% is generally accurate, how much it depends on breed and if it maybe includes times of year when they don't have as much access to the outside. (We have a Rhode Island Red, Red Sex Link, Black Australorp and Brown Leghorn and we live on five acres.) Their ranging days are almost over, though. As soon as the farmers plant, they'll be in a tractor. They stay on our property, but right now any predator would have to walk 1/4 mile over bare ground. Once the fields are planted, they'll have cover right to where the chickens hang out and I'm not comfortable with that!

 

[Olive Hill]

Define "Pastured". What breed of chicken? How old? What kind of "pasture"? Etc, etc...

All these things play a BIG part in how much feed your chickens will get from bagged, commercial stuff in a feeder and what they will get from the "pasture".

If you took a CC and a RIR of the same age, put them on identical pasture conditions and monitored their commercial feed intake the CC's intake is going to be greater than the RIR's. Why? They grow faster, require more and generally have a lesser foraging ability/instinct*.

If you take a young bird and an older bird of the same breed -- all else equal -- and do the same, chances are their feed intake will not be equal either. They have different needs.




*Disclaimer: I realize that the CC Fan Club is likely going to come in here and start a protest over my (in their opinion) "gross misrepresentation" of the ultimate chicken of all time. It's just an example, people!

 

[A.T. Hagan]

The 20% thing with 'pastured birds' usually means birds in tractors that are moved daily and on pretty good range too. It's comprised of mostly greenfeed with whatever bugs they may happen to scratch up, but most greenfeed.

Truly free ranged birds can do a lot better than that because not only are they getting green feed but all the insects and whatever else they can run down as well. Each bird can cover a much larger area than they'd be able to do inside of a tractor even if you moved it several times a day. During the fat part of the year on good range you can sometimes get by with nothing more than scratch, oyster shell, and letting them forage for the rest.

If the predator pressure is low enough to allow it free range is the way to go.

.....Alan.

 

[gottsegnet]

Ours are free ranging at the moment. We haven't had trouble with hawks (yet). They are definitely around, but we also have a ton of crows so they seem to keep their distance. We are surrounded by empty fields, but once the corn is planted, that won't be true anymore, and I'm sure all sorts of predators will feel comfortable coming practically to our door step.

Until then, they're enjoying roaming freely about the yard.

(5 acres). I'm really hoping for some dent in the tick population!

 

[PunkinPeep]

For me 20% is really really low. I know that i'm feeding them less than half what i did during the winter, and they don't need as much as i'm giving them.

For 22 full grown chickens, i'm feeding them about one oatmeal container a day, and they don't eat it all. They forage.....which i love, by the way.

 

[Olive Hill]

Quote:
Only you can decide what is best for your birds, but thought I would mention that we too are surrounded by farm land and it makes no difference in the number of predators whether it's barren ground or 6ft corn at the height of the season. Mine free range year-round and when I say free-range I don't mean they have access to the outside. I mean I open the coop door in the morning and out they go until Dusk (with the exception of the layers who do come back to lay...).

Mine actually have been known to disappear in the corn fields themselves from time to time. The bugs are, apparently, tastier in there.