How much feed for the first 16weeks!

[pigeongirl1]

I am thinking about ordering 16 1 day old chicks! I am just trying to figure how much feed they will go through for the first 16 weeks?

 

[NatJ]

I did a search through some old threads and found these:

https://www.backyardchickens.com/threads/how-much-do-chicks-eat-from-day-1-to-16-weeks.471029/
This thread from 2011 has several people giving various estimates.
Several of them are saying about 1 pound per week (average over the time they were raising the chicks), which would be about 16 pounds per bird to 16 weeks.
One poster in that thread quoted another source:

According to Penn State "Poultry Management Reference Manual" (44 page pdf) :

Cumulative feed required of 100 brown egg pullets is 1218 pounds to 16 weeks of age.

If that is saying 1218 pounds of feed for 100 pullets, it would be just over 12 pounds per pullet to reach 16 weeks. (My thoughts: but some flocks waste a lot more feed than others, so it is safer to plan on needing a bit more feed than that.)

A thread From 2015 included this post:

I ran the numbers on this a couple of years ago, but it's based on small sample sizes. During each of two years, I tracked feed consumption for a batch of 6 pullets raised to about 6 months old (POL). Feed use ranged from 23-25 pounds/pullet from hatch to 6 months.... These were mostly dual-purpose hens (RIR, barred rock, BO, australorp).

BTW - These pullets free-ranged (mostly during the 3 months prior to their POL, as they were confined in a run prior to that).

That one is tracking to Point of Lay (POL), when that person is expecting their chickens to start laying eggs, which they decided is 6 months for their breeds. That is definitely later than the 16 weeks you asked about.


I also found this on a different site:
https://www.mypetchicken.com/blogs/...-i-give-my-flock-at-each-stage-of-development
"for baby chicks, you need about 6 pounds of feed per chick to reach the point where they switch to a grower/developer feed at around 6 weeks of age..."
"...Juvenile chicks will need little over 1 pound of grower/developer feed per week until they start laying, usually somewhere between 16-24 weeks of age"

With those numbers: 6 pounds per chick to 6 weeks, plus one pound each week after that, would be 16-24 pounds at 16-24 weeks of age. Or probably a bit more, since they said "a little over 1 pound... per week" for the "juvenile" chicks.


So there are few estimates, from several different sources. Looking at all of them, if you want to raise 16 pullets to age 16 weeks, I would probably plan on at least 200 pounds of feed (12.5 pounds per bird), more likely almost 300 (18.5 pounds per bird, or taking them a little beyond 16 weeks), but possibly higher yet if they waste a lot of feed or if they are bigger breeds.

 

[pigeongirl1]

I did a search through some old threads and found these:

https://www.backyardchickens.com/threads/how-much-do-chicks-eat-from-day-1-to-16-weeks.471029/
This thread from 2011 has several people giving various estimates.
Several of them are saying about 1 pound per week (average over the time they were raising the chicks), which would be about 16 pounds per bird to 16 weeks.
One poster in that thread quoted another source:

If that is saying 1218 pounds of feed for 100 pullets, it would be just over 12 pounds per pullet to reach 16 weeks. (My thoughts: but some flocks waste a lot more feed than others, so it is safer to plan on needing a bit more feed than that.)

A thread From 2015 included this post:

That one is tracking to Point of Lay (POL), when that person is expecting their chickens to start laying eggs, which they decided is 6 months for their breeds. That is definitely later than the 16 weeks you asked about.


I also found this on a different site:
https://www.mypetchicken.com/blogs/...-i-give-my-flock-at-each-stage-of-development
"for baby chicks, you need about 6 pounds of feed per chick to reach the point where they switch to a grower/developer feed at around 6 weeks of age..."
"...Juvenile chicks will need little over 1 pound of grower/developer feed per week until they start laying, usually somewhere between 16-24 weeks of age"

With those numbers: 6 pounds per chick to 6 weeks, plus one pound each week after that, would be 16-24 pounds at 16-24 weeks of age. Or probably a bit more, since they said "a little over 1 pound... per week" for the "juvenile" chicks.


So there are few estimates, from several different sources. Looking at all of them, if you want to raise 16 pullets to age 16 weeks, I would probably plan on at least 200 pounds of feed (12.5 pounds per bird), more likely almost 300 (18.5 pounds per bird, or taking them a little beyond 16 weeks), but possibly higher yet if they waste a lot of feed or if they are bigger breeds.

Thanks!