How much food should i put out for my 58 chickens

Deerhunter1995

In the Brooder
7 Years
Jun 3, 2012
16
0
22
Let me explain i have 58 chickens 8-12 weeks old, they free range all day and they get lots of veggie scraps and bugs, im wonderign how much food im gonna have to suplment for them, i started off with 18 last week before i picked up the rest so i could see if it was for me or not i was feeding them about a coffe can full of chick food and 2 ears of ground corn for scrap with some bird seed (about a handful a day just to get them pecking) they seemed to do fine, im wondering how much chicken food i need to put out for them so that i have a balance between feeding them enough and just askign for wasting. I can get a 100 lb bag for 23$ im hoping that that will last about a month along with lots and lots of veggie and fruit scraps and other scraps i can get my hands on pluse the grasses and bugs they get free ranging.

Im sorry for the rant im just excited to have a new hobbie and lots of eggs to sell in a few months
 
Start with about 12-14 cups of feed and see how it goes. If they clean up every last bit in under 24 hours, add a little more next time. If they leave a lot or there is a fair amount of waste on the ground, cut it back by a few cups. I found my free range birds varied a lot in how much feed they ate, some days it was hardly nothing, some days they'd empty the feeder and be giving me the stink eye for more.
 
100 pounds lasting a full month for all those birds may be a little optimistic. I did the math and that is less than 1 ounce of feed per chicken per day. That being said I know people who barely give their birds any supplemental feed during the summer when good pasture is available. Of course their birds aren't as productive as birds with an ideal diet.
 
I would offer 2-3 lbs/day. My 8 pullets/chicks eat about 1.5 lb a day plus 2 cups cracked corn, but they don't freerange at all. --My 1 dog already got 3 lil chicks that escaped. :(
It depends on how much green and open yard they have to range around also. If it's 50 sqr feet, they'll eat more; if it's 500sqr feet for them to patrol, they'll a lot eat less feed.
You can estimate feed ingestions, but it's really all just trial/error.
Every chicken is different too. ;)
Best of luck!
 
If the average hen eats around .25 lbs of feed a day then 58 hens should eat around 14.50 lbs a day or around 435 lbs a month.

Chris
 
I feed mine just chicken feed which has the right balance of everything they need and make it free choice during daylight. You can put it up when they go to roost into a metal garbage can at night since they don't eat when they are roosting, but just make sure they have food at first light in the morning. Cracked corn and scratch are just treats that do not contain enough protein as chicken feed, and should only make up 10% of their diet. Many people feed pellets instead of crumbles because they say there is less waste, but some chickens prefer crumbles.
 
i just got 200lbs of broiler maker from the feedmill and then got a 30lb feeding so i filled it up and let it go so they can eat what they want when they want and i built a small troff fro cracked corn and other treats like crickets.
 

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