how much food

[philc814]

how much food does each chicken need per day?
I ask because when i clean out the coop there is always alot and i mean alot of food on the floor of the coop mixed in the hay and crap so i cant reuse it.
am i feeding to much.
should they run out of food at the end of each day?
just seems like a big waste of money.
any help would be great.

 

[countrygoddess]

Chickens can be very messy eaters as they fling bits around to get to the ones they think look the best. What kind of feeder do you use? If you use one with smaller holes it will be harder for them to waste food. I used trough feeders in my first chicken house and there was so much waste, I wound up wrapping poultry wire around it to make it harder for them to drag and flick their beaks back and forth as they looked for the prime pellets (back when I fed store-bought pellets).

My birds each eat about 0.35-0.4 pounds of homemade whole grain/seed feed per day during the winter when they can't forage, less during the summer when they can.