How much should thirty free range chickens eat a week???

[madditremaine]

I have thirty (actually, twenty eight, but its really close) free range chickens, and they eat a LOT. They weigh at least five pounds and they are only nine weeks old. Im concerned, because we buy three bags of feed a month, which adds up to about forty five dollars a month, and they act like they are starving if I don't feed then two or three feeders full every day. (I have a one gallon feeder). Its costing more than I want it to, in stress and money. Please help!!

 

[ChickenCanoe]

5 lbs. at nine weeks sound like a meat breed. What breed are they? Anything other than a Cornish Cross or Freedom Ranger shouldn't be over 3 lbs. by 9 weeks and even that is large.
That said, egg breeds would eat just over 1.5 lbs. each at that age. Heavy breeds would eat close to 2.5 each.
What they get from foraging depends largely on the quality of forage available and the size.
Keeping the chickens from billing the feed out on the ground will help a lot.

 

[madditremaine]

Cornish Cross. Unfortunately, I wanted them for eggs. Trying to figure out a way to make this work. Do Cornish Cross lay well?

 

[Ol Grey Mare]

Cornish Cross. Unfortunately, I wanted them for eggs. Trying to figure out a way to make this work. Do Cornish Cross lay well?

Cornish Cross that are already at 5 pounds/9 weeks of age are going to be past the point where he controlled feed management *may* have been able to extend their life to a point where things such as egg production, etc would have been a possible outcome for them. Some folks do have relatively positive outcomes with Cornish X and raising them beyond the standard butcher age (around the age of your birds now), but they do so having put the birds on strict diets in the weeks that have already passed for your birds. While it is not impossible to manage these birds in a way that would give you a shot of having egg producing birds of this type, for this particular group I think you are beyond that option and you and the birds would all be best served by processing (or selling to someone to process if that is just not something you are prepared to do) and starting the laying flock you want with a breed/breeds more suitable to your goals.

 

[madditremaine]

Do you know anyone who would be willing to buy from me?

 

[Ol Grey Mare]

I meant to add - the free range aspect is one thing that is used with the controlled feeding to prolong the life of these birds, so you were on the right track --- but with the amount of feed you are going through it sounds like rather than "ranging" your birds have setup shop at the feed stations, thus short-circuiting the potential benefit of the exercise they *could* be getting that is what makes free-ranging, or at least ample space to move in, a key component in successful long-term maintenance of a flock of these birds.

 

[madditremaine]

Thank you so much!!! VERY helpful. I'll keep that in mind, next time I decide to buy un-breeded chicks from Craigslist!

 

[ChickenCanoe]

Well there you go. Cornish cross are bred to sit next to the feeder and grow rapidly to become broilers in 6 or 7 weeks. Yes they eat a lot but they convert feed to meat more efficiently than any other. That said, they are not egg layers. Rarely do they live long enough and if they do, don't lay well. They're not a breed per se, but a cross of a specially selected strain of white Cornish and white rocks. My suggestion is to butcher them while they're still small enough to fit in the oven and if you want eggs, buy some chickens of the egg type or dual purpose breeds or even an egg hybrid like stars.
Here's a couple breed selection charts for your perusal.
http://www.sagehenfarmlodi.com/chooks/chooks.html
http://www.albc-usa.org/documents/chickenbreedcomparison.pdf

 

[madditremaine]

Thank you! I'm looking online as I type, (obviously, but I'm searching for chicks.) Nice to know, though, that I wasn't completely off when I thought they were white rocks.

Maddi