Ideas on reducing feed waste

[mendozer]

I built a feeder like this but bigger with a higher lip in the front. Still, after a day or two of use, the chickens will rummage through there and the feed will pile up and then spill out over the lip, despite the fact that it's a good 4 inches above the hole that feed travels through from the storage compartment.

so every other day i manually shove it back up. However, i'm finding WAY too much feed under the floor in the poop drawers (slatted floor) and I have expensive feed.

any ideas on reducing this? If i put a drip tray around, that'll just spill over eventually too.

 

[Kikiriki]

Pay attention to what they are not selecting to eat... They are pushing away stuff they do not want and searching for stuff they do want. Mine will not eat corn(whole or the cracked that is in their new feed) or sunflowers in the shell, even though thy love the seed by itself. It is in the feed mix, but they eat everything else and leave this stuff or flick out on the ground.

Is the stuff they refuse a consistent size? Too big, or too small?

Mine gobble up millet and oats, canary seed, and dried mealworms, they ate parsley and dill stems cut to 1/2" lengths and bread and both cantaloupe and honeydew seeds in the shell and they like green pepper seeds, but not green pepper flesh.

I feed outside and let the fallen Seeds sprout... Sprouts are a healthy forage green and they eat them when they notice them. Thus little is actually really wasted....just the cracked corn. I still might just quit buying the things they wont eat, though. I had read people on here who said their birds did eat sunflower seeds in the shell, so I dont know why mine will not...

I read a study that suggested feeding in three containers for choice: calorie foods, protein foods, and grit. They wasted less searching for their desired food of the moment because they discern the difference and ate what they needed. They had better growth than birds getting a manufactured standard pellet or crumble.

They will eat more calorie food than protein so I would put calcium supplement in there if you use it.

 

[bigred62806]

Your problem is in this area i belive. If it's spilling out from the chickens reduce the gap between the tray and storage thus making it harder for the feed to come out and lowering the level of feed in the tray. you could put the blocker board on theinside of the feeded if your worried about looks. you didnt say how big yours was it may also need some of the end blocked off also. being new to chickens but a 20+ year woodworker i have been making the feeder then testing how much gap i need to get the amount of food in the tray i want.. also the angle of the board inside of the feeder could be too great and forcing too much feed into the tray. hope it helps

 

[Kikiriki]

One last thought...feed can go bad, get moldy, or rancid, or have contamination of some kind. My dog, for example, started refusing to eat their food. I refused to cave in to finicky eaters, and they both got sick from eating it. You may have a bad batch of feed, or something in the feed may have been contaminated. Perhaps it is having a mold growth now that weather is warming and humidity going up. Maybe a rodent has been peeing in the food...

I only put out one days worth of food at a time, and the bag is stored in the plastic bag within a plastic container inside the air conditioned house to slow the chance of spoilage.

 

[mendozer]

as for the feed, it's scratch and peck naturally free (no corn or soy) although they love corn in scratch. What I'm finding spilled over are the small powdery resides and some chunks of seeds and stuff. When i throw the stuff that I can save (whatever's not stuck to poop or broken eggs) they devour it up so it's not a matter of being picky i think.


I designed my lip a lot higher than the DIY linked above. It's a little late to modify the gap as it's already screwed in. Maybe I can fit another piece on there though on the outside.

As for spoilage, they go through the entire feeder (which measures like 8" deep x 24" high x 12" wide in maybe two weeks. Plus it's stored indoors in their coop not in the run. And i inspect it often, but never find mold or anything in there, not even bugs. and they've always spilled this out, so it's not only this batch of feed.