Layer Crumbles or Pellets?

[~SunSetsWest~]

I prefer pellets because of less waste and twice daily I take crumbles and mix them with enough water to make a mash, no waste from dust and the birds go nuts for it

 

[cafarmgirl]

Mine ate the crumbles until they were about a year old. I tried switching before that and boy did they give me attitude! When they were a little older the switch was easy and they seemed to actually prefer the pellets. I'd noticed the crumbles seemed to be more and more fine and dusty with lots of waste, they seemed to pick at it a lot looking for bigger pieces. So now everybody is happily eating their pellets.

 

[Mattemma]

pellets for less waste.

 

[scooter147]

I have a 48" galvinized range feeder that put an end to all feed waste. I bought mine for about 25 buck and the best 25 bucks I every spent as it relates to chickens.

One advantage the crumbles have over the pellets is the time it takes the chickens to fill up on the crumbles. The chickens DNA is programmed to spend a lot of time looking for and consuming food. So for birds who don't have regular access to free range the chicken takes longer to fill up on crumbles thus more likely they won't get into trouble with their free time.

 

[Judy]

Crumbles because grower and flock raiser only come in crumbles and that's all I buy. No layer for a long time now. Safe for the chicks, better for the males, and more protein. The chicks never bother the bowl of oyster shell. Waste is not a problem; I have a scrap of plywood under the hanging feeders and they eat spillage from it.

 

[Pele]

Unfortunately, I am currently stuck with crumbles. Boo.

They waste the crumbles terribly, but I've learned to not reflexively refill their feeder immediately. If they like eating off the ground so much that they'll dump the entire feeder there, fine by me. They can just eat off the ground for a day or two. I just keep my eye on the coop floor and re-fill when I can't see many crumbles.

I wish I could switch over to pellets, but I like the 18% protien layer feed over the 15% layer pellets. My birds don't free-range much, so they normally can't chase down bugs for protien. (except the occasional adventurous earwig that comes after their mess of crumbles on the floor).

I do like some of the other posters' suggestions of mixing, I might try doing that with the two feeds! Yay BYC, you always pull through for me

 

[top of the hill]

Quote:
Same here. The problem with mine is, I have about 75lbs of pellets and not oneof them willeat them. I wonder if I could put them in a food processor and crumble them up a bit. Might try it.

I actually did that! I switched them to the pellet and they hated it... didn't eat for a couple days. so I stuck it in the cuisenart bit by bit, week by week until it was gone! Now they get crumble and both the chickens and I are much happier!

 

[chickenhobby1]

I am new to the forum so hello to all, but I feed pellets to the chickens after realizing the waste I was getting from crumbles. I must say that I think the chickens liked the crumbles better but they got used to the pellets rather fast. The pellets are sooo much less wasteful.

 

[chicklover16]

my chickens like crumbles better.

 

[poseygrace]

Thanks for posting this, I've been wondering the same thing! I've been giving mine crumbles, but they seem to go bad quickly. I wonder if pellets hold up better in humidity?