I hate when parents won’t listen. It’s hard when you’re young and don’t have much control over how the animals are taken care of. I’ve been in a similar boat.
If you do show this to your parents-
Chickens require free access to a layer or all flock crumble or pellet. It’s okay if the food is taken away at night, but it needs to be available during the day. It needs to be a pellet or crumble so that they don’t just pick out their favorite grains and leave the rest. Chickens self regulate how much they need to eat, so you don’t need to worry about overfeeding them.
Any treats, such as cracked corn scratch, and table scraps, should be less than 10% of the diet.
If this is how you are already feeding them, it might be worth switching feeds brands. Not all chicken feeds are created equal. I’ve had birds die of vitamin deficiency while I was feeding a lower quality locally milled feed.
They also need free access to oyster shell for calcium.
Chickens have been domesticated for around 8,000 years. In that time we have bred them to lay as much as 25X the amount of eggs than they would have laid in the wild. This puts an incredible strain on their bodies. They have also adapted to eat a diet that is provided by humans, so grains are a necessary part of their diet. Free ranging can not provide all the nutrition that they need to flourish, even if they are surviving.
It may also be worth deworming your flock and checking them for lice and mites. They can pick these up from wild birds. Parasites can steal nutrition from the chickens, making it hard for them to fully utilize their feed.
Good luck!
