My 22 hens are eating tooooooo much.

[NotTheMomma]

Can you increase the time of free ranging? Mine are out from morning to night. I have 31 chickens. I am going through 50lbs in 2-3 weeks. Sometimes 4 weeks. They mostly eat the layer feed at night before going to roost. Seems the ones that didn't get enough while ranging, fill their crops before bedtime. Others I NEVER see touch the layer feed. Every once in awhile, I'll see a hen eating the feed during the day, but very rarely. I don't have a problem with egg shell hardness, nor production.

 

[gsim]

I have 24 pullets of 14 weeks age, 4 breeds, ba, rir, br, buff comet. We go thru 50# every two weeks, crumbles. Ours also have access to grass in their 2,000 sq ft pen, and they keep it eaten to where we do not have to even think of cutting or trimming it. They get veggie and fruit scraps. My kids do a lot of juicing so they save the veggie pulp and fruit pulp in their freezers for our chickens. At this time we do not let them out of the pen since it is so big. Am going to add culled produce from out grocer soon. I am going to change to pellets from what I read here. Feed store said crumbles more popular and chickens seem to like it more. Pellets more work to eat so they go for more grass, bugs, etc, plus pellets less likely to take on moisture or go stale as soon.

IMPORTANT THAT YOU NEVER EVER FILL FEEDER ABOVE HALFWAY. I built two troughs of two 36" pieces of pvc home guttering, and mounted same to my coop wall inside, about 6" above floor level. One for feed, one for water. I put a piece of vinyl siding (linoleum or paneling would work) as a sort of angled flap that covers 1/2 of the 4" width of the trough. I then put a 2x4 in the back 1/2 of the feed trough to make it very narrow and I only put 1 1/2" of feed in it. No spillage or waste, ever. There is only 2" width of the entire length of each trough for their heads to go into. No poop ever in water or feed.

 

[digitS']

Quote:
I don't think you are overfeeding them, Omran. My Barred Rock hens were big birds and the Buff's I've had were bigger. In other words, I bet those breeds eat nearly twice as much as a 1.75 pounds of feed/week, 4 pound Leghorn

.

Steve
edited to say: Some of us (me too) are getting some real savings by free ranging and feeding veggies. Lowering egg production is a risk, however.)

 

[txredneckmedic]

I have 8 BSL hens, a buff roo, and 4 pekin ducks and with fresh alfalfa and dinner scraps I go through about 50# in 2 or 3 weeks.

 

[rstampa]

Quote:
I''m with you except they are on continuous feeding. I fill up the 11 lb feeder about once a week or so. I have 7 chickens and that's about what they go thu. They also free range in the yard and occasionally get some leftovers but not that much. I'm sure glad I didn't get more chickens.

 

[teach1rusl]

I agree with digitS...some of yours are bigger breeds and will eat a lot. Do you have your feeder placed up high enough to prohibit most wastage....about back high to your chickens??? I didn't think chickens would overeat anyway????

Let's face it...you have a LOT of chickens, so they're going to burn through food pretty quickly. To someone who has one or two small to medium sized dogs, hearing that some people burn through a 50 lb. bag of dogfood a week would sound outlandish...But not if you have several large breed dogs...

Like another poster said...makes me glad I just have a couple of chickens.

 

[goldielocks]

Sounds the same as me...i just let them eat what they want. They must need it. I throw in a little oyster shell with their scratch. I picked up a couple of free range chickens and they ate and ate and ate when i brought them home. I felt so sorry for them.


Quote:

 

[cap1717]

It is not just rodents that will steal the chicken feed. When my girls are out in the yard, I bring the feeder into the house to protect it from wild birds. I may take it out for them 2 - 3 times during the day, but keep an eye on it, 'cause as soon as the chooks are done, the sparrows congregate! That could be at least a part of your problem. . . wild birds are voracious!

 

[eggsited chickens]

We can go thru a 50# bag in less than a week. We have 32 chickens

 

[redhen]

I go through about the same amount of feed as you Omran.. I think your hens are eating normally..