My chicken doesn't really want to eat her food

[Chickensarecool123]

Hi, I’ve been on vacation for a couple weeks, I’ve left my two chickens with a babysitter, maybe i should call it a chick sitter lol, we left her with chick feed for my 10 week old and 4 week old chick’s (i only have 2 chickens one of each age) they are now 3-4 weeks older and our babysitter probably switched the food, they don’t want to eat their chick food, no problem we wanted to switch them anyways, we got adult pellet food, and dumor 5 grain scratch, we sprinkled some oats and scratch to in courage her eating the food but they don’t seem hungry, they ate some of the scratch and devoured the oats, but only ate some pellets (been on vacation a little bit possibly filled up on bugs), is there anyway to incourage them to eat more, this is doesn’t seem to be a big problem, maybe their not hungry or something but if they continue not to eat that much what can I do?

Thanks in advance this is my oldest one at 7 weeks

 

[BigBlueHen53]

Did you switch them from crumbles to pellets?

 

[nuthatched]

No scratch or oats etc at all for a few weeks.
Leave their food our and they'll eat it when they're hungry, they're just spoiled on junk food.

 

[FarmerGirl101]

They should not be eating adult pellets at this age. Layer feed shouldn't be fed until they start laying or around 20 weeks. They likely aren't eating it because the pellets are too big for them to properly eat. Switch them back to the chick food and stop giving them any treats. Chickens are not picky at all and will eat mostly anything. Since they are being fed so many treats, they eat that first because they really like it. It is junk food for them since there is no nutrition in them.

 

[BigBlueHen53]

If you want to put them on an "adult" food, you should be able to find a 20% protein formula in crumble form if that's what they're used to. It might be a grower formula, or an all-flock formula. Read labels. If you want to switch them to a pelleted feed, do it gradually. Make about one-fourth of their feed pellets for a week. Then make it half pellets and half crumbles for a week. Then, one-fourth crumbles to three-fourths pellets. And finally, give them all pellets. They just have to transition to the strange new texture. They are too young for a layer formula though, it has too much calcium for their immature organs and can be harmful to them. They can actually stay on a grower or all-flock feed for life, just put oyster shell in a separate vessel to meet their needs for calcium once they start laying. They will take what they need.

 

[Chickensarecool123]

Did you switch them from crumbles to pellets?

Yes,

 

[Chickensarecool123]

They should not be eating adult pellets at this age. Layer feed shouldn't be fed until they start laying or around 20 weeks. They likely aren't eating it because the pellets are too big for them to properly eat. Switch them back to the chick food and stop giving them any treats. Chickens are not picky at all and will eat mostly anything. Since they are being fed so many treats, they eat that first because they really like it. It is junk food for them since there is no nutrition in them.

This is all flock feed not layer feed although calcium will be availible

 

[Chickensarecool123]

No scratch or oats etc at all for a few weeks.
Leave their food out and they'll eat it when they're hungry, they're just spoiled on junk food.

Ah thanks

 

[Chickensarecool123]

They should not be eating adult pellets at this age. Layer feed shouldn't be fed until they start laying or around 20 weeks. They likely aren't eating it because the pellets are too big for them to properly eat. Switch them back to the chick food and stop giving them any treats. Chickens are not picky at all and will eat mostly anything. Since they are being fed so many treats, they eat that first because they really like it. It is junk food for them since there is no nutrition in them.

They have eaten a couple pellets, they are big and are able to digest it and will not touch their chick good, i will definitely stop feeding them treats but they are big enough, they are 14 weeks and 7 weeks

 

[Chickensarecool123]

Thanks for all the advice so far we will stop feeding them treats and will monitor their diet more closely