My hens are wasting a lot of expensive food. HELP!!

[chickenfarminghopeful]

I have a hanging feeder that I keep filled with laying pellets, but my hens are starting to "flick" a very large amount on the ground. Although some of this gets eaten off the ground, most is wasted (particularly when it rains). Any suggestions on how I can remedy this costly problem?

 

[SilverStar]

I find that my hens have a hard time eating the laying pellets. They are hard and not easy to peck at. Try Laying crumbles instead of pellets. Also it is very common to loose about 10% of your feed.

 

[HLAC]

Try lifting your feeder a bit higher.

Make sure no treats get mixed in with the feed. (corn, sunflower seeds, etc.) because they will definitely throw feed while hunting for goodies. (made that mistake once)

If they still make a mess, let the feeder run out. They will clean up what is available. I have my feeder on an adjustable rope, when it's real windy I drop the feeder down so it doesn't blow around. At night I pull it up to keep rodents out. If some feed gets spilled or flicked out, I'll pull the feeder up until the girls clean up the stuff in the grass.

 

[chickenfarminghopeful]

Quote:
For me, that usually results in much more waste, but thank you for your input.

As for the raising and lowering, that's a pretty good strategy: raising it until they finish what they've flicked out. What do you think of somehow putting some chicken wire around the base and folding it over? I've been thinking that maybe they couldn't "flick" as easily.

 

[chickenfarminghopeful]

I honestly can't believe that no one other than the original 2 responded. If anyone else reads this post could you point me to an alternative forum? Thanks.

 

[patman75]

I'm going to try adding baffles to my feeders so they only have an inch wide open space to eat feed so they cant flick it out. If the feeding dish has a high lip they can flick it out either.

 

[Nava]

Quote:
you are in the right place but , for some reason there's not alot of BYC members talking tonight.

and yes i had the same problem with 2 of my 9 pens they spill all the pellets, so i raised the feeder whre they could barely reach the food, and they stoped wasting it, i think that i had it too low where they could play around , but now that is raised they only peck what they are going to eat.


and dont worry more will come

 

[Over Easy in Adna]

I was going to suggest to feed crumbles and / or move the feeder higher. It is what I have done and fixed the problem of them wasting food. Then I saw that one poster suggested crumbles and another suggested moving the feeder. Not sure what other advice there is to give.........

 

[chickenfarminghopeful]

Quote:
First of all: thank you for you reply. I have a "high end" feeder with high walls. I had a cheaper one in the past, but when we expanded our operation we had to go with a larger capacity feeder. They're both similar in design. I just don't know what compels them to do this. It's like they're obsessed. I really like their egg production and their general attitude. We have explored several breeds and are very happy with the results of this particular breed (RIR) (i.e. none egg eaters, disposition, adaptation to confinement, etc.). Can you elaborate on your baffle design a little?

It is already as high as I can make it and still allow the chickens to feed.

 

[zatsdeb]

we use a trough feeder and it seems to work really well. we also have a hanging feeder, we use the hanging one more in the winter when they don't go outside as much, otherwise, the trough feeders, are usually about $15.00 at the feed store. also we use layer mash, the pellets seem to not work as well for us.