Need to vent...

[juliebee]

Quote:
HA!! My mom used to call that the "Clean Plate Club". "Just think of all those starving children. Now eat your liver and onions". YIKES! Clean plate club for chickens hahahaha

 

[Julie08]

If my chickens spill a lot of feed on the ground I hold out filling the feeders til they eat whats on the ground, I personally dont see anything wrong with that. The feed is fine and it gives them sometime to do. I really don't see any reason to vent over that.

 

[Smoky73]

I do it too. And I do not have children. My large fowl used to throw their food all over the floor and if I can go out into the coop and see all the food around the feeder in the wood shavings and the feeder empty, I do not feed them that day. They WILL clean up the mess. I now only feed them what they will eat in 24hours. If you have food all over the gorund, all that does is encourages mice to start showing up more and more.
Chickens will get poo on the food in the shavings yes. It is not any worse than them going out into their yard and pecking around ont he ground which has poo there too. They will get into contact with poo no matter what you do, its normal.

 

[rizq]

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Mine poo in their feeder too, so really no difference here

 

[fowltemptress]

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Mine poo in their feeder too, so really no difference here

Hehe, want some gravy for that feed?

Seriously, sometimes I suspect they do it on purpose, silly things.

 

[Wynette]

Mine have feed & water available free choice, 24/7.

They used to waste a lot, until I switched to pellets. I know some folks don't agree with feeding pellets, but I find that even if they spill some out of the feeder, it's easier for them to clean it up off the ground than with crumbles. I have found I use MUCH less feed since switching to pellets.

 

[fowltemptress]

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Who doesn't agree with feeding pellets? I've never heard that . . .

off to search forums for reasons why pellets might be bad

 

[krcote]

Mine used to waste a lot of feed too. I found out they can't scratch it out if you move it to head level!

 

[Julie08]

I've never heard the pellet thing either. If you find something fowl let me know please, I feed my banty's pellets all the time.

 

[kellij]

We use pellets as well in a hanging feeder in their coop available 24/7. It is at chest level for easy access. They don't seem to waste much since we learned not to mix blackoil sunflower seeds in with their layer food. They would just knock out all the layer pellets to get at the treats. Sunflower seeds are now given in different areas of their run for a nice treat. We let the hanging feeder get down to about 1/4 full and then fill back up and repeat.