OMG! They were wasting so much feed

[patman75]

I can't believe how much food those chickens have been wasting for the last year.

Last year I switched to an organic feed that is processed through a hammer mill. So it has chunks of grain but it was a little dusty/powdery. I had suspected that I was going through too much feed per week because of what I was reading on the BYC on how much feed per bird per day.

I am using a 5 gallon pail attached to a large flower pot dish. I also use deep litter method so it was hard to tell how much they were wasting. I took their food and put it in the grass while they were in their pasture. About 30 minutes later watching them eat I sickened to see them bill out their feed wasting so much on the ground. 12 chickens were going through 50lbs of feed in about 1.5 weeks!

Time for some changes.
1. The flower pot dish was too shallow and too wide. I rigged up some roofing flashing and duct tape to increase the height of the dish by 2 inches and curving back towards the pail to reduce the chance of billing out feed.

2. The farmer that I buy my feed from just started adding molasses to his feed to help hold together the finer particles and the calcium. The new feed not dusty at all.
I put the new changes out in the pasture and watched the little pigs try to bill out the feed but could not.

Now after a week with the new feed and modified feeder they have only eaten 1/3 of their feed.

It makes me sick to think how much feed must be mixed with the deep litter. Oh well, live and learn.

 

[andrew6d9]

To bad chickens don't have a sence of saving money.

 

[ECBW]

I too, had observe my birds thrashing in the feeder, wasting food.

I too, got advise from a bona fide farmer to switch to pellets and take out the feeder when there was a lot of spillage on the floor. The pellets allowed easy notice and the birds would get hungry and cleaned them up.

 

[aggie9296]

i switched to pellets as the crumbles were getting spilled and were way too dusty. now, feeding much less

 

[patman75]

When I was using pellets and crumbles there was not much waste. But I can't get organic feed in pellet of crumble form.

To bad chickens don't have a sence of saving money.

If they knew had 6 - 5 week old pullets in the garage that is going to replace the older hens this fall they might behave a little better.

 

[Celtic Chick]

Quote:
x2
I have been using pelleted food for a few years now, and what a difference in the amount of food we go through! Unless they're chicks, get away from the the crumbles.