Our girls won't eat layer pellets and act like they are starving all the time

[Traphill]

My chickens prefer crumbles as well. What they really love is I take them and add warm water and make a mash....... I think that it makes it more digestible too. I give them the mash and any left overs that I have and some chopped spinach in the morning.... Happy chickens!

 

[jcfreaks]

Hi, we had the same problem so I mixed plain yogurt with the pellets and they gobbled them right up. the yogurt is good for them too.

 

[Pressman]

I have a different problem - my chickens (Golden Laced Wyandottes) are seven months old, were laying well, and suddenly stopped eating! They won't eat their crumbles or pellets and that's all they've ever had except for the occasional meal worms for treats. They are losing weight and we are hitting 10 degrees below zero here in Idaho! Everything I've read says they must eat a lot and drink a lot to keep warm. I finally bought some scratch to see if they would eat that and they will eat some but not enough. I have tried mixing their crumbles with cottage cheese, and yogurt and they just picked at it. Baked a pumpkin and they just picked at it and the same with oatmeal. I tried putting water on their crumbles one morning and hand fed it to them. They ate almost a cereal bowl full and I thought I had it made. Next day they would touch it. Tried mixing a little scratch with their crumbles and one day they emptied the feeders. That was a week ago and they have pretty much not eaten enough to sneeze at since. If I bring out the meal worms that act like they are starving as they devour them. Their crops are not full when the go to roost like they were and I am at my wits end. Can anyone help me??????

 

[TracyLovesDucks]

I think it's a bad sign that they are not eating, and it may not be that they are just picky. If I were you, I'd start looking into illnesses/diseases that could cause loss of appetite and drop in weight. Worms came to mind as I was reading your post, but that's just a guess on my part. Hopefully others will chime in here. But in the meantime, you probably want to start researching diseases associated with their symptoms, and if possible get a vet to look at them or at least send in some poop samples that the vet can have tested.

I hope it's nothing too serious

 

[lazy gardener]

I went through this with my girls in the dead of last winter's repeated polar vortex. They absolutely refused to eat. But they were starving. I replaced their feed, even though it looked and smelled fine. I bought Multi-flock to give them extra protein, and they immediately started eating well, and put on the lost weight. Your feed may be bad, even though it appears to be ok. What about giving them some BOSS for the extra fat content? Can you give them some animal protein?

 

[Pressman]

Thanks so much for the suggestions. I don't know what BOSS is. They act perfectly normal in every way except for eating only minute specks. I may have found the problem, but I am not sure yet. Apparently they refuse to eat the larger poultry grit and my feed store is out of the chick grit. They had access to sand tubs all summer and fall and they were frozen and full of snow. I hauled them out of the snow and put in fresh sand and they immediately dove into it. They still haven't touched their crumbles or pellets but at noon I came home and mixed cottage cheese into their pellets, which again they only pecked at. BUT, when I came home tonight it was gone, as was the spinach and cabbage I left out. I remembered they used to love green beans and as I had some home canned ones I took them out tonight and they ate them as well. They also ate a little scratch before going to roost so I feel a little better that they have something in their crops tonight. I got a different bag of feed and they wouldn't even look at it. Tomorrow I will try a new bag of their regular feed and see if they will eat it. I'll send in some poop too. Thanks again for your suggestions, and I welcome any more.

 

[Pressman]

Oh yes, I am down to two eggs every other day.

 

[Ol Grey Mare]

Thanks so much for the suggestions. I don't know what BOSS is.

BOSS = Black Oil Sunflower Seeds

 

[Pressman]

Oh, thank you for the definition. My mom has some of those for her birds. I shall get some from her.

 

[yellowchicks]

I switched over to layer feed pellets a couple days ago, cold turkey. One out of four of my 21-week-old hens started to lay eggs, and I ran out of grower feed crumble anyway, so it seemed to be a perfect time to switch to pellets. However, for the last few days, my girls just refused to eat. I cut off treats but it did not make any difference.

After combing the BYC site for ideas, I wet a tray of pellets with warm water, and brought out a container of warm water on the side, plus refill the grits. I thought the girls would go for the warm mash first since they haven't eat much in days, but they drank the entire container of water before they started to eat the mash. Were they thirsty! Apparently, it has been so cold that the even the insulated water bucket with horizontal nipples has been frozen from time to time, my girls were dehydrated! This afternoon, they ate the dry pellets no problem, resumed their appetite. Hope they will continue to eat tomorrow.