please help,getting expensive!

[bluemini]

Thank you

Best decision to ever make for your babies.   I have 15 on Fermented feed and a 50 # bag lasts me well over a month Maybe 6 wks.     They are 8 wks old.  I used a bag of starter then have used almost 2/3 of the grower.   Still will last me another 10 days or so.     Leftovers are your friend.    I keep any bits of leftover meat , scrambled eggs and veggies.    Twice a week I boil in some water   1/2 c rolled oats and all the leftovers.    Huge meal.   .    Your bill will go right down.    


http://tikktok.wordpress.com/2014/04/13/fermented-feed-faq/

Thank you for this link! Really helped answer some of my questions!

 

[bluemini]

The

They are cute but poor choices for free-range keeping.

The bantams have a pen I move around daily so they get to still free range in a sense lol. I live in the mountains , plenty of trees,grass,bugs etc.

 

[bluemini]

I always put all of my chickens up at night in their pens.The young ones are out from 10am to 3pm,the adults are out from 3pm to 7/8pm. Hopefully when they are all adults I can let them all out together with no problems,all day.

 

[chickengeorgeto]

Quote:

I am up to 5 hens that are 3/4 months,4 adult hens and a rooster,2 silkies and 2 bantams . So 14 total,they all get grower except the 4 laying hens and rooster get layer mixed in with it. They are very healthy and free range at least 6 hours a day. Along with mealworms and scraps. They still act like they are starving and im afraid they are not getting enough to eat,yet they are going through a bag of feed fast.

I do not have an automatic feeder,I just fill their bowls up. How long should a 50 pound bag last for 14 chickens? How much should I feed them since they free range a lot?


Someone please help!

I cant quit worrying about them!

You haven't told us how long a 50 lb. sack of feed lasts your chickens. I wish to add something to what centrarchid said. As he pointed out, free-ranging complicates matters. Not only is the amount of forage available to your flock constantly changing from day to day and year to year, but the quality of the food available to your birds also varies widely. Nothing in this world is free, in other words everything has a cost attached. The calories that a chickens burns foraging free-range style is a cost your chicken and ultimately you must pay. This cost is just not one necessarily reflected in your feed bill. If the range is seriously depleted you may need to feed MORE store bought feed, not less.

The layer should only be fed to your adult birds and the starter/grower mash reserved for your younger birds. As a rule of thumb a standard size (4 or 4 1/2 pound) production hen (like those in your avatar) needs about four (4) to five ounces of feed daily. The 14 day time frame is a good place to begin but if you're really concerned about eggs as well as your feed bill, the place to begin is cutting the rooster and 4 bantam/silkie birds out of your flock. With free-ranging and table scraps a 50 pounds feed should then last your 9 remaining birds somewhere well North of 3 weeks.

Don't try guessing at feed weights. Get a small empty can like a small Vienna sausage can etc. and weigh the amount (mass) of feed it will hold. A little simple math will tell you how many times you need to scoop feed out of the sack with this can/scoop to feed all your birds. In a flock that free-ranges like yours, you may want to feed twice daily and remove all feed that is not eaten in 30 minutes and save it until the next feeding. All chickens eat like pigs, don't let their lack of table manners fool you into thinking that they are hungry. A fat hen also lays fewer eggs and she is more prone to complication in her reproductive track, like egg bound, prolapse, laying on the roost or other inappropriate places. Too much fat around her vent can result in the stretching and tearing of her reproductive track while attempting to lay, this sometimes results in a hen who is unable to hold her eggs inside long enough to form a hard or complete shell leading to soft shell eggs.

One of the other costs associated with free-range chickens is internal parasites. Many of if not most of the bugs and other wee creatures that your chickens eat while on free-range also carry worm eggs. The longer your chickens free-range on the same spot of ground the greater the parasite load becomes. You may need to look at worming every 90 days instead of 6 months or once per year..

 

[Ridgerunner]

Chickens are prey animals. They are more at risk when they are concentrating on eating. A survival tactic is to eat like a pig to get the crop full, then go to a safer place to digest it. They are at risk less that way. They are also opportunistic feeders. If they get a bonanza of available food, they are going to fill up as fast as they can before another chicken eats it. Them eating like pigs is perfectly normal. It does not mean they are starving.

Hens have to build up a certain level of fat before they start to lay eggs. It’s the way their bodies are set up. They need to have a certain level of fat built up as a reserve in case they go broody, even if they never actually go broody. If you butcher a hen that is laying you will find a fat pad in the pelvic area. That does not mean your chickens are unhealthy or too fat. It’s normal.

I agree with ChickenGeorge though. A hen that is too fat is not as healthy as one that is pleasantly plump. A hen that is foraging in a reasonably good quality of forage (different grasses and weeds, grass and weed seeds, creepy crawlies, maybe some leaf litter or decaying vegetable matter) and getting exercise is not likely to be too fat. You want them to have a balanced diet, not too rich and not too poor. The more they forage the less control you have over that, but then the less control you need.

 

[LindaB220]

Thank you all! They get oats,bread and other food scraps daily,but they just act so hungry. I have done fermented feed before and let it set for 3 days as directions said and they liked it but still flung it everywhere lol,so going to try again but this time just soak it over night

Thank you all! They get oats,bread and other food scraps daily,but they just act so hungry. I have done fermented feed before and let it set for 3 days as directions said and they liked it but still flung it everywhere lol,so going to try again but this time just soak it over night

After you get the 4 day fermented over all you have to do is wait until almost at the bottom of bucket and add water and stir and then the grains. It will be ready overnight. Never regret it. Make it stiffer like grout or thick oatmeal. Mine never wasted it.

 

[bluemini]

I am just looking for a more cost effective way,I am not getting rid of any of my birds. As I stated only layers are on layer food and the young ones are on grower .

 

[bluemini]

After you get the 4 day fermented over all you have to do is wait until almost at the bottom of bucket and add water and stir and then the grains.  It will be ready overnight.   Never regret it.   Make it stiffer like grout or thick oatmeal.  Mine never wasted it.    

Started some today !

 

[yyz0yyz0]

If you have any restaurants near you or a diningroom at your job, stop in and ask about getting Prep cook scraps for your ckickens. 3 times a week get a 5gal pail of scraps from work, it's full of rusty salad, seed cores, soft fruit, etc etc. A lot of it they don't eat, like veg peels and celery stumps but what ever they don't eat goes into the compost which they get to pick through again later. On Fridays I get the leftover pizza as a bonus protein source.
Since I started doing this my feed bill has gone down greatly, my girls still have layer feed available 24/7 with a feeder that has no waste. I've also grown fodder and fermented but have stopped those for the summer, will pick up again in the cooler weather.

 

[centrarchid]

Easily the most important parts of the equation are quality and quantity of forages available during the free-range foraging part of the day. How many acres and what does it look like?

My free range birds are given a restricted ration which approximates 1/3 by weight that provided to confined birds. They also get largely scratch grains. I watch ranging habits, crop fill at night, and overall productivity of flock.

Making good use of free-range is often the most complicated way to keep chickens because you are constantly adapting.

Can you answer questions above? If forage insufficient which is reality for most, then economic benefits of doing it are either limited or do not exist.