They won't eat pellets

[Ellie]

We got 50lb of pellets by mistake instead of their crumble. The hens won't eat the pellets.

Is there anything you have done with them that may work? I sure hate to waste them. Can you cook and make a mash out of them? (the pellets, not the girls!!

)

Thanks,

 

[Wynette]

I've never known a chicken to starve if food was in front of it...give them some time...if you HAD to, you could maybe put some in a food processor and process them into crumbles, and then sprinkle the crumbels on top of the pellets to sort of ease them into it. Or, if you have some scratch feed for treats, sprinkle that on top of the pellets. I'm sure they'll get the hang of it! I switched mine over "cold turkey" last year and never had an issue, and I'm so glad! They waste so much less of the pellets than they do of the crumble. Good luck!

 

[Beau coop]

You could try adding some warm water to the pellets to soften them. Then after a few days, do the same thing, but sprinkle some of the hard pellets on top. They will have to eat the hard pellets to get to the soft food. Then you should be able to switch them over.

 

[bluey]

My chickens balked at first but they "caved in" eventually.

Believe me, there's no chance of starving a chicken with food present.

 

[WalkingWolf]

I have the same problem, my flock does not care for the pellets. I mixed them with crumbles and scratch and no luck. Looks like I will have to get a food processor and grind them up.

 

[dave27889]

I had the same problem with my RIR's. I even mixed them with mash and they just picked around the pellets. I only had ten hens at the time so I mashed the pellets down with a big solid brick and put the pellets in a canvas bag. I put the pellets in the bag and put a board on top of the bag and hit the board with the brick to break up the pellets. It was a pain but I used the whole bag up and I will not use pellets again. Later, Dave in NC

 

[Ellie]

Thanks for the replies. They are just so stubborn about these pellets. Tried for a week and no go.

These girls won't starve for sure!! They get cooked oatmeal with yogurt every morning, lol.

I think I will try to smash them... good idea with the brick. I have tried mixing them with the crumbles to no avail.

Gee, my kids were more easily trained then these 11 girls!

 

[Wynette]

Try sprinkling some on top of the oatmeal/yogurt. Start with a sparse amount, then increase. I bet they'll be eating them in NO time!

 

[Hiedi]

I had the same problem recently. I decided to switch to pellets because mine seemed to be wasting a lot of food when I used the crumbles; much of it ended up on the ground. So I bought a bag of pellets, and the RIRs did not seem to like it much. After a couple of days I was getting concerned. So I bought them some crumbles and mixed the food half/half. That way the pellets did not get wasted. Now they seem to pick through the food and get what they like. That seems to be working out better. I thought about trying to crush the pellets as someone already mentioned, but that seemed like such a pain so I abandoned that idea. I even tried putting the pellets in an old wheat grinder, but I ended up with chicken flour. I never thought in a million years that I would be catering so much to these chickens.

 

[Ellie]

I thought of putting through the grinder too. Glad you let me know I would have chicken flour.

Maybe I should make them their very own chicken bread.