Tip for switching from crumbles to pellets

[HEChicken]

My girls are 6-8 months old now and have had crumbles all their life. First chick starter and then flock raiser, with shell offered free choice once they were ready to lay. I bought laying pellets for the first time this past weekend and like many BYC'ers, noticed their lack of enthusiasm for the new food. To teach them that the pellets are in fact edible, here is what I did.

When using cans of corn, peas, beans etc., I always drain the liquid into a separate container to be used to make mash for the chooks. Over the winter, I would heat the liquid, add some crumbles and they would enjoy their tasty warm mash. So I did the same thing, except this time, I added the pellets instead of crumbles. Whereas crumbles absorb liquid upon contact, pellets take longer to absorb the liquid, so when I set the bowl down in front of them, it very clearly looked like pellets floating in liquid. They were hesitant to try them at first but because they are used to mash and this looked kind of like mash, they didn't take long to grab a softening pellet and swallow it. Once the first was down, they happily went back for more. By the time they got to the bottom of the bowl, the pellets had absorbed enough liquid that it was more like the mash they are used to, but next day when I repeated the process, they didn't hesitate to dive straight in and immediately start swallowing the whole pellets, and now happily eat the dry pellets out of their free-choice feeder as well.

Anyway, I thought I would pass this along for anyone who is having problems transitioning from crumbles to pellets - hopefully it will work as well for others as it did for me.

 

[MuranoFarms]

I'm gonna try this! Thanks.

 

[chicmom]

Hmm I switched from the crumbles to the pellets and had no problem at all. My gals really throw the crumbles around and waste so much food, and someone suggested to me to try the pellets. Worked like a charm....hardly any waste now.

 

[HEChicken]

Quote:
That's why I wanted to make the switch. I've had mice move in and the crumbles on the ground around the feeder provided them a constant supply of food. With the pellets, I can pick up any that get dropped when I pick up the feeder to take it in at night. I'm hoping between the cat and the lack of food, the mice will move on....

 

[TeriNick50]

Other than waste, what other advantages are there from switching to pellets?

 

[KatyTheChickenLady]

Great tip! I never thought of saving the water from vegi cans, I bet they love that!

 

[HEChicken]

Quote:
Probably waste is the main reason. The food is the same otherwise - the crumbles have just been ground up more into tiny pieces.

 

[crj]

My only concern would be the amount of salt in the veggie water.
Canned veggies are notorious for having excessive salt in them.
Otherwise a good trick. I have some marans that will be switching over to layer pellets in a few months and I will use that one.

 

[HEChicken]

Quote:
I've had concerns with that as well. We always try to buy the reduced salt vegies for this reason. Also, I should have mentioned that we don't always have vegie water available, and when we don't, we just use plain water. They seem to like their "mash" just fine made with plain ol water too...