Uh-oh. Just opened my new 50 pound bag of organic layer feed.

[iheartnh]

Are these chicks?? or grown chickens?? Mine eat organic pellets. Pellets are much less wasteful. If they knock them out of the bowl, they can eat them off the ground. I think they will eat them when they get hungry. Mine don't break them up.....just swallow them whole.

How old are your birds? Mine are 4 months, we are just transitioning from finisher to layer. I went to check on them again, and one of my EEs is trying to break them up to eat them. The rest of the flock are eating the finisher crumbles.

 

[popsicle]

They'll get over it and eat them. Give them grit if they don't already have access to it. They should be plenty big enough to eat pellets.

 

[AZBootsie]

Quote:
Mine are all ages from chicks to old biddies. To transition, I usually keep the grower crumbles out and the pellets. When they eat the pellets, then I stop putting out crumbles. If you don't have a ton of chickens (just need a bowl or two) you can crumble some pellets in the blender. I have done this for chicks before when I needed time to get to the feed store.

 

[iheartnh]

Mine are all ages from chicks to old biddies. To transition, I usually keep the grower crumbles out and the pellets. When they eat the pellets, then I stop putting out crumbles. If you don't have a ton of chickens (just need a bowl or two) you can crumble some pellets in the blender. I have done this for chicks before when I needed time to get to the feed store.

I only have 7 birds. I was trying to transition them like you do - offering the new food as kind of a treat while the old food was still in the feeder. They just seem to be having trouble with the size and 'hardness' of the pellets. I probably have a 4 or 5 days of finisher left in the feeder, so I'll wait a day or two to see if they show any more interest in the pellets. Tomorrow I'm cleaning out the coop, so maybe I'll leave them in their run with the pellets and no crumbles for a couple of hours and see what happens.

I haven't abandoned fermenting, either - I really like the reported benefits - so if anyone still has thoughts on that, would love to hear them!

 

[lazy gardener]

I don't find it to be a bit of a bother to ferment their layer feed. I do buy the crumble because it is a few cents cheaper. I only have 5 girls so I ferment in 1 qt yogurt containers. When I dump a quart for them, I just add more dry to the container, top it off with water, give a stir, and it's good to go for tomorrow's feeding. My girls go through 1.5 quarts/day which equals about 3 - 4 cups of dry crumble (usually) in addition to their forage/bugs.