Wasted Feed.....

[pozarnsk]

OK, just moved my 4 week olds to the coop, and built them a feeder from a 5 gallon bucket. I have it hanging about 5" off the floor. Every morning I go out and them have feed all over the floor around the feeder. After watching them eat, I see they basically peck and "throw" the feed all over at the same time. Any ideas so this doesn't end up costing me a fortune??

 

[kinnip]

They'll still eat it off the floor, but yeah, some gets wasted. Funny thing about livestock, they waste food. You'd think that someone would've noticed this trend centuries ago and started breeding for tidiness, but nope, never happened.

 

[pozarnsk]

Maybe I should put the feeder up at night and let them "clean up" after themselves if they want a midnight snack......

 

[tvtaber]

You could do that, but I don't think they eat at night. They seem to roost and sleep until daybreak. You could sweep it out into the run occasionally, where they'll peck it at their leisure and seem to get it all up. Still, some wil be mixed in with the litter in the coop and lost to the compost pile eventually. Good thing it is cheap!

 

[chicken_angler]

One idea i had is putting the lid from a 55 gallon drum under the feeder so the extra food falls onto that and you might be able to reuse the feed.
Good luck, Chickenman8

 

[Davaroo]

taber is right. No eating at night, but they can be sent to bet with a full crop of cracked grain.

About the best you can do is to add a lip to the feeder or an overhanging ridge - so they can only get their beak in there to pick up the feed.

Most older designs had an inward facing lip of about an inch to prevent billing out the feed. Or they were deep.
Or they have an opening just big enough for the chickens head to fit in.
With a 5 gal bucket feeder, it might be better to make a small overhanging strip a couple of inches above the feed, so they have to work to get their head in there. Then hang the feeder a bit higher than usual, so they have to stetch their neck to get to the feed.

Just some suggestions.

 

[pozarnsk]

ITS NOT CHEAP!!!! lol, I'm paying 15 bucks a bag for this stuff (Dumor starter/grower from TSC) and I have 55, 4 week olds that are eating me out of house and home. I never would have thought little birds could pack it away like this.

 

[Davaroo]

Quote:
1/4 pound a day, per bird. It adds up at that rate.

 

[pozarnsk]

I can see now how farms need to have thousands of birds packed together to make any money with feed costs what they are. I was planning on selling eggs when they start laying, and make a couple hundred extra bucks a month, but now I'm pretty sure I'll just be lucky to recover my costs.

 

[Davaroo]

Quote:
"So I've come to the conclusion that much of what people believe is fantasy-based, except for topics they are intimately familiar with, from direct personal experience. You can learn from others, indeed you would be a fool of you didn’t. But what you have not done with your own hands, you do not truly know.

I certainly found this to be true of poultrykeeping. I've found much of the material written by non-farmers to be harmful, loaded with Pollyanna-esque assumptions.
For example, these armchair experts and even practitioners who should know better, will happily tell you that everything the mainstream poultry industry does is wrong. Conversely, they stand fast in their belief that anything the mainsteam industry DOESN’T do is correct, and will work like a charm. In my experience, this is wildly inaccurate.

Because I had read a lot of such contemporary material before I moved back to the country, I had a lot of unlearning to do. It was a slow, painful process. I read in several places that there was something wrong with commercial White Leghorns and other modern hybrids, and that a "real" farm would use heritage breeds. I tried it, and all the heritage breeds were crummy layers, and many of them had nasty temperaments as well. On the other hand, commercial hybrid layers took to low-density free range like ducks to water. So the whole issue was pure superstition.

(Not that you shouldn't raise heritage breeds if you want to -- I always have a few -- but choose a breed with a reputation for being fun to have around, and don't expect to use them to make you any real money.)

So I've seen a lot of fads, superstitions, and wishful thinking in the poultry field.
Many people have lost their life's savings by believing this stuff, whether in a flashy way, such as pouring all their retirement savings into a busted emu farm in 1993, or more quietly, by moving to the country and trying to make a living according to the methods advocated by those who like to promote alternative lifestyles."
- - Bob Plamondon, August 19, 2007