Weekend getaway feeding?

[rosemarythyme]

Chickens normally don't gorge so it's fine to leave a filled feeder. In the future it really is best to know exactly how much your flock eats vs feeder and water capacity, so you can be sure to leave enough food and water plus a bit extra.

 

[FergFarm]

Most people leave food available for the chickens all the time.
Because they are used to always having it there, they just eat what they need, when they need it.

Good point. Mine always have food in their feeder so this shouldn’t be any different. Thank you!

 

[FergFarm]

Chickens normally don't gorge so it's fine to leave a filled feeder. In the future it really is best to know exactly how much your flock eats vs feeder and water capacity, so you can be sure to leave enough food and water plus a bit extra.

Thank you! I’ll keep track of our new feeder so I’m better prepared for next time.

 

[FergFarm]

Yeah mine are free fed all day every day. They should be fine. Chickens drink more water than youd think, so keep that in mind. The best metric would be how quickly your specific birds finish their waterer usually.

Good tip, thank you!

 

[NatJ]

I’ll keep track of our new feeder so I’m better prepared for next time.

If you know how many scoops of feed go in the old feeder, and how often you fill it, then you will know how many total scoops of feed need to go in both feeders to last that long (enough + extra is the right amount).

 

[jwehl]

Or you can do what I do when I go out of town.. fill every feeder you own even though itll take them like 3x your trip to eat it just for the piece of mind. *lol*
.

 

[Al Gerhart]

Nope, chickens are not like horses that will eat themselves to death by founder. I would count the chickens despite long established advice to the contrary, provide 1/4 pound per bird per day and a little extra just in case, and enjoy the trip knowing the birds won't starve.

 

[MissMonty]

My husband made gravity feeders for our coop last year out of PVC. Basically they were about 4ft tall, we wanted the openings high enough that we could easily work with them without worry of the kiddos putting things in them.

We had two of them and we would fill those and they'd last a couple weeks when we filled both to the brim. The chickens never really gorged themselves. The biggest worry I would have is water. You don't want them spilling it or it freezing while you're gone and them be without water for multiple days. So what I would do when we had to leave a couple days is fill their normal water that lasted a few days but then also leave out a couple smaller buckets. They're like 2.5g buckets I had for my horses. This way they didn't have to get up on the edge to drink like they would a 5g bucket and risk dumping it (although we had them hooked to the wall but sitting on the ground if that makes sense)

When we had a spurt of really cold temps and had to be away a couple days I hooked up a heated horse water bucket in the coop the same way