If they are free ranging, they are fine with that routine. If they are in a pen, they won't be able to find enough. I don't leave out free choice for my free rangers. Just my cooped birds. Plus you've been doing it your way all along I assume and you have 3 year old healthy birds, so who knows. Can't be messing up too bad. ;-)
I have 22 chickens and the area is huge. It's not as big as a football field but altogether it would be close. I have two chicken coops with three nesting boxes each (those prefab kind you buy from Tractor Supply). There are different sections because I kept expanding. This helps when I need to separate, as I did when the chicks graduated to the outside.
Well they're not all three year old birds. Maybe a third or three year old. And they are in a large pen. I have a road on either side so I can't let him wander into the road. I'm uploading a file of the pen and coops.
I now see what I need to do! I have some work to do, lol. I have half pullets and cockerels and the other half hens and one rooster. I feel better now.
Those coops are for about 8 chickens each, They may be over crowded. I have one (what is left after a bear rolled it around) I had 9 in it which was ok because at the time they were small and young. But I wouldn't put any more than that in them. It could be an over crowded issue
They may be labeled for 8 birds.....but really only hold 2-3 maybe 4.
Layer feed is great if you only have females and they are already laying eggs. This is common for large scale production farms, not so for backyard farming. If you have young females not yet laying or have males layer feed isn't for your flock.
This is best for mixed age flocks and mixed gender flocks.
Very important! I use small hanging dispensers, one for grit, one for oyster shell, always full. Males and non-laying females might investigate the oyster shell but won't want to eat it. If you feed layer feed they have no choice but to eat the calcium. Every chicken needs grit.And though it's been mentioned, don't forget the grit. They can starrve to death without it. Chickens have no stomachs, the silly things, and no teeth! They have gizzards, a tough muscle that, when it contains grit, uses that grit to grind their food into digestible bits. Aren't you glad you don't have to eat gravel to survive?But we, their kind and loving keepers, do have to supply it for them. They can have my share.
Size isn't the determining factor here. Age in weeks and whether they have begun to lay eggs.
Red flag alert. 22 birds in a coop area that, if the 2 coops were altered by totally enclosing them to become strictly henhouse without attached run, can hold 12 chickens max! If not used only as henhouses they each are made to hold 1, count em, 1 chicken. In crowded conditions Dominant birds will pick the feathers off those low on the totem pole. They will also refuse to let them eat, starving the lower in the pecking order, ie. the chicks.
Thank you so very much for your extremely thoughtful post. My dad had the progressive form of MS, his sister had it, MY sister has it, I have it, and now my daughter may have it. And it's NOT hereditary!
Thank you for this. The two prefab units I bought from Tractor Supply are identical, consisting of three nesting boxes each, an enclosed roosting area with tray and ventilation window, and then a small "run" with roosting posts. They are open all the time and are within the whole fenced in area which was part of a pine forest. The pic is rather deceiving because one cannot see how far back it goes. I have one additional spot with three nesting boxes that is under cover but open. It's never used by them and I can't blame them. It's about to be history. I do appreciate your candor, too. I realize size doesn't determine when egg laying begins and didn't mean to infer that.
