Why are their stomachs like bottomless pits?

[MelodyC]

Our rooster is awesome also!! He watches over his girls so well! We had a bad hail/thunder/lightning storm come through the other day, and he stood on that ramp and refused to let any of the girls come out of the coop! The day before, he was out in high winds and rain because some wouldn't come in the coop watching over them. Once we got him picked up and put in the run under the coop, the girls came a running. Just had to save one girl after that. We were soaked to the bone, but the chickens were safe. LOL

 

[DeepDishChix]

I also think space is the issue, but we are going to give them a much bigger outside area soon. We don't have any roosters, actually i'm not even sure who's pecking them.

 

[chickengeorgeto]

My two smaller chickens I have in a separate cage are eating soooooo much!!! I've already given about 5 cups of layer feed and theyre still hungry. I also gave them scratch and black oil sunflower seeds for protein. They have water. So why are they so HUNGRY?

Chickens have a multi stage digestive system. All food is stored in the crop where it is first acted on by digestive juices then hydrated and softened. The next stop is the gizzard where the food is macerated by the muscular gizzard which uses small hard stones instead of teeth. Only then is food introduced into chickens' stomachs. Therefor between when a chicken pigs out and the food makes it into the stomach a lot of time has passed. Scratch feed and Sunflower seeds are a poor and potential deadly diet because the protein level and the type of protein as well as the vitamins in these foods are insufficient for chickens. Also how old are your two smaller chickens?

 

[DeepDishChix]

My two smaller chickens will be a year old in May. They're sooooo cute!