Would too many roosters cause an egg drought?

[HollowOfWisps]

2 qts is 64 oz. Which means your chickens are getting around 1.42 oz. per bird. The average recommended amount is 4oz. Even with free ranging your birds are being under fed which can most definitely cause a lack of eggs. Not to mention layer feed is usually on the low end for protein.

 

[affacat]

Is there a reason that you don't free-feed them?

Is there room at the feeders for all of them to eat at the same time? Any chance of dominant birds hogging the feed so that potential layers might not be getting sufficient nutrition?

I'm not sure what you mean by 'free-feed'? Do you just mean not feed them at all and let them free range all day? We do let them free range around the yard all day as well. They have access to grass, bugs and and assortment of fallen fruit in season.

They all should have room too eat, I use about 20 ft of gutter to feed them. There's plenty of room for all of them. sometimes they do squabble because they are chickens.

We only feed them in the morning. Even our broodies know when it's breakfast time and usually jump out and run over to the feeding area (we make them if they don't).

It's hard to answer your question as to why we feed them since I don't know what you mean by free feed. If you're asking why we don't just free range them I think it's just a habit of us being used to feeding our chickens before we could free range. We are up to two scoops because we thought a few looked too skinny when we were only doing one scoop.

 

[aart]

I'm not sure what you mean by 'free-feed'?

Free feeding means they have feed available every hour they are awake.
It makes sure they all get all they need.

 

[affacat]

2 qts is 64 oz. Which means your chickens are getting around 1.42 oz. per bird. The average recommended amount is 4oz. Even with free ranging your birds are being under fed which can most definitely cause a lack of eggs. Not to mention layer feed is usually on the low end for protein.

Well that's interesting. I will double check the size of our scoop. I know our neighbors don't give any pellets at all and just free range theirs. I felt like we were spoiling ours to a degree, not starving them!

I am glad I posted here and we'll look into this. I'm not looking forward to doubling their feed though!

 

[affacat]

Free feeding means they have feed available every hour they are awake.
It makes sure they all get all they need.

I actually realized that after reading the next post. We could probably figure out a way to free feed but we currently don't because we have sheep that are ridiculous and would eat it all. But I suppose we may need to look into that given the situation.


Right now we feed the chickens before we let any other animals out so they have time to eat it all. I can try setting up somewhere where they can free feed.

 

[affacat]

2 qts is 64 oz. Which means your chickens are getting around 1.42 oz. per bird. The average recommended amount is 4oz. Even with free ranging your birds are being under fed which can most definitely cause a lack of eggs. Not to mention layer feed is usually on the low end for protein.

Okay, my wife says the red scoop is two quarts. We give them two in the morning. That's four quarts.

So that's 2.8 per day which isn't quite as bad but still lower than recommended. Which, like I say, is odd since I know our neighbors expect their birds to just free range all day.

But if another scoop gets us eggs and Happy birds then I'm all for it

 

[affacat]

Does anyone have a suggestion for a good free feeder that I could put an entire bag of feed into at once? Also it would need to keep the available feed dry? The free feeder that I use for my turkeys needs to be protected from the rain and I'd really prefer one that didn't

I'm really proud of my current feeding system but I can reuse that set up for other animals I suppose

 

[SilverBirds]

Does anyone have a suggestion for a good free feeder that I could put an entire bag of feed into at once? Also it would need to keep the available feed dry? The free feeder that I use for my turkeys needs to be protected from the rain and I'd really prefer one that didn't

I'm really proud of my current feeding system but I can reuse that set up for other animals I suppose

I can fit one bag of feed into my two 5 gallon buckets feeders. I bought something similar to these little things that you just drill into the bucket. They're rain proof and rodent proof (if suspended or up high). It should also keep your sheep out. I hang mine but you can easily set the feeders on a cement brick for your chickens.

 

[3KillerBs]

I'm not sure what you mean by 'free-feed'? Do you just mean not feed them at all and let them free range all day?

The exact opposite.

Free feeding means that the birds have access to feed 100% of daylight hours.

Aren't there any places that the chickens can go that the sheep can't?

 

[affacat]

The exact opposite.

Free feeding means that the birds have access to feed 100% of daylight hours.

Aren't there any places that the chickens can go that the sheep can't?

In theory, until you meet our sheep. But yes, maybe. They may be too big by now to squeeze through chicken doors like they used to. Sheep are insane. Lovely, friendly, sweet, and insane.