Chicken Feed

[bluemoon]

I bought a 20kg sack of Smallholder feeds' layers' pellets 10 days ago and it's nearly all gone! This is for 6 POL hens and two cockerels. Is this right? I don't mind buying it if that's how much they should be eating, but it seems a lot, especially as they get plenty of extras. Prior to the girls' arrival the boys hardly touched the pellets, preferring to eat the treats and whatever they could find on the plot and I haven't noticed them obviously increasing their consumption since. To give you an idea a 3Kg bag lasted them the best part of a month, and I threw a lot of that away each day because they tended to play with it and it was spoiled. 20Kg is equal to 2Kg a day which is equal to 250g per bird, which is far more than the books say they should be eating. They all seem healthy and none seem overly fat. Both boys have grown enormously these past two weeks though, so perhaps it's them on a growing spurt?
The growers are on growers' pellets and they seem to be munching their way through a fair amount too. I keep the feed at home and only take up enough for each day in those tupperware cereal storer thingys so I know nothing like wild birds or rodents are getting to it and the feeders are still inside the hen-houses because the weather has been so unpredictable.

[Nicos]

Have they possibly overgrazed the area eating most of the bugs in that area- so are more hungry????
Seems a lot of nosh to me!!!

[Flummery]

Seems a lot to me too. We have 4 and they are still on their first sack after 5 weeks. There's probably another fortnight's worth in. They have it there all day so they can eat as much as they like.

[pdblake]

I fill up an old roses sweet tin that I keep in the house just to save going into the shed all the time. I find that I need to fill it twice a week so far and there looks to be about a good dozen or so tin fulls in a bag.

I would expect a sack to last our 4 up to 5 or 6 weeks at this rate. Mind you, we're at the time of year when a few things in the garden, like PSB, are going over so they get a fair few greens too

I wonder if, because you only take a bit at a time, are they running out before you come with the next lot? Perhaps when they get it they scoff the lot, a bit like a dog does. If it's there all the time, ie: get a bigger feeder, then they might just ad-lib it.

This, coming from someone who has been keeping chickens for a whole week, can be taken with a pinch of salt and a large dose of scorn if you like.

[Hilary B]

It does sound a lot. My rough arithmetic says it should last about 16-18 days for that number of chooks, even if they were not getting anything else at all.

[sheena]

My 4 girl's have 1.5kg a day, the sack lasts 5 weeks... don't do the math, cos sometimes they spill so much on the floor i don't always fill it up completely, and they get extra's too.

[Hilary B]

My 4 girl's have 1.5kg a day, the sack lasts 5 weeks... don't do the math, cos sometimes they spill so much on the floor i don't always fill it up completely, and they get extra's too.

That is not a 20g sack......
1.5kg per day for 5 weeks is over 50kg.

[bluemoon]

They have a tube feeder and it only runs out when I decide I need to take it home for a good scrub and then I do it last thing at night and return it and fill it first thing in the morning. Could it be because they are all still in a growing phase? The girls are 20 weeks and the boys 21 weeks and I do know that both boys have grown noticeably over the past week or two - I've had them longer, so know where they could reach when I first got them. Or perhaps they are sorting out a pecking order and the dominant ones are over eating to prove a point? Sorry if these theories sound daft to any experienced chook keepers. OH's best idea is that they just prefer the new food.

[matthew2riches]

HOW MUCH!?!?!!?

My 6 hens used to eat 20kg in about 3 - 4 weeks.

[sheena]

That is not a 20g sack......
1.5kg per day for 5 weeks is over 50kg.

I did say don't do the math!

The feeder is a 1.5kg capacity, I don't actually weigh the food, so whatever it takes is what they get a day. But I swear that bag lasted me 5 weeks.

[RichmondHens]

Are you absolutely sure rodents aren't getting to the feed in the day? Rats will go in the hen house and feed at any time (I wage constant war against our local rat population). Putting feed inside the hen house does not deter them. I can't believe your hens really each that much so there's got to be an uninvited guest getting to it somehow.

[Hilary B]

Are you absolutely sure rodents aren't getting to the feed in the day? Rats will go in the hen house and feed at any time (I wage constant war against our local rat population). Putting feed inside the hen house does not deter them. I can't believe your hens really each that much so there's got to be an uninvited guest getting to it somehow.

I wondered whether they were dropping pellets all over the place and the dropped ones were getting lost by trampling or rodent visitation etc...

[Glutton4...]

I've had a problem recently too. I've got two of those galvanised containers with the 'wide-brimmed hat' lid to keep the rain off. One dat last week I went to check for eggs, and noticed pellets spread for around a two metre circle round each feeder, and both feeders were nearly empty! NOT happy, as I had only filled them the day before, and filling the two takes over half a 20kg sack That's about £4 worth of food wasted. I left the feeders empty until the Chooks had cleared up what was spilled.

I peeped out the window after filling them up the next day, and there were four wood pigeons at one feeder and two ducks at the other! Better get my Dad out there at the weekend with his gun!

[Hilary B]

I've had a problem recently too. I've got two of those galvanised containers with the 'wide-brimmed hat' lid to keep the rain off. One dat last week I went to check for eggs, and noticed pellets spread for around a two metre circle round each feeder, and both feeders were nearly empty! NOT happy, as I had only filled them the day before, and filling the two takes over half a 20kg sack That's about £4 worth of food wasted. I left the feeders empty until the Chooks had cleared up what was spilled.

I peeped out the window after filling them up the next day, and there were four wood pigeons at one feeder and two ducks at the other! Better get my Dad out there at the weekend with his gun!

Pigeon for dinner! (wish I could get a few woodies)
We have ducks around here. They live on the river in town, but quite a lot come around the houses. People feed them, and it is quite comical when you see birds lined up along a roof ridge, and realise that some of them are ducks. One neighbour puts food on the (flat) roof of her shed for the ducks....

[bluemoon]

Well, OH's latest theory is that we've far more food left than we think, if you count the full cereal storer, the two feeders and the fact that the contents of the sack have settled - it was flat and filled to the top, sort of like a grow-bag, but we've stood it on end and it's all fallen to the bottom - he reckons there's well over 5Kg left, though this is just a guess. If he's right then that would make it about right if you allow for spillage and the stuff I throw away because it's poo'd on!