Chickens not eating pelleted feed???

[Fluffy Scramblepants]

Hey everyone--I'm puzzled as to what is going on with my chickens. I went out of town for a few days, and when I came back I noticed that my chickens ate a lot less food than I had expected. (Laid plenty of eggs though.) One of their two feeders was halfway empty and the other was almost completely full. I removed the half-full feeder about three days ago and left the full one in their enclosure.

This evening I went to check on them and I took a peek inside their feeder, and the feed level has hardly moved AT ALL. Maybe an inch?? Its a hanging five gallon bucket with three ports to stick their heads in and eat. No blockages. Nothing has changed in their setup. 8 eggs today from 10 chickens.

Since I've been back home I've been feeding them various chopped greens in their dish from my vegetable garden. Scraps of rutabaga, turnip, and rapini leaves/stems. They love them and snap it all up. Could this be why they are eating so little of the pelleted feed? Makes me wonder what the protein content of these greens are... Anyway, they all are active and happy. Just never seen such a drop in pellet consumption before. Any thoughts? Feed is Producer's Pride mini-pellets.

 

[Iluveggers]

I had one of mine who loved veggies more than anything, and would skip on commercial feed and just eat that in the morning. She started laying soft shelled eggs a bit later. After some help from another BYCer, I switched the routine to only commercial feed until mid afternoon, then I would take scraps out. And I now fill 3 small bowls with feed at that time and place them around the run in different spots. They eat the scraps and take bites from the small bowls until roost. Her eggshells are much improved.

Maybe try withholding scraps until later in the day to see if it’s preference for veggies or an actual dislike of feed? First thing in the morning & right after they lay they should be hungry & eating from the feeder. If they still refuse to eat it, maybe you got a bad bag.

 

[nuthatched]

They've gotten spoiled by treats, don't give them anything but their feed for a while. No healthy animals will stop eating.

 

[Fluffy Scramblepants]

I had one of mine who loved veggies more than anything, and would skip on commercial feed and just eat that in the morning. She started laying soft shelled eggs a bit later. After some help from another BYCer, I switched the routine to only commercial feed until mid afternoon, then I would take scraps out. And I now fill 3 small bowls with feed at that time and place them around the run in different spots. They eat the scraps and take bites from the small bowls until roost. Her eggshells are much improved.

Maybe try withholding scraps until later in the day to see if it’s preference for veggies or an actual dislike of feed? First thing in the morning & right after they lay they should be hungry & eating from the feeder. If they still refuse to eat it, maybe you got a bad bag.

Good idea—I’ll give it a shot!

 

[Sussex19]

Make sure the food hasn't got stale, mine will never eat it if it has, even if it still looks good.

 

[Fluffy Scramblepants]

Make sure the food hasn't got stale, mine will never eat it if it has, even if it still looks good.

It smells and looks normal—is there some other way to tell if it is stale? How old is too old?

 

[Sussex19]

It smells and looks normal—is there some other way to tell if it is stale? How old is too old?

You could have a look at the date on the bag, just to check its still good.
Apart from that, if the feed has been in the feeder for more than 3 days or so, my chickens start to dislike it.
But that is in my climate, and with my feed, so yours may be quite different.
You could always just try putting out a small about of new stuff, just to see if they prefer it.

 

[neo71665]

Do you have the hanging feeders tied down so they don't swing? Chickens generally don't like sticking their heads in port feeders if they swing around.

 

[Fluffy Scramblepants]

Do you have the hanging feeders tied down so they don't swing? Chickens generally don't like sticking their heads in port feeders if they swing around.

They’re secured

 

[Fluffy Scramblepants]

Just a thought. I've heard there was some bad feed a while ago and people said the hens weren't laying eggs. . The two brands I hear that are Purina and some Tractor supply feed.

Yes I heard about that too. Though it seems like those birds kept eating the food, but weren’t laying any eggs. The inverse of my situation. I checked again this afternoon (didn’t feed them greens) and only a teeny bit of food had been eaten. We’ll see what tomorrow brings.