My Girls are Blowing Through Their Feed...Picking Out Their Favorite and Leaving TONS of Feed on the Ground!

[analyticalblonde]

Within the past couple of weeks, more noticeably this week, my girls have started to pick through their feed, eating the bits that I guess they love and shoving the rest of the feed out of their feeders and landing on the ground. There is A LOT of feed that ends up on the ground and now when I go out to see them every day, they act as if they are starving.

I have 10 girls and they are all 1 year old. They have been on the same feed since last summer, Small Pet Select, Garden Goodness Layer Feed with Botanicals (corn-free, soy-free, non-GMO). I wanted to be able to offer eggs from girls that have been fed non-GMO, Soy-Free, and Corn-Free feed and they have liked it until just recently.

I am quite frustrated with this recent change as the feed I purchase for them is NOT cheap. The waste I am seeing wants me to scoop it up off of the ground, rinse it to remove the dirt, then add warm water to it and place it back out into their run. What is left on the ground are the high protein compressed feed pellets; what they pick out are grains and seeds.

There hasn't been any stress or trauma to my girls so I just don't know why their eating habits have changed. Should I just not refill their feeders for a day or so to get them to kick-start their appetite for the feed? Obviously, I will always give them fresh water, grit & oyster shells daily. They really don't do much free ranging because I have way too many red-tailed hawks that know my girls are here and my property is devoid of any trees, bushes, tall grass, etc. where they could hide if they were to free-range.

I put a picture up of their feed...

Any ideas, input, suggestions, please????

 

[rosemarythyme]

Ferment it or serve it wet. They will have a much harder time picking out bits out of a big moist pile of food. You definitely want them eating those pellets.

 

[analyticalblonde]

Ferment it or serve it wet. They will have a much harder time picking out bits out of a big moist pile of food. You definitely want them eating those pellets.

Do you think I can scoop up the tossed pellets and make a slurry with it? Might have a little dirt but I hate to throw it away...

 

[rosemarythyme]

You can try that too, as long as they haven't been sitting outside for too long. I find pellets tend to dissolve into mush with even something as little as morning dew.

 

[CatWhisperer]

Just like kids picking out the candy to eat. Is your current bag of feed fresh? Less than 3 months old? Is there any other acceptable brands of food available? Fermenting the feed is a good idea.

 

[analyticalblonde]

Just like kids picking out the candy to eat. Is your current bag of feed fresh? Less than 3 months old? Is there any other acceptable brands of food available? Fermenting the feed is a good idea.

Yes...my feed is fresh...not even a month old yet. I have also ordered another trial bag of feed from H & H Feed that also makes a non-GMO, Soy & Corn Free feed and have minimally mixed it in with their regular feed to see how they respond. I just got the first batch started of fermenting their feed which should be ready by Friday....fingers crossed!

 

[analyticalblonde]

You can try that too, as long as they haven't been sitting outside for too long. I find pellets tend to dissolve into mush with even something as little as morning dew.

I think I'm just going to toss it out...don't want to risk any bad things that got mixed in...

 

[Al Gerhart]

How about a picture of your feeder so we can see how the birds are raking out the feed? A good feeder ought to have at least a 1/2" wide lip protruding inside to stop the raking and that will stop 95% of the bad girls raking feed. A feeder lip extension will stop that last 5%.

You are right to worry about the wasted feed and not just the cost, rats and wild birds will find it if they haven't already and bring in disease, lice, mites, and also the predators that eat rodents and most of these predators will also kill chickens.

 

[Folly's place]

This is the biggest problem with feeds incorporating whole seeds. The birds (or pet rodents) pick out the yummy stuff and leave the rest, creating a very unbalanced diet and malnutrition of some sort.
Fermenting might help, or find something else. Grinding it all into a mash would maybe do, except that I'd bet that there's powder at the bottom of the bag, likely the vitamin/ mineral mix.
Mary

 

[Cindy in PA]

I am surprised that my hens clean up the Kalmbach Henhouse Reserve completely. It is a whole grain feed with mini pellets in it. I figured they'd leave the peas or pellets etc., but it is all cleaned up in an hour or two. Now I am only using this in their run in dishes as a supplement, they have pellets in the coop, but the pellets in the grain mix must be tasty, because they eat them also. So much better than loose supplements in other whole grain feeds.