Adopted skinny pullets don't recognize feed

[tlcmurphy]

I was going to caution the use of molasses as well, it’s used as a flush for chickens.

If you’re feeding pellets you may want to try getting some crumble feed for them. My birds would rather starve than deign to eat the Peasant Pellets I tried to feed them. Dumb birds…

 

[Papaye]

I bought them the day before yesterday, the seller told me they were all six months old as she hatched them out herself and bought some of them from a hatchery.

Not that I am accusing your seller to lie, but still : she could be "mistaken" about their age.

Which is why I asked you if your new hens were molting...

(For what it's worth as experience : my new ducks' seller also assured me the ducks she sent to me were 6-months-old, and yet, some of them are still just juvenile ducks - so, clearly not 6-months-old...)

She remarked on how odd it is that they were different sizes, as this had been a 40 plus herd, and the majority of them had already been sold off, I showed up at the very end after everyone else had already bought some hands so I think I got the runts of the litter so to speak -- really just the chickens at the bottom of the pecking order who get less food.

They are:
5 barred Rocks (two of them are almost full size, three of them are smaller)
3 red and blue laced Wyandottes
1 buckeye (definitely a thought bottom of the pecking order, she looks like she's only 8 weeks old even though she's 6 months)

What we call a(n actual) "runt" is actually much too rare for your seller to have 6 of them on only 40 or so chickens...

(Only your Buckeye hen actually sounds like a runt...!!)

No... from what you say, it sounds these hens could be :
• younger than what you were told,
• just genetically small or medium sized chickens (crossed with another breed, or just have bad genes - for examples?),
• affected by an inadequate diet, bad hygiene, and/or toxic products (such as pesticides, vaccines, or whatever you could think about)...

...I can be mistaken, of course, so - again : pictures would really help! (Probably, at least; ah, ah!)

She thought none of them had started laying eggs. To me, two of the barred Rocks look like they're at the point of lay, once they settle in here I guess we'll see. But all the rest of them look like their months younger than they are.

Does your seller own so many chickens she can not know if the younger ones have already started laying...?

(I am not accusing her of anything. I am just trying to understand what is happening here...)

I doubt they're molting, I thought chickens only molted at 18 months, and these ones aren't even close to that age. If anything, I think they might be a little younger than 6 months.

They could be molting into their adult feathers...!

And chickens can have HARD molts before being 18-months-old...
(Several of my hens that are born last Spring are currently molting so hard they are not laying any egg anymore... and I am so frustrated because of that!!)

 

[saysfaa]

I would feed kitchen scraps (or anything they already identify as food) in a bowl that they can't knock over and that is as high as their bodies so they can't kick the food out. For example, a heavy crock or a stainless steel dog bowl set in a small bucket of sand.

And pick the bowl up to fill it so they recognize the bowl as a place to find food. As opposed to the bowl happening by chance to be where the food lands.

When they start showing interest in the bowl, start adding a higher percent of pellets (or crumbles or mash - pick whichever you want to keep feeding*) in that bowl under the kitchen scraps. Don't wait for them to move toward the bowl while you are there. It is enough if you see them notice it.

My best guess is they really don't recognize pellets as food. Trying different commercial feeds may be delaying the recognition.

I think when any of them figure it out, the others will figure it out faster.

The more you can do to minimize their stress, the faster they will learn. So give them things like fresh water always available, hiding places (enough square feet, things to hide under or behind), being left alone by roosters and people watching them, unchanging locations, more than one feeding place, chores done at the same times and in the same way.

Actually, If I really thought they are six months old and small from lack of food, I would get different chickens. Unless it doesn't matter if they are ever very productive (lol, like it doesn't to me). Rescuing from a bad situation can be rewarding in some ways but it can be good in the long term to recognize that is what you are doing.

 

[Penpal]

Get the commercial food wet, let it sit a few minutes. Mix it with the kitchen scraps. Take some of the wet kibble and press it into the scraps so they must pick up some kibble with the leaf/seed/ etc.

 

[Chubbicthe2nd]

And pick the bowl up to fill it so they recognize the bowl as a place to find food. As opposed to the bowl happening by chance to be where the food lands.

THANK YOU THANK YOU @saysfaa !!!

This worked! Once you mentioned that they would recognize the BOWL rather than the feed, I got a few $5 plastic red chick feeders from our local farm store, because I knew that the lady who raised them raised them a few miles from here as well. I had a hunch she had used them, and it turned out to be right probably.

As soon as I put out the chick feeders, they recognized them immediately and dashed for them, gobbling up the selfsame pellets that they had spurned before. Once I got them acclimated to eating the pellets from the chick feeders, I then got out a Dollar Tree red mixing bowl and managed to get them to see it as a feed place as well. It was the same color as the chick feeders, so I was hoping they would associate it. That took a few days, but with the red chick feeders it caught on.

I had no idea the bowl would be the key.

 

[Squawkers]

THANK YOU THANK YOU @saysfaa !!!

This worked! Once you mentioned that they would recognize the BOWL rather than the feed, I got a few $5 plastic red chick feeders from our local farm store, because I knew that the lady who raised them raised them a few miles from here as well. I had a hunch she had used them, and it turned out to be right probably.

As soon as I put out the chick feeders, they recognized them immediately and dashed for them, gobbling up the selfsame pellets that they had spurned before. Once I got them acclimated to eating the pellets from the chick feeders, I then got out a Dollar Tree red mixing bowl and managed to get them to see it as a feed place as well. It was the same color as the chick feeders, so I was hoping they would associate it. That took a few days, but with the red chick feeders it caught on.

I had no idea the bowl would be the key.

Yay! I'm so happy for you!