BlessedChaosHomestead
Songster
Ok help me out here.
I’ve come to the conclusion that our hens are over eating.
We have 25 birds total. 4 ducks, 21 chickens. (Currently 2 drakes & roos are in the bachelor pad.)
Our m & f runner ducks are in the run with the hens.
We have 3 Orpingtons - laying (7mos old).
We have 13 Cochin - some are laying (5-7mos old).
We have 6 misc. - not laying yet (20wks tomorrow.)
That many birds are going through a 50lb bag of feed in 10 days give or take a day or two.
Is that too much or about normal?
The males aren’t eating that much.
But the main reason I say they’re over eating is they won’t eat things given to them sometimes.
1. I hit chicken jackpot when I turned my compost last week & found tons of soldier fly larvae/grubs. So I scooped up some and a bunch of large grubs. They just stared at the worms. They got the bigger grubs but were like ehh not interested.
2. Gave them some beet pieces & beet greens Mon. they would barely touch them. All they wanted was their pellets.
3. Tues I bought them a large pumpkin & put light holes so they could scratch it & eat it. They had barely touched it by the time it was time to be put up.
Now I do not want to starve them at all. I even have changed their food up after realizing the protein level wasn’t as high as it should be. (Layer feed 16.5% so went back to chick starter because it’s 18%.)
But I also do expect my chickens to eat scraps/garden stuff. We have no income currently so wasting food isn’t going to fly. (I’m already feeding 4 freeloading males.)
Which they also have done in the past. They will make a mess of their crumbles & wont eat it off the ground for some reason.
So we are currently taking their food out in the middle part of the day and putting it back a few hours before bed & as soon as they get up for a few hours.
(We have 2 large feeders they eat from. So they all have plenty of time to eat a lot.)
Any advice?
I’ve come to the conclusion that our hens are over eating.
We have 25 birds total. 4 ducks, 21 chickens. (Currently 2 drakes & roos are in the bachelor pad.)
Our m & f runner ducks are in the run with the hens.
We have 3 Orpingtons - laying (7mos old).
We have 13 Cochin - some are laying (5-7mos old).
We have 6 misc. - not laying yet (20wks tomorrow.)
That many birds are going through a 50lb bag of feed in 10 days give or take a day or two.
Is that too much or about normal?
The males aren’t eating that much.
But the main reason I say they’re over eating is they won’t eat things given to them sometimes.
1. I hit chicken jackpot when I turned my compost last week & found tons of soldier fly larvae/grubs. So I scooped up some and a bunch of large grubs. They just stared at the worms. They got the bigger grubs but were like ehh not interested.
2. Gave them some beet pieces & beet greens Mon. they would barely touch them. All they wanted was their pellets.
3. Tues I bought them a large pumpkin & put light holes so they could scratch it & eat it. They had barely touched it by the time it was time to be put up.
Now I do not want to starve them at all. I even have changed their food up after realizing the protein level wasn’t as high as it should be. (Layer feed 16.5% so went back to chick starter because it’s 18%.)
But I also do expect my chickens to eat scraps/garden stuff. We have no income currently so wasting food isn’t going to fly. (I’m already feeding 4 freeloading males.)
Which they also have done in the past. They will make a mess of their crumbles & wont eat it off the ground for some reason.
So we are currently taking their food out in the middle part of the day and putting it back a few hours before bed & as soon as they get up for a few hours.
(We have 2 large feeders they eat from. So they all have plenty of time to eat a lot.)
Any advice?