[Tralou]

I am quite new to chicken keeping, have had two Light Sussex and two Recos 2 months now.  I give them plenty of variety of food (layer pellets, a lettuce hung up or one of my overgrown corquettes etc and corn in the late afternoon) but the feeder  which holds enough layer pellets for four chickens for two days is normally emptied within 2 hours of hanging it up under their house each morning.  Not that they eat it all but they peck so vigorously that more falls onto the floor than they eat. It is a normal style feeder where the pellets go in and then drop into the dish at the bottom and as the pellets in the dish are eaten more drop into it.  Is this ok will they then just find it mixed amongst the bark on the floor or should I only quarter fill and then fill again later in the day.

[dizzylizzie]

i dont fill mine right up...you can always re-fill if you need to. if there is loads of food spilt, i take the feeder away, they eat some of the stuff from the ground then.....but free range aswel so they wont starve cos they have access to other food aswell

[grumpydad]

i have aa plastic feeder that has bars in the feed trough to stop them flicking the food out. still falls into the bit the eat from, but keeps it there

is another feeder a possibility ?

martyn

[Lardman]

Mine do it too.

They scratch and rake about in the lip of the feeder and it all ends up on the floor, the fussy little madams wont eat the pellets from the floor either. 

I have the feeder gap set to its smallest and only put about 1ltr of food in a day. This helps a little but the only way to stop it as far as I can see would be a new feeder with an anti-scratch ring.

[joyfull]

Mine flick it every where using their beaks so an anti scratch ring wouldn't work. You can get treddle feeders which are supposed to stop any waste, but like dizzielizzie I also remove mine so they pick up whats on the floor 

[Rubellite]

The best "feeder" that I've got is a Mason & Cash dog bowl with slanted sides, i.e. the base is wider than the top - they don't seem to be able to scratch it out of that and can't tip it over either.