How much feed your flock eats in a week, how long a bag lasts, and — if you type what you paid — what a dozen eggs really costs you in feed. Three extension services publish how much a hen eats, and they do not say the same thing, so you get all three. Raising chicks instead? Switch to chicks for the feed it takes to get them to point of lay.
6 laying hens
9–14 lb of feed a week
What each source says, for your flock
A hen that stops eating, or a flock that suddenly eats much less, is a question for a vet rather than a calculator.
Feed figures checked 2026-09-25 against the extension service named beside each one.
Quick answer: a laying hen eats about a quarter of a pound of feed a day — Alabama Extension says 100 to 150 grams, “or roughly 0.25 pounds” — which is 1.5 to 2.4 pounds a week depending on whose figure you use. Ohio State says 2 pounds a week; the University of Kentucky’s table works out at 1.8 to 2.4. Alabama’s own example: ten hens get through a 50-pound bag in about 20 days. This calculator does that sum for your flock, tells you how long your bag lasts, and — with the price you paid — what the feed in a dozen eggs costs.
Three answers to “how much does a chicken eat?”
Every page on this question prints one number. There are at least three, from three extension services, and they are measured in three different ways:
- Alabama Extension — “A laying hen will consume between 100 and 150 grams of feed per day or roughly 0.25 pounds.”
- Ohio State Extension — “Each laying chicken requires 2 pounds of feed per week. Dual-purpose chickens require more, where bantams will eat less.”
- University of Kentucky — its table of feed for commercially-raised pullets gives 18 to 24 pounds a week for every ten layers.
Put into the same unit they overlap without agreeing, so the calculator shows the lowest and highest of them and each one on its own line. None of them publishes how much more a big dual-purpose bird eats, or how much less a bantam does — Ohio State only says which way — so the calculator says that in words and does not invent a percentage.
How long does a 50 lb bag of chicken feed last?
For six hens, about 24 to 37 days. For ten, 15 to 23 days — Alabama’s own worked example says “approximately 20 days.” For two or three hens a 50-pound bag can last two months or more, and that runs into the other number on Alabama’s page: feed “should be no older than 3 months.” Alabama’s reason: minerals in feed “can naturally oxidize other nutrients, reducing their availability to the bird.” If the calculator says your bag outlasts that, buy a smaller one.
What does a dozen eggs cost in feed?
Type what you paid for your bag and the calculator divides a week’s feed by a week’s eggs. It never supplies a price — feed costs different amounts in different places, and a made-up price would make the answer look precise when it is not. If you leave the egg count blank it uses the University of Minnesota’s figure for a hen in her first two years, “roughly six eggs each week”, and says so. In a molt or in midwinter your hens lay fewer, the feed bill stays the same, and the cost of a dozen goes up — which is why the answer to “are backyard eggs cheaper?” changes with the season.
In winter: more feed, or less?
The sources disagree, and the calculator prints both. The University of Minnesota: “your flock’s feed intake may increase up to 25% during cold weather.” Ohio State: “Chickens will eat less in the winter than the summer.” Switch on “it’s winter” and the top of the range goes up by Minnesota’s 25%, with Ohio State’s sentence beside it.
Water
Alabama Extension: chickens drink about twice as much water as they eat feed, by weight, and “a gallon of water each day is enough to sustain the water consumption of roughly 16 laying hens.” In heat stress they drink two to four times as much (University of Minnesota).
Raising chicks: how much feed to point of lay?
Switch to chicks. The University of Kentucky’s table for ten birds is 20 to 29 pounds of chick starter from hatch to six weeks, then 120 to 130 pounds of pullet grower from six to twenty weeks — so 14 to 16 pounds a bird in all. The University of Minnesota says Leghorn pullets eat 16 to 18 pounds each from hatch to 20 weeks. The calculator turns both into bags. How long to keep them on starter is another place the sources differ: Alabama says weeks 1 to 6, Minnesota the first 6 to 8 weeks. And do not switch to layer feed early: Kentucky warns that growing chickens need only 1.2% calcium, and “If you feed high-calcium diets to growing chickens, kidney damage can result.”
Grit, oyster shell and treats
Two more disagreements worth knowing. Grit: Alabama says birds on ground commercial feed do not need it; Kentucky says to provide it when you feed scratch grains. Oyster shell: Alabama calls it “probably unnecessary” on a good layer feed but harmless; Kentucky says some high-producing hens may need it and to watch for thin shells. Treats come out of the feed total, not on top of it — Colorado State’s limit is 10% of the daily diet, and the Can Chickens Eat It? checker works that out in grams for your flock.