How Long Does a 50 lb Bag of Chicken Feed Last?

Updated July 27, 2026

A laying hen eats about a quarter pound of feed a day, so a standard 50 lb bag holds roughly 200 hen-days of feed. Divide 200 by your flock size and you have your answer: four hens finish a bag in about 50 days, six hens in about 33 days, eight hens in 25, and twelve hens in a little over two weeks.

How long does a 50 lb bag last for my flock size?

These figures assume 0.25 lb of layer feed per hen per day, the common guideline from Mississippi State Extension. Real intake runs somewhere between a quarter and a third of a pound depending on bird size, weather and how much the flock forages.

The arithmetic is simple enough to do in your head: multiply hens by 0.25 to get pounds per day, then divide 50 by that. Six hens eat 1.5 lb a day, and 50 divided by 1.5 is 33 days. For your exact flock, bag size and feed price, the chicken feed calculator also gives you the monthly cost.

How much feed does one chicken eat per day?

A standard-size laying hen eats roughly a quarter pound, which is about 4 ounces or 113 grams. In volume that is a little under half a cup of pellets, though volume varies a lot between pellets, crumble and mash, so weight is the honest measure.

Size shifts it more than anything else. Bantams eat closer to a tenth of a pound a day. Heavy dual-purpose breeds like Orpingtons, Brahmas and Jersey Giants can push past a third of a pound because there is simply more bird to maintain. Light production breeds like Leghorns are the most efficient layers per pound of feed, which is exactly why commercial operations use them. You can compare the breeds you are considering on the chicken breeds page.

Meat birds are a different animal entirely. A Cornish Cross eats several times what a laying hen does over its short life, so never plan a broiler batch off layer numbers.

Why does my bag empty faster than the table says?

Four things account for almost all of the gap.

Waste. This is the big one and it is usually invisible. Open trough and pan feeders lose 20 to 30 percent of what you pour in, because hens sweep feed sideways with their beaks and scratch it onto the floor. If your bag is disappearing a third faster than it should, waste is the first suspect.

Cold weather. Hens burn feed to stay warm, and intake typically rises around 10 percent in genuinely cold conditions. A bag that lasted five weeks in September will not last five weeks in January.

Freeloaders. Wild birds, rats and mice will happily live off an open feeder, and rodents eat and foul far more than people realise while working at night when nobody is counting.

Free-ranging. This one goes the other way. Birds with real pasture, insects and forage eat noticeably less bagged feed in spring and summer, and the difference shrinks back to nothing once the ground is bare or frozen.

Two more worth knowing: pullets coming into lay eat more per pound of body weight than adults, and hens going through the autumn moult need extra protein to regrow feathers, so intake often rises just when egg production falls.

Does a bag of chick starter last longer?

Much longer, because chicks are tiny. In the first week a chick eats an ounce or two a day, climbing steadily as it grows. Budget roughly 8 to 10 lb of starter per bird to get from hatch to eight weeks, so a single 50 lb bag will carry five or six chicks through that stage comfortably.

Scratch grains and treats are not feed in this sense. They are a snack with poor protein and no added calcium, so keep them under about 10 percent of the total diet. Above that, hens start eating around the balanced ration rather than alongside it, and shell quality and lay rate suffer.

Does chicken feed go bad?

Yes, faster than most people expect. Milled feed has a practical shelf life of around three months from the mill date, and less in hot, humid weather. Vitamins degrade first, so old feed can look perfectly fine while quietly failing to deliver what the label promises.

Check the mill or production date stamped on the bag when you buy, not just the price. Feed that has been sitting on a store pallet for two months only has a month of good life left in your bin.

The serious risk is mould. Damp feed grows moulds that can produce mycotoxins, including aflatoxin, and these are genuinely dangerous to poultry. Feed that is clumped, musty, warm to the touch, or dusted with anything green, grey or white gets thrown out. Do not try to salvage it by drying it, and do not feed the good-looking part of a mouldy bag.

Whole grains keep longer than milled feed. Fermented feed and wet mash keep for hours, not days, so mix only what will be eaten the same day.

How should you store a bag of chicken feed?

A galvanised metal can with a tight lid, kept somewhere cool, dry and out of direct sun. Metal is the whole point: rats and mice chew straight through paper sacks and plastic tubs, and once rodents find a feed store they do not leave.

Raise the container off a concrete floor on a pallet or a couple of bricks so condensation cannot collect underneath. Put the whole bag inside the can rather than tipping it in loose, which keeps the mill date visible and makes cleanout trivial. When you refill, empty and wipe the can first instead of pouring fresh feed onto the fines and dust at the bottom, because that residue is where spoilage starts.

Buy no more than about a month’s supply at a time unless the price break is large enough to justify the risk. The chicken feed calculator gives you the monthly rate to size that decision against.

How do you stop wasting feed?

Feeder design and feeder height do most of the work.

Port feeders and treadle feeders cut waste dramatically compared with open trough or pan designs, because the birds cannot sweep feed out sideways or perch above it. A treadle feeder that only opens under a chicken’s weight also shuts out wild birds and rodents entirely, which is often the single biggest saving.

Whatever feeder you use, hang or set it so the lip sits at the height of the birds’ backs. Feed at chest height gets billed onto the floor; feed at back height means hens have to reach slightly down into it, which is exactly how they eat with least spillage. Only fill it about two-thirds so there is nowhere for feed to overflow, and bring feeders in or shut them at dusk if you have a rodent problem.

How many bags will I need for the year?

For a flock of six, roughly eleven bags a year at the standard quarter-pound rate; for a flock of twelve, closer to twenty-two. The yearly feed calculator works it out with your own bird count and bag size, and the feed cost per egg calculator turns that into the number that actually matters, which is what each egg is costing you.

The bottom line

Fifty pounds is about 200 hen-days. Divide by your flock and you have the answer, then adjust down for a summer of good foraging and up for winter, waste and rodents. Store it in metal, use it within three months, and put the feeder at back height. Those three habits are worth more than any change of brand.

For the wider budget, see how much it costs to keep chickens per month.