I have been monitoring the amount of layers' pellets my chickens eat for
various reasons, one of them being that I am now administering Flubenvet in
their feed. Jill (who as far as I'm concerned is Chicken Goddess) says they
should be eating about 125g of feed per bird per day, but my four are only
just about eating that between them.

None of them are laying at present (sigh!). One has gone off lay
temporarily, one is just about to come into lay, and the other two are still
just teenagers. Of course I keep them for the eggs, but also for fun, so my
real question is - does the amount of pellets they eat matter only for egg
production, or is it also a matter of their health?

For the last few days I have been leaving them in their run for the morning
to encourage them to go for the pellets, and at present (during the worming
week) I not only do that, but have withdrawn their small wheat treat in the
afternoons. Their run is covered so the food is under cover although not in
the hen house. For the rest of the day (and normally) they free range around
our acre of wild garden.

I am really quite puzzled by this because when I have looked after a friend's
(much larger) flock, when I let them out in the morning they all made a mad
dash for the trough of pellets until every scrap had gone.