Treats for 3 week old chicks?

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stlfarmchick

stlfarmchick

In the Brooder
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Anyone have some good suggestions for treats at 3 weeks?? The only one I am aware of is yogurt.. which they love. Can you feed them insects at this age?
 
Bugs are ok, mine started catching anything that flew into their brooder (spiders too) as soon as they were a few days old. They also like worms from the garden. Grapes cut up in small pieces, grated carrots, strawberries, bananas, orange halves, shredded cabbage (note that purple cabbage gives them purple poop! lol) and chopped up tomatoes and squash are all favorites with mine. Scrambled eggs are good too. Be sure to give them grit with their treats though.
 
At rounding 4 weeks mine have always gone nuts over freeze dried mealworms, but they wont touch fruits or yogurt yet.
 
I started my BJGs immediately on a little pinch of coarse corn grits mixed with a pinch of sand. They like to scratch and peck right off the bat, and the grits give them something tasty, while the fine sand goes right to their gizzards. At first they got about 1/2 tsp per day, but it was a start and we worked up from there. By week 2 they were out of the brooder and into the pen and getting yogurt, mealworms, a little chick scratch and a little bit of wild finch food because it has very tiny seeds; we also installed a sandbox in the pen. Week 3 we introduced spinach and rolled oats.

When offering treats keep a couple of things in mind:

* Keep the size of the treat appropriate to the size of the chick eating it. A week old chick cannot handle chick scratch because the chunks are too big. Try fine corn grits at first and work up to larger sized pieces.

* Don't offer too many treats. Their main nutrition should always be from their starter food. A good rule of thumb for treats is no more than 5% of their total nutrition should come from treats, and the total treats you offer should be consumed in 10 minutes or less.

* In order to properly digest anything other than chick rations, the chicks must have a source of grit. Fine sand works perfectly, and the chickens will consume as much of it as they need.


If you keep those three things in mind, you generally will not go wrong. The chicks know what to do, but it is up to you to give them what they need.

wink.png
 
Mine love yogurt with chick starter sprinkled on top...they clean their plate very quickly.

Yesterday I gave them a beet leaf...they were afraid at first then began to peck at it...later found just the stem lying in the floor of their brooder. So today I gave them two beet leaves...didn't take long til all of the girls were pecking away at them.

Also gave them a grub worm yesterday..two had a tug-of-war with the thing before one won and took off with it. I went back to my weeding so not sure who got to eat it.
sickbyc.gif


My girls have a sand box that needs to be refilled...better go do that while I'm thinking of it.
 
I have chicks that are almost 2 weeks, 3 weeks and 5 or 6 weeks. I also have a couple of geese and turkey chicks. I feed them chick feed and then give them a tiny bit of cooked rice and salad greens for variety. I gave them a bit of leftover French toast too
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When a hapless bug shows up, it gets eaten.

I give them chick grit and they all seem to like the change of pace with the lettuce. The brown leghorns/welsummers (?) are the boldest and race around with lettuce leaves taunting the older chicks. They're really funny.
gig.gif


Never a boring day in the chick house.
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I gave mine some ants and some red worms on the second day after I picked them up from the feed store. They can't have been more than 4 or 5 days old. They liked them fine. Chick rugby with worms, and worm tug of war, took place. It took them a little while to figure out how to eat the worms (from one end like a piece of spaghetti).

GG
 

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