18 weeks old: What feed is right?

[newchickenista]

Howdy all!

My 5 chickens will be 18 weeks old tomorrow, and I just finished off my last bag of grower feed. Is it too early to start them on layer feed?

I really don't want to buy 50lbs of grower feed and then get eggs in 2 weeks and have to start them on layer feed....but I will if I have to...

Any advice would be great!

 

[goodbull92]

Mine are 19 weeks old today & I am still feeding an 18% grower feed. I have 2, maybe 3, currently laying & I plan on feeding the grower untlil about 3 more weeks. I am not sure how long it takes your 5 to go through 50#s but based on my feed rate I would guess around 7 weeks. You should be able to find a grower feed in 25# bag. If you can, I would go that route. That would put you about the 21-22 week range. However, in my opinion it wouldn't hurt at all to continue feeding the grower until the next 50# bag was gone.

 

[HouseCat]

I keep my chicks on grower UNTIL I start finding eggs. Even if you had a full bag of grower, all you would have to do is buy some oyster shell and you'll be fine. As long as they have calcium available (oyster shell), I wouldn't be too concerned with the feed type.