8 week old chickens... crumble alternatives?

[donaltman3]

I have chickens that are 8 weeks old. They are doing well right now. I have 6 total. They are doing fine on dumor starter/grower crumbles but I am almost out. I am looking to see if I am fine to swtich to grower/finisher now and if they make it in a pellet instead of a crumble.

The crumble makes a huge mess.

I have seen that game bird feed is sold in pellets and a lady at the supply store said it would probably be fine.

What are your thoughts on this?

 

[SunHwaKwon]

I feed mine a meat bird pellet and they start eating it as soon as they want. They just find the smaller bits. The pellets are miniature since meat birds are meant to start eating it at three weeks. I get it through southern states and it looks like you have one over on Clay Rd, according to google maps.

 

[donaltman3]

It is a manufacturing plant. I ended up getting nutrina grower... it is crumbled too..

 

[Kyanite]

I'm feeding my chicks game bird pellets. They are doing much better on that than the starter/grower crumbles. Feather quality is looking better and they are growing great. And so much less waste! They were sneezing a lot on the crumbles too... I think from the dust in the bottom when it gets pretty much pulverized. They were raking through it to pick out what they wanted. They can't do that on the pellets!

 

[donaltman3]

Even with a pvc automatic feeder that is supposed to be neater, my chicks kinda slash their heads around while eating and push it out of the feeder onto the ground.. once there it sits and eventually gets damp from all this rain and then comes the hoard of flies. I was afraid to switch to game bird feed so I purchased another kind of crumble.. 50 more pounds.. for 6 chicks it might be a while before I can try pellets.. unfortunatly.

 

[Kyanite]

Ugh, yes. The flies love the feed that's been mashed into the ground and gotten wet. Even the morning dew was enough to make a nasty cake of it. The fly swam has significantly subsided since switching to pellets.

 

[SunHwaKwon]

Set the feeder inside a larger pan. Even if you can't save the feed, you can still dump it and not feed the flies.