all these feeds!!! are they really necessary??

[effie]

I have put my 6 week old BO's in with my two grown hens this week--the hens are eating some of the medicated chick food and the chicks are eating the layer crumbles--is this a big deal?----because I wonder if I had a hen that hatched these babies out would you change the all the food in the henhouse for those babies because there would be no way to keep them all seperate-it seems here on the forum alot of chicks are bought or incubated and that is why all the seperation-but I have to wonder about the ones that are hatched the natural way would we still use all the different feeds. I see where they say not to let the little ones eat the laying crumbles but nothng about the grown girls eating the medicated feed. Is this really much ado about nothing???? Have we made more of this than necessary??? I grew up on a farm and I think sometimes we coddle and domesticate animals too much and make more problems for ourselves....I am just wondering........educate me people..

 

[CCourson05]

Easiest thing to do is switch to a flock raiser and provide calcium supplement for the laying hens...

 

[CoyoteMagic]

Quote:
Ditto

 

[gritsar]

Quote:
Ditto

X3
I've found it easier and healthier to feed the whole coop a flockraiser type feed. Healthier for my roosters and young cockerels that don't need the added calcium of layer feed. All I have to do is offer my hens the oyster shell on the side. Also, I'm fortunate that the flockraiser food I am able to purchase is milled by a small, local feed mill so it's super fresh, milled within a week or two of purchase, not months ago. Easier because I have all ages in my one coop from one week old on up to adult laying hens and an adult roo.

 

[CowgirlPenny]

Quote:
Ditto

X3
I've found it easier and healthier to feed the whole coop a flockraiser type feed. Healthier for my roosters and young cockerels that don't need the added calcium of layer feed. All I have to do is offer my hens the oyster shell on the side. Also, I'm fortunate that the flockraiser food I am able to purchase is milled by a small, local feed mill so it's super fresh, milled within a week or two of purchase, not months ago. Easier because I have all ages in my one coop from one week old on up to adult laying hens and an adult roo.

Is this flock raiser fed in the same way you would feed other feed? I have a wide age range too and would love to feed everyone just the same thing. Do I ask for Flock raiser at the feed store, or is there another name (brand) for it. How do you keep the younger ones/roo's from eating the extra calcium you leave for the hens?

Sorry to thread hijack!!

 

[CCourson05]

If they don't need the calcium, they won't eat it. And yep, just say... I want poultry flock raiser. If it's TSC, you may have to send back the pellets they bring out the first time..

 

[CowgirlPenny]

Quote:
Thanks. I just started a 25lb bag, but when I finish it...I'll switch to that.


Is it medicated? I want to move my girls off medicated starter.

 

[CCourson05]

It is not medicated.

 

[Country Heart]

Quote:
Yep. Also, you don't want your layers eating medicated feed, unless of course you want medicated eggs.

 

[gritsar]

Maybe it was just our TSC, but...

The one and only time I bought TSC's version of Flockraiser it was horrible. It was so old it didn't really smell like anything, except maybe dirt. It was powder, not even crumbles anymore.

Our feed store is a branch of a feed mill out of Oklahoma. Their version of flockraiser is called Allway Kernels. Always fresh, smells wonderful. I also buy their gamebird feed to use in place of scratch. It's called Black Rooster. Also has a wonderful, licorice smell to it. Very little corn and a higher protein. The chickens love it.

Like the others, I have never seen my adult roosters at the oyster shell dispenser, though my cockerels have tried it.