In the next day or two my mini chickens will be 11 weeks old! Now that they are getting bigger and seem to be pretty wary of hawks and preds, I've been letting them out to roam around my 1/4 of an acre yard for a several hours a day. During that time they eat plenty of grass, weeds, and some clover. Maybe the occasional bug here and there and the leftover clumps of layer feed my duck leaves behind. On nice days I'll let them out at around 8-10 AM, and put them back in their kennel when it gets dark....maybe around 5-7 PM. They seem to be doing great, but I wouldn't call them fat....but they aren't skinny either! One thing I've been worried about is their starter intake. The 19% starter/grower is in even smaller crumbles than the layer crumbles for my duck. And when you take a pinch of the feed and rub it in your fingers it turns to powdery mash. Because the chickens are bigger I feel they don't get enough of their feed to eat. Living in the city I'm already lucky living close to 2 family run feed stores, but they don't have much of a stock. It's just the start/grower and layer crumbles....that's it. Also, the chickens never seem starving....they only act like they haven't been fed for days when I feed them cooked eggs. Am I worrying about something I shouldn't?
