Baby Food for Treat? (UPDATE)

[Juise]

I'm guessing my chicks are about 2 weeks old, maybe a week and a half? Pictures of them here from 4 days ago. I have some Earth's Best Organic baby food that my 8 month old is not a fan of. To be honest, I bought it because I wanted the jars and the empty jars of that size cost more. (???) It is spring vegetables and pasta "chunky blend", although from what I can tell that just means it isn't practically liquid. I don't see any chunks. It's like a blended split pea soup consistency. Peas, carrots, wheat flour, whole wheat pasta rings, spinach, tofu powder and canola oil.

Would it be okay to give this to my chicks as a treat? I've not given them anything yet aside from their starter crumbles. Should I warm it a bit, or give it to them from-the-fridge cold? Do I just put it in a dish? Will they hurt themselves on a ceramic dish? Do they need a grit with something soft and blended like this, and if so, I can give them a tray of sand with it, right? If I seem clueless, it's only because I am.

 

[SunnyDawn]

Give it to them at room temperature, it should be fine. I use a ceramic dish to feed my little ones and they've never harmed themselves. Just give a little at first. My vet said to introduce new foods a little at a time and wait awhile between introducing new foods (1-2 weeks). The starter crumbles you give them already contain some grit. Just don't give them a ton of it at once. They need to eat their crumbles too.

 

[cbrown86]

Thanks for posting! I wondered that myself, since my yr n a half old daughter refused to ever touch baby food, meaning I have WAY more jars than I know what to do with. Hahaha. Repost when you feed it to your chicks, and let us know how they like it.

 

[crtrlovr]

yes, and I keep some on hand for feeding sick cats or birds. It came in especially handy last year when my turkey got sick. It kept her going until she recovered enough to be able to eat again.

 

[Judy]

from the BYC treats chart:

the following is from DLHunicorn in response to the listing of cat food in this Treats Chart: (A word to the wise, and thank you, DLHunicorn)

"You all know how I feel on cat food and I have posted the links and reasoning behind my objections several times ...it can potentially be detrimental to your birds health and even deadly in the right circumstances and for this reason I feel it should be left off the chart (as when you put it on it is as if you are condoning its use) I will repost here one of the sources for my objection:
http://www.omri.org/Amino_acids_livestock.html
..."While it is nutritionally essential, methionine excesses are far more toxic to poultry than similar excesses of tryptophan, lysine, and threonine (National Research Council, 1994). Force feeding methionine to excess can result in death to chicks (National Research Council, 1994). A dosage of 2 g / mature cat / day (20 to 30 g / kg dry diet) for 20 days induces anorexia, ataxia, cyanosis, methemoglobinemia and Heinz body formation resulting in hemolytic anemia (Maede, 1985). ..."​

 

[debakadeb]

I found it helpful to simply mix soft foods (yogurt, etc.) with the chick crumbles. They are use to the texture of the crumbles and I found that they were very hesitant with new textures.

 

[Juise]

ddawn - Is cat food connected to this in some way, or were you possibly misreading my question? (confused)

 

[montanasandy]

Juise, I just went to your page to look at your chicks. OH!! Your little girls are adorable, so sweet and cute with the baby chicks! Your chicks are cute too!

Let me know how the chicks like the Baby food!

 

[cbrown86]

I think ddawn was just warning what NOT to feed your chicks. I could be wrong.

 

[Juise]

It went well! I wrote about it with pictures here: Juise: Backyard Farm Edition