Breese chicks what dairy to feed

[TheUrbanFarmandGarden]

I am starting a new coop with Breese chicks ( to be picked up). I want to follow as closely as possible the French Breese Breed feeding schedule. Chicks are supposed to be fed dairy…that’s all I’ve found. I need more info! What types? What else if anything other than water should be offered? If you know of any sites or books that gives more info on the breed dietary requirements I’d be grateful. I’ve looked on UTube as well. I found The Recreational Homestead, but I haven’t found any discussion of what to feed Breese Chicks.

 

[JacinLarkwell]

I want to say from 12-16 weeks, but I really don't know why or where I might have read that

 

[NatJ]

I am starting a new coop with Breese chicks ( to be picked up). I want to follow as closely as possible the French Breese Breed feeding schedule. Chicks are supposed to be fed dairy…that’s all I’ve found. I need more info! What types? What else if anything other than water should be offered? If you know of any sites or books that gives more info on the breed dietary requirements I’d be grateful. I’ve looked on UTube as well. I found The Recreational Homestead, but I haven’t found any discussion of what to feed Breese Chicks.

There are a number of threads on this forum talking about it.

Here is a specific post from someone who raises them:
https://www.backyardchickens.com/threads/bresse-chickens.173461/page-20#post-11285205

I grow out my Bresse inside a grow out pen and pasture. I feed grow crumbles, and I fatten for two weeks on milk, wheat flour and corn meal with Barley meal. I purchase flour and the milk at Costco corn and barley from the feed store. The birds gain almost 2 lbs on this fattening diet and marble the fat throughout the muscle. The fattening process is the secret, it is the same as was used 100 years ago here in the US for fattening heritage birds back then. Look up on the Internet fattening chickens. They are considered milk fattened if the majority of the liquid they take is milk during this time. It cost almost $2 to fatten one chicken but gains 2 lbs in weight.

(That is in a very long thread, where people are talking about raising Bresse. The thread probably contains a fair bit of other useful information too.)

Here is an article on another site that talks a bit about Bresse:
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2008/jan/10/ethicalliving.animalwelfare
"From about 35 days, the young birds are fed cereals, such as maize and wheat, and milk products - each breeder has his special recipe...the supplementary feed is kept deliberately short of protein, to make sure they have to continue to forage for insects themselves."
"After a minimum of four months outdoors, poulets de Bresse are "finished" for one or two weeks in large wooden cages, four or five to a cage, in a darkened shed"
(The finishing is what was mentioned in the other source I quoted, where the birds gain a large amount of fat in a short time.)