Different Age Chickens..how to feed?

[griggy]

Hi all,
I currently have 18 chickens living together. 3 are 11 weeks olds, 7 are 12 weeks old and 8 are 8 weeks old. My questions is:
When should I switch to layer feed? The bag says at 16 weeks or onset of lay, but what do I do with my girls who aren't that old yet?

 

[Kelsie2290]

You could just continue to feed what you are feeding now (Starter/Grower?) to everybody and just have oyster shell on the side for the older hens when they start laying, they will eat what they want and the other birds will leave it alone, then switch over to Layer when the youngest birds are old enough. A lot of people feed an All Ages or Flock Raiser type food to everybody all the time (with oyster shell on the side), most chicken feed is pretty similar except the protein levels and the calcium% in Layer.

 

[azygous]

Layer feed is over-rated. I noticed long ago that my hens prefer any feed over layer ration. As long as oyster shell is provided, there's no need for layer feed. When you have a mixed flock, it takes all the worry and guess work out of the equation to simply do away with the layer feed. I feed a combination of chick starter and flock raiser, and have been for years.

My oldest is six years and youngest is ten months.