I use this
Feed for chicks
In formulating chick-feed, the old poultry manuals that I found most useful were by Lewis Wright, Lady Arbuthnott, and John Robinson (who also reports the ideas of Hunter, Boyer, Rudd, Felch, Lambert and Mrs Thomas).
Here chicks are on grass as soon as they are brought off the nest by the broody, and she takes them straightaway to lawn edges, where she hunts for food for them and teaches them how to forage, and what is edible, with the cover of the shrub border close by in case a predator appears. So the food I supply is supplementary, even when it constitutes the majority of what they consume; how much of it they actually consume on any given day varies with how much or little their broody and then they have found for themselves, and how much they feel the need to supplement their diet with what I offer them.
Chicks eat little and often, befitting the tiny size of all constituent parts of their anatomy. Supplied food needs to be in small-tiny particle size or of soft consistency (though I know from experience that a two-day old chick is capable of eating an unfeasibly large live mealworm). It is easiest to eat in a crumbly consistency, not a powder, and not so wet that it sticks to the beak. If they are out on the ground, their broody will find and direct them to eat soil or grit of an appropriate size for their developing gizzard.
Inclusion of some fermented feed liquor (the liquid drained off when serving to adults) in the first feed (e.g. soak some breadcrumbs in it) will inoculate the chicks’ gut with lactobacilli, which will help them deal with the coccidia that they are bound to encounter outside. The broody may direct them to consume some dried chicken poop for the same reason (a faecal transplant to get good bacteria into the chicks’ gastrointestinal tracts).
For the first week, chicks are offered chopped boiled egg, milk- or fermented-feed-liquor- soaked breadcrumbs, live mealworms (small ones), and a varying combination of cooked potato, polenta, semolina, gram flour, wheat flour, or oatmeal, mixed into a crumble with a little milk. Thereafter I add, increasing in quantity and variety as the weeks progress, fresh curd or plain natural yogurt, mashed tinned sardines, peanut butter, currants, smashed Weetabix or Shredded wheat (breakfast cereals*), and smashed dry high protein dog or cat food.
The broody will direct them to eat the adults’ feed as well, but the chicks largely ignore it in my experience (perhaps intuiting that the whole grains are too big for their system and will give them tummy-ache) and prefer their chick feed. The rest of the flock will eat the chick-feed too given half a chance, so it is better to offer it when the main flock is elsewhere. The broody initially keeps the chicks much closer to the coop than the main flock roams, so this is not normally difficult, if the keeper has the time and inclination to hang about watching the young brood for the right opportunity to feed them.
* These breakfast cereals offer whole wheat in an easy-to-eat form and without added sugar. Breakfast cereals, like mass produced bread in the UK, are typically fortified at least with B vitamins and iron to replace the nutrients lost from the whole wheat during the production of flour.
From https://www.backyardchickens.com/ar...eat-tears-a-calculator-or-deep-pockets.78655/
