feed

[barkbap]

hey there , i have 5 chickens ranging from 6 to 13 weeks of age they all eat together out of the same container. Right now they are all on starter crumble. When and how is the best way to switch them over to pellets? SHOULD THEY BE EATING DIFFERENT THINGS? tHANKS

DARIN

 

[Chickensman97]

you can start to introduce pellets by just adding a hand full to their crumbles and you can start doing that now. other than that they should also get small grubs like worms and also give them some supervised time to scratch at dirt so they can get grubs themselves and to get small rocks that they use to help digest their food.

 

[needtohatch]

I would wait till they are all at least 19 weeks. They don't need the extra calcium till then for laying and it can cause bone growth issues while they are growing if they get too much. When the older ones are around 19 weeks you can feed a grower/finisher or flock raiser and leave out oyster shell in a seperate dish. The younger one usually leave it alone and the older ones will eat what they need when they start laying. This is what I have done when I have had different ages together.
You can get layer crumble but mine waste less with pellets. You can mix them for a few days or just switch them straight over. When I first changed over I mixed, but they just picked out the pellets and left the crumbles. A while back the feed store was out of pellets so I got a bag of crumbles and the flock went nuts for the crumbles and left the pellets

seems anything new is a treat to them.

 

[BlueBetween]

my feed store said wait until they are 18 weeks old before switching to layer food.