Feeding chickens...who knew it was sooo confusing!

[sunnydee]

Okay, I just spent the last 1.5 hours searching the forum on different topics on feeding. Geesshh. I am so confused! Agway tells me one thing, a book tells me another and then I get about 100 different answers on here. I never knew this chicken stuff was so confusing.

Sorry..just had to rant and rave a little. Feeling a little overwhelmed!

WHEW!

 

[Beekissed]

Its not as hard as everyone makes out, really.

It depends on what your chickens are for...meat or eggs. Then you feed them the appropriate feed for this. Depending on what type of feeder I'm using, I will either use crumbles or pellets...it all has to do with how much they can fling out and waste.

As a matter of fact, I'm feeding unmedicated laying mash to chickens and chicks right now. They both seem to be doing quite well. My grandmother fed corn right off the cob to her hens and cracked corn to the chicks! They thrived and were very healthy with this.

 

[DouglasPeeps]

So, what is your question? If you didn't find it on the forum, then ask it and maybe we can help. We are all ears....

 

[sunnydee]

Okay..lets see. My chicks are 7 weeks old now. I have been giving them medicated chick starter feed. I just started to introduce treats so I went back to Agway to get grits. Well..I bought that and started to think...while here I might as well get another bag of feed. After talking to the sales girls I got chick grower feed. (I still have 1/2 bag of chick starter so figured by the time they r done this the grower should be okay.)

Well..I got home and looked in the bag of grits and holy cow! I looks like crumbled up concret!? So of course I dashed online to see what it is made of ect. ect. I was told this grit was for younger birds but compared to what I found on here, it looks too big.

Anyways....I got about 1/3 of a cup and brought the girls some left over cooked peas and some left over egg noddles. They gobbled this up like there was no tomorrow. So I then proceeded to sprinkle the grit around the coop. They love to dig and scratch in there so I figured they would find it.

I just came in from saying "night night girls" and their crops are very full. Will they be okay?

PS..they do not go outside yet in their run. I am thinking I should be done building this w/in the next week or so.

 

[muddler6]

They will be fine. Ease up a little on the treats if you get too worried about them. It isn't that confusing, trust the folks on here, they helped me out. Chickens have been around a lot longer than the internet, and people were able to figure it out with good old country common sense. You'll do well because you care about your birds or you wouldn't be on here now. Relax and spoil them freely.

 

[sunnydee]

thanks muddler....i figured i am doing okay. They are growing very healthy. I am going to bust butt to get their outside run done.

Thanks for all the shared info. Sure is a great place for us new chicks!

 

[chickiebaby]

well, you know how people are. They always have to act ike theres one way to do everything. Truth is, they are little omnivorous dinosaur beasties, and there really snt too much you could do to hurt em. They've been raised, half wild, half domesticated, for thousands and thousands of years, including in laces where people have nothing to give em but mud and garbage. (Nt that I' advocating this as a diet!)

The point is, they are sturdy, if contrary, lil critters and will grow big and strong on nothing but bugs and weeds and dirt, if that's what you've got.

All this advice from all these learned people is quite awesome, but don't let the whole thing intimidate you.

Dont worry and dont forget to have fun.

best.

 

[chickiebaby]

sorry for awful typing above- ack- typing in dark is no good!Must go to bed! Must not look at new posts again! Must go to bed!

Well, maybe one more time.

 

[flakey chick]

Quote:
Heee heee hee- You got me. Down here in the south "grits" means something way different from grit. I thought you were going to spoil your babies with cooked grits. Don't worry about the grit being to big. They'll eat the pieces that are the right size for them. If most of it is too big now, they can eat it when they grow up. When in doubt, spoil them less.

 

[muddler6]

Quote:
The easiest run I built, was an old swing set frame that someone gave me (free) and covered it with some old chicken wire that was left over from my grandfather's chicken business that has been closed for well over 40 years (free), and I used zip ties (Dad gave me from when he stopped working in electronics (Free) and put a tarp over part of it to keep a dry space (the tarp came with the house when we bought it so it was free too). I don't have any pictures, but the only expense was the black paint that I used to help it blend into the woods a little better than the silver and blue that it was when I got it.