feeding my new flock

[mychickens]

Hi, I am very, very new in the chicken world. I just got my 6 chicks less than a week ago. They are about 15 weeks old and are eating me out of house and home! The person I got them from fed them layer crumbles so I got the same thing thinking that would make the transition a little easier for them. They are penned all the time (wish I could let them free range but I live in city limits so not allowed) I do however want them to eat garden leftover, table scraps and anything else they can rather than commercial feed. My problem is that they don't seem interrested in anything other than the feed. I thought about not giving them any feed for a while to see if they change their mind about the table scraps but not sure this is a good idea. any help would be greatly appreciated.

 

[easttxchick]

Are they laying yet? If not, they should really be eating the chick growth.

They may not be eating anything but their feed because that's all they have ever been exposed to-it took mine a bit to get used to something new(garden scraps, etc.). Their feed does need to be available to them as well, though.

Congrats on your new flock!

 

[mychickens]

Thanks, should I put away the layer crumbles and get chick growth for the next few weeks until they start laying?

 

[easttxchick]

That's what I would do.

Try giving your chicks some treats like raisins, sunflower seed or yogurt to get them to try something different.

Hope they start laying for you soon!

 

[Capone]

yep put them back on chick starter and when its time put them on a layer pellet, theres less waste and since there penned up all the time, only use table scraps as a treat and put out oyster shell free choice

 

[mychickens]

Thanks everyone!

 

[easttxchick]

You are very welcome!

 

[chickendude]

Also you need grit in their diet if you feed them other than the crumbles, especially if you keep them in a cage with no access to outside dirt where they would naturally pick up small stones to aid in their digestion. and they should definitely be on grower/starter feed. No layer feed until they start laying. Good luck with the new chicks!

 

[anngili]

Also, I tried feeding some yogurt to my current chicks and they wouldn't touch it; gave it the evil eye like that little bowl was going to eat them! They even ran to the other side of the cage!

I snuck one over on them, though; I put a layer of their chick starter on top of the yogurt. They all went "FOOD!!", charged it and ate as fast as they could. Since it was in a little container and there were six of them, they were all trying to scarf it as fast as possible.

The first one to eat through to the yogurt/starter mix gave a really funny reaction!

She eventually decided that the gooey stuff was even better tasting than the starter. After she started really going after it, the other chicks followed suit.

They still just get it as a treat, though. They grow like maniacs (and eat like it, too!) but just think of them as being like teenage boys. They eat a lot, run around and make a lot of racket while being cute, but they eventually grow out of it and start eating a more reasonable amount. Until then you just try to give them a balanced diet and a reasonable amount of treats. My older pullets are just getting close to laying and are now much more curious about different things to eat, so treats and scraps aren't a problem anymore.

I also found grapes and bread to be really popular with my chicks and usually all I needed to do was to sit quietly and patiently at their cage door while holding and sometimes jiggling the treat a little. Sooner or later one just can't resist their curiosity any longer and comes over to peck at it. If you cut the grapes into quarters first, they get the grape juice in/on their beak when they peck it and from there on it it's a mob scene when you even walk by with grapes!

I've heard pieces of watermelon can sometimes work even faster. Maybe it's the combination of red and green? Chickens seem to instinctively want to peck anything that's red or green. I'm going to try to get some later tonight and try it out on them tomorrow after their breakfast.

 

[dianer29]

My SILKIES are a little over 2 weeks . When is the best time to start the plain yogurt as a supplemental treat? How often do I offer it ? Diane