Feeding question???

[kyrose]

What is the youngest age you can feed layer crumbles?I have 2 month old buff orps. that i want to put in with the rest of the flock...
Thanks...

 

[Kittymomma]

The crumbles have too much calcium and at only two months old your flock could very well kill it anyhow, especially if I'm understanding this correctly and it's just one chick. I find it easiest to put the flock on gamebird or flockraiser and just keep oyster shell out free choice so the layers can meet their calcium needs.

Please do a search on chick integration before you put the little one in with the adults.

 

[kyrose]

its actually 4 chicks....thanks for responding...

 

[Kittymomma]

That's good, you'll have better luck with four of them, it's spread the harrasment out a bit. I'd still wait until they are around 12 weeks before putting them all together though. How many adults do you have? I've combined birds earlier then 12 weeks before when the youngsters out numberd the adults and had it work out ok.

 

[kyrose]

Quote:
ill probably wait til they are 12 weeks.we are adding on to the chicken coop this weekend so we will probably make them an area to themselves.i like the flock raiser idea tho,i always have different ages and feeding was always a problem.this seems to fix that problem.thanks so much...

 

[BarredBuff]

Eight weeks i to early all of the calcium in the layer feed will hurt their systems. If you use Purina, you can switch everyone to flock raiser. Thats what I plan to do with this batch coming in May.

 

[kyrose]

Quote:
thats the plan...