Help Me With Food Timing and Type Please

[AmyJane725]

Do you guys think it's a good idea to give chicks some Nutri-Drench when they first come home, just as a precaution? Shipping seems really stressful. Do you do anything special to help them recover from it?

 

[paneubert]

I use vitamins and electrolytes for about 24-48 hours in the water. Some people have strong opinions on both sides of that decision. The people who just give normal water usually do it because they think the salts in the electrolytes are too much/too soon and that the benefits of the vitamins don't overcome the "risks" of the salts.

Nutri-Drench would be good since it is not full of salt. Problem is that you either need to directly dose it to their beak, or have to put a lot of it in their water. I guess you could save money by dispensing really small amounts of Nutri-Drench water in their water dispenser and switch it out as it gets dirty. Then you are not tossing a quart of Nutri-Drench water each time. Maybe only tossing a few ounces of dirty water.

 

[AmyJane725]

I have the type of bottles that prevent them from dirtying the water, so any nutridrench I put in there wouldn’t be wasted. How much would you put in a 1 L container?

 

[paneubert]

The label says 4 ounces (which might be the entire bottle) per gallon of water. They reduce the recommendation as they get older. So your 1L waterer would be around 1 ounce of nutridrench.

 

[AmyJane725]

Ok, sounds good. I suppose that’s something I could have figured out myself but I don’t have the bottle yet, so pardon my laziness.

 

[GC-Raptor]

Do you guys think it's a good idea to give chicks some Nutri-Drench when they first come home, just as a precaution? Shipping seems really stressful. Do you do anything special to help them recover from it?

I lost a Chick in my first Flock of 6 at 4 days old nearly 3 years ago.
My second Flock of 7 day old chicks I added Poultry Nutri-Drench to the water for 10 days following directions on bottle.
At 7 months I still have all 7. GC

 

[Ol Grey Mare]

Do you guys think it's a good idea to give chicks some Nutri-Drench when they first come home, just as a precaution? Shipping seems really stressful. Do you do anything special to help them recover from it?

Dehydration is a big issue post shipping.....and they dont necessarily drink enough right away. I use soaked feed (literally crumble plus warm water) for the first several days (dry crumble is always available too, mash served frequently ar first, tapering off)..I use nutridrench in the first day's madh servings. Mash starts super soupy at first and gets less so as things progress.

 

[AmyJane725]

What is "mash" exactly?

 

[Ol Grey Mare]

What is "mash" exactly?

A mash is a warm, moist feed....can be made of various grains and ingredients for various animals. They sell "mash" for poultry that is more crushed than crumble and meant to be used wetted(its so fine it's not really edible dry)...but you can use any crumble, pellet, etc to make a mash.....I take crumbles and soak them with warm water, more water = soupier mash.

 

[AmyJane725]

Ah, I see. Since you leave the dry food out as well, do you notice them preferring to eat the wet food (just out of curiosity)?

And curious if anyone knows about this. On the Nutri-Drench bottle it says to mix up fresh solution daily. Is this because it somehow loses potency after a day, or are they assuming the chicks are dirtying the water and it should be changed anyway? If it put it in my nipple waterers I'm just wondering if it's necessary to discard it daily if they haven't drank it all?

Also, the dosage is cut in half at 5 days, 15 days, 4 weeks and 6 weeks. Anybody know why this is? If I were to give it for 10 days like GC-Raptor did I'd have to offer 1 mL/L the first 4 days and then 0.5 mL/L for the next 6 days. Does it hurt them to have the higher dosage? Not trying to be difficult, I just wonder why things are the way they are. It's weird that as the get bigger they need less. It seems like they'd need more.