Help with baby chicks please

[jimmywalt]

It's been 5 years since we had baby chicks and I have forgot everything so I'm asking for some help.

We are doing a "backyard chicken" in a residentail area so it's going to be a very small scale. We are getting 3 ISA Brown's. Following are my questions
1. What chick starter should we feed them - 20% or 24% protein?
2. How long do we feed the starter food?
3. How many pounds do you think we will need for just 3 chicks? I can purchase 20# or 50# bag.
4. Do they need anything else as chicks other than starter food and water?
5. How long do they need to stay in the brooder in the house? We are in mid-Michigan.

Thank you very much!

 

[Chickassan]

I just feed the 20% for three months then switch to grower.Twenty pounds should do just fine. They'll need grit if you feed them anything other than chick starter. And they need to stay inside until they have real feathers.

 

[BrokenEggFarm]

You might want to get some electrolyte powder to mix in their water to give them an extra boost!
-Becca

 

[LuvBantums]

I always give mine electrolytes the first week with the fresh water

 

[Folly's place]

You can feed the chick starter, either medicated with amprolium, or without, for several months. Another choice is to buy an all-flock feed like Purina Flock Raiser, and never change to anything else.
Always check the mill date on each bag of feed, and get something that's no more than a month old, and then use it within a two or three weeks. I'd get the 20# bag at first if possible, so it doesn't get old before it's fed.
Depending on breed, you can figure about three pounds of feed per pound of weight gain per bird. Three birds weighing six pounds each at maturity will eat 50# or more of feed to that point. It's a very rough guess, but as a guide, close.
Mary

 

[chickens really]

Here Chick starter is fed till around 8 weeks and then Grower feed till first egg..I keep all Birds on Grower and supply Oyster shell separate once first egg...

 

[Peppercorngal]

I must be the strange one here, but I started giving my chicks dried meal worms, grass clippings, bird seed and tomatoes (leftovers) around the 5th day (along with the chick starter). If the chicks were with a mom hen, she would be free ranging and the chicks as well. Get the book "The Small-Scale Poultry Flock" by Harvey Ussery from the library. It has a lot of good logical information that you probably knew but forgot! Good luck, have fun!

 

[azygous]

Several years back, I was expecting some eggs to hatch soon a broody was sitting on, and I went to the feed store to pick up a bag of chick starter. Something made me look at the ingredients on the bag, and then compare it to what I had at home - Flock Raiser, an all-flock feed. My suspicions were confirmed - the ingredients are practically the same, except chick starter has only very slightly less protein. All the rest of the listed nutrients were exactly the same in the same proportions.

I've been ignoring chick starter ever since, just giving the all flock feed to the chicks from day one, and they thrive on it. You can go to the extra trouble of running it through a blender to make it finer, but my babies didn't seem to have any problem gobbling down the crumbles. I was fermenting the feed after the first few days, and that makes it even easier for them to eat.

Getting these special feeds for different "stages" is quite simply unnecessary and a big waster of money. Read the labels. It's a big con.

 

[Chickassan]

Not strange at all, I did try to get this last batch into eating things besides just chick food. It eventually did happen but it was around two weeks before they showed intrest in variety at all. Slow learners or maybe just picky I really don't know.

I must be the strange one here, but I started giving my chicks dried meal worms, grass clippings, bird seed and tomatoes (leftovers) around the 5th day (along with the chick starter). If the chicks were with a mom hen, she would be free ranging and the chicks as well. Get the book "The Small-Scale Poultry Flock" by Harvey Ussery from the library. It has a lot of good logical information that you probably knew but forgot! Good luck, have fun!

 

[aart]

@jimmywalt...... Welcome back!!