How do you feed chicks that are hatched from a hen?

[gritsar]

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Yeah, my DH's late mother and grandmother did the same. The chickens, chicks and adults, got kitchen scraps and maybe a handful of cracked corn now and then; that's it. However, his mom and grandma weren't concerned about optimal health for their chickens. If one died, they replaced it or not, depending on how many chickens they had at the time. I'm not saying that's how your ancestors did it, just what DH's family did.

My chickens are more pets than anything else. They have feeders full every day, even though they free range for most of their diet. They also have misters and fan cooled coops, something else his mom would never have done. Her chickens were lucky to get a coop at all. Back then the dogs were lucky to get a commercial food and the farm cats had to depend on what they could catch for themselves. Just a different time I guess.

 

[Ole rooster]

That's the biggest reason and makes the most sense of any post I've seen yet. Before chickens turned into pets, and some started putting diapers on um and wiping the butts, mama hen did it all. If one died that was just what happened. And my aunts, uncles and grandmother didn't cry over it. It was just life as they had it. Mama chickens managed to take care of the chicks and they were not kept in a run. Free range was the norm. Now in the hen house any predator that showed up died. None of this, he's so cute thoughts, they all died. My forebearers took care of the hens and mama chicken took care of the babies. Mama hen can, just by being the mother, can take care of her brood. Nature made her very capable of doing what needs to be done. Just watch her do it.

Put out feed for her and any of the rest that wants any can have it.

 

[cuntryuppiechick]

There is an inexpensive book called Keeping Poultry and Rabbits on Scraps. Yes, historic diets weren't necessarily optimal for nutrition but the flock wasn't expected to produce at the high volumes we expect. I am finding with using that book and a few other sources that home made food has made my quail produce higher than a commercial feed. My chicks aren't laying yet to know how they respond.

 

[yinepu]

heritage birds were also a lot different than the birds we have today.. if you compare a hatchery chick to a good bloodline old fashioned heritage bird they look like two different types of chicken... so their dietary needs have changed over the years as well due to selective breeding.. back when my great grandparents had birds.. all of theirs were dual purpose birds.. they didnt own any high egg producing birds or things like the cornish X because they just weren't available to them.. so their birds did just fine foraging for what they could find.. getting a handful of grain and eating whatever scraps that weren't thrown to the pigs

 

[Fred's Hens]

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Precisely. Chickens back in the "good old days" rarely produced eggs at the rate to which we have now grown accustomed. It was a different time.

 

[Beekissed]

My granny just fed broody and chicks cornmeal while they were little. The rest of the flock were fed whole kernel corn we rubbed right off the cob at feeding time. They free ranged also, of course. It is true that there wasn't as much concentration on super nutrition back in those days but I remember granny having a flock of healthy, producing chickens.

I'm sure they didn't have the high egg yields as some of our flocks today but I don't think people wanted more than they could use or store back then, so an adequate amount for home usage was just that....adequate. Since they didn't have to buy any feeds, I'm sure they felt that chickens who didn't produce were worth keeping and these chickens were used regularly for dinner.

All in all, it wasn't such a bad system....reproduce the flock, eat the older hens, gather what eggs there were. I know she always had eggs, even in the winter, so they must have produced quite well. She maintained a flock of about 25-30 hens at all times, many were leghorns but she had a few other mutts in the bunch. I remember Brahmas and Doms in that flock as well.

I loved feeding the chickens and gathering eggs at grandma's house!

 

[BoltonChicken]

I have one broody hen who just finished hatching a chick and I cannot afford the money to buy an entire bag of chick starter. What on earth should I give the chick?

A 25# bag of chick starter cost about $8 here and should last several weeks. Some feed stores break them down into 5# bags for about $4. Shop around.

Before chickens turned into pets, and some started putting diapers on um and wiping the butts, mama hen did it all. If one died that was just what happened. And my aunts, uncles and grandmother didn't cry over it. It was just life as they had it. Mama chickens managed to take care of the chicks and they were not kept in a run. Free range was the norm. Now in the hen house any predator that showed up died. None of this, he's so cute thoughts, they all died. My forebearers took care of the hens and mama chicken took care of the babies. Mama hen can, just by being the mother, can take care of her brood. Nature made her very capable of doing what needs to be done. Just watch her do it

GOOD POST! Exactly my thinking....​

 

[Horsea]

Yes, I need to "shop around" but in the past, where I live (Canada) I have never seen small bags of chick starter. Even if transportation and $$$ were not issues for us, I don't want a giant bag of feed hanging around with no one to eat it. Most would go to waste. It would attract predators, I should think.

All the replies to my concerns are good reading and highly informative. Thank you. The baby chick is the offspring of a Rhode Island mother and father. The chick is entering its 4th day of life and sticks its head out from under Mama but that's it. No eating yet in spite of all kinds of things placed in front of them, incl. water. I shall have to wait & see before I do a jig. They are in a cozy nest in the garage.

 

[SteveBaz]

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The strongest survived!!

 

[Ole rooster]

Beekissed.......very very good explaination. I also believe the "old way" had to have worked pretty well as my grandmother had 13 children. My grandfather was killed in a sawmill accident right after the last one was born. I remember when she cooked breakfast when I was there she would cook 2 pans of biscuits so she had to have had a bunch of eggs. That tells me the chickens were producing pretty well or she had a lot more than I remember. Of course the childern were grown and gone but the ones that stayed around with their families would come by for breakfast. Plus we were eating the chickens too. That was still a lot of folks. But they just as you say didn't do any of it for selling. It was simply survival.