How Young is Too Young for Adult Feed?

[CJkid]

Well today I made a shocking discovery. The bag of chick feed I had purchased for my little chicks was old, moldy and stinky.

There's no way I'm feeding it to them, so instead I gave them the adult feed for today.
It has become painfully obvious that the store I get the chick feed from is not going through their stock and I'm left with moldy old feed instead of fresh.
Since i know their layer feed is always fresh, I'm wondering if it is ok to start giving my chicks the adult feed, instead of holding my breadth and hoping the chick feed is fresh.

There are 10 chicks that range in age from 4 1/2 - 6 weeks old. Is it bad to start giving them the adult feed?

 

[1muttsfan]

Unfortunately young birds should not recieve layer rations until close to laying age at 18 weeks old. Feeding it to young birds can damage their kidneys.

Find another feed supply store would be my reccomendation.

 

[CJkid]

Ok I'll definitely check out the other store.
Thanks

 

[debid]

I'd feed them eggs until you get a new sack of chick feed. Layer has too much calcium and (usually) not enough protein for growing chicks.

I hope you took the moldy feed back to the store where you bought it. Molding feed is likely from not being stored properly (exposure to moisture) rather than the age of the feed. The date it was packed should be printed on the top seam of the bag. This time of year, it's going to be a few months ago but it shouldn't be from last year.

 

[CJkid]

I'd feed them eggs until you get a new sack of chick feed. Layer has too much calcium and (usually) not enough protein for growing chicks.

I hope you took the moldy feed back to the store where you bought it. Molding feed is likely from not being stored properly (exposure to moisture) rather than the age of the feed. The date it was packed should be printed on the top seam of the bag. This time of year, it's going to be a few months ago but it shouldn't be from last year.

Well they are now on fresh chick feed, I immediately went to another store and picked up a bag of chick feed for them.
I've been busy and haven't gone back to the first store yet but I went on their website and wrote them about it. The manager got in touch with me and said she would look in to the problem and refund both bags of feed I had bought, that were bad. I'm very happy with the response from the store and hope the problem will be solved.
But in any event the chicks will only get fresh chick feed until their old enough.

 

[TNBEARCHICK]

Some people don't understand how much we love our birds, moldy feed what a surprise that must hAVE BEEN.

 

[CJkid]

Some people don't understand how much we love our birds, moldy feed what a surprise that must hAVE BEEN.

Yeah you said it, i was really shocked. But I am very happy with the way the store handled it.
They refunded me for both bad bags of feed i got and when they get fresh stock in the manager's gonna let me know and give me 2 free bags of feed.

She also said that if ever i have a bag of feed that goes bad because i had it for too long before using it, that they will refund that. I was very impressed and it restored my faith in a store that i had never had problems with before.

Now that they know there's a problem they're taking care of it. So i'm happy with the way things turned out.