I’m getting chicks, which starter food should I use?🐥

[Future vet]

I’m getting chicks and I need a feed from tractor supply,that is the only close feed store. So if you can look at their website and show me or email me.,if you found the healthiest starter. I am a beginner and I’m not a pro so thanks! I am getting them beginning of March!!!! If you are getting goats or have some email me, I know a lot about them and felt with many.Thank you!

 

[U_Stormcrow]

Goats and Chickens should be kept separated, as you likely already know. So that, as much as possible, they can be fed seperately. Chicken feed much more dangerous to goats than goat feed is to chickens. Chickens may peck at goat mineral a few times as they explore their world, then will promptly ignore it. Still, keep it out of reach of your hatchlings and adolescents.

In Ravenel, if you are getting a small number of chickens, or the bag isn't fresh (made in the last month or so), get Purina's Flock Raiser Crumbles (5# bag) if you don't need medicated. [Assuming you've had no chickens before, and have "virgin ground", non-medicated is likely fine. Coccidia is everywhere humans have been, yes, but reflexively medicating isn't necessary unless you know (or strongly suspect) you've had a coccidia outbreak recently on your grounds. That said, it generally doesn't hurt - personal choice, informed by risk tolerance. If they fdon't have the small flockraiser (and you are buying small), get either the Purina Start/Grow (medicated or not, your call) or the Dumor Starter (medicated or not, your choice), in that order of preference.

If you are going non-Medicated, are getting a lot of chicks, and the bag is fresh, get the Purina Flock Raiser Crumbles 50# bag.

If the store employee tells you that you should be getting starter or starter/grower instead of flock raiser, tell him/her to compare the nutritional labels and explain why to you. They will learn something useful for the next time they try to "help" a customer out.

[My flock is in my Singnature, below]

 

[cmom]

You will get a lot of different opinions, different strokes for different folks. I personally use the Purina medicated chick starter for my chicks. I hatch out a few hundred chicks every year. I'm getting ready to load my incubator up for this years hatch. When the chicks are around 8 weeks old I switch them over to Nutrena All Flock pellets which I feed to to all of the birds. The pellets are a little smaller than layer pellets. It is 20% protein which is good for their development and since their feathers are made of primarily protein. I do show my birds at poultry shows and have done well at the shows. Good luck with your chicks and have fun...

 

[cherrynberry]

I personally like Purina chick grower, 20% protein, crumble, and unmedicated. Some people like to feed medicated feed though.

 

[Brooks_]

Without knowing your location I can't see what's available to you. Based on what is available to me, Purina flock raiser. Purina, Nutrena, or Dumor starter/grower. Do you plan on medicated? That will alter your options. Be sure to check mill dates as freshness counts.

Regardless of what it's called. 18-20% protein. About 3.5% fat, 5% fiber, and 1% calcium...all +/-.

 

[U_Stormcrow]

@U_Stormcrow you peaked my interest in the ingredients listing on starter-grower.

First pic is the nature’s best organic feed. Second and third are dumor and nutrena non-organic feed. All 3 have added DL-Methionine. View attachment 3002505View attachment 3002506View attachment 3002507

Yes, and the levels are 0.3 (Organic), 0.5 DuMor, 0.34 Nutrena. 0.34 Purina Start & Grow as well..

The amount of dl-Methionine which can be added to an organic feed for chickens is limited by law, has been reduced once, and a motivated, somewhat funded, group is seeking to have it eliminated entirely fom US animal feed supplies.

The recommendations for Methionine for starting chicks? UGA Poultry Science Dept puts it at 0.5% for boilers (first three weeks), drops it to 0.45% for three weeks, then returns it to 0.5% for finishing. For layers, its 0.45% first six weeks, 0.35% thereafter.

NRC USDA says 0.5/0.38/0.32 (Broilers), same time periods 0.62 - 0.5% for high yield broilers (weekly changes), and this? well, you should read it yourself. Its a meta of various studies related to laying hen nutrition, more recent than the USDA/NRCS data.

 

[U_Stormcrow]

Thank you for the info @U_Stormcrow

That's what BYC is for!

 

[3KillerBs]

The amount of dl-Methionine which can be added to an organic feed for chickens is limited by law, has been reduced once, and a motivated, somewhat funded, group is seeking to have it eliminated entirely fom US animal feed supplies.

Activists trying to ruin stuff that they don't truly understand for everyone is one of my pet peeves.

 

[cmom]

I have used other feeds in the past that I loved but the feed store that ordered for me sold the store and the new owners don't carry my feed anymore so I now get the Nutrena from TSC. The mill that was closest to us shut down so the next closest is a few hours away.

 

[U_Stormcrow]

Follow up, if "Natural" (as the industry defines that term) is important to you, go with the Nutrena Naturewise All Flock.

I do NOT recommend Organic. Not only because the benefits of "organic" are mostly speculative, and the cost is largely prohibitive for flocks of any size, but because organic sources of Methionine are very hard to come by in the plant world - so much so that Organic feeds are allowed to add a (small) amount of synthetic methionine in their mixes (appears as dl-Methionine on the label), and generally brings the Met content up to about 0.3, sometimes as high as 0.35%.

Methionine is the most critical limiting amino acid in a chicken, responsible primarily for connective tissues and things like the digestive system. A developing bird - hatchling, juvenile, adolescent - needs more methionine than an adult bird, and a shortage of it is most damaging to them during that period. Recommends are for Met levels of 0.5 - 0.7% during those stages. Birds that don't get it never measure up to their full potential.

So whatever else it is, as a practical matter, feeding Organic from the start is handicapping your chicks for the rest of their lives - and if you don't (and check off lots of other boxes besides), you can't claim Organic for your birds.