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

[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...

 

[BLG0617]

I liked the Kalmbach starter feed when we had chicks.

 

[U_Stormcrow]

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 know Nutrena is never at the top of my lists of recommends. This is NOT because its a "bad" feed. I've used it myself, and been very satisfied with the results. It is, in fact, one of the better feeds out there at a reasonable price point, with reasonable availability. The reason it tends to fall so "low" on my lists is because there are (in my view) slightly nutritionally superior feeds at a somewhat better price point at the same farm store.

I don't use any of them currently, being fortunate enough to have a local mill. But if I was still buying at TSC, and they were out of the others, I'd have no reservations whatsoever about buying the Nutrena AF, nor did I before I'd looked so deep into poultry nutrition. My birds just eat too much each month to be buying 40# bags. A $2/per bag change in price, and it would move higher up my lists.

 

[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.

 

[chfriedmam]

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...

I'm jumping on here just to ask you about this, since you are obviously experienced. I've settled on a starter, but I'll be there again sometime soon, and I just kind of want to gain some knowledge here. I just have backyard chickens, <20. Purina start and grow is I think about 18% protein, and flock raiser is 20%. We have dual purpose birds, but we've never eaten them. When it comes to that point we give them to someone who wants them and they are stew meat by then anyway. But maybe we would eat them at some point in the future. But the hatchery I've gotten chicks from recommends 20% protein. Do you think it matters?

 

[RuffIedFeathers]

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.

I know this is an older thread. Do you know/remember the sources for this (that a shortage of methionine as a chick limits their potential as adults). I believe you, I'm just interested in reading more about it. Thank you!

 

[Rurumo]

I know this is an older thread. Do you know/remember the sources for this (that a shortage of methionine as a chick limits their potential as adults). I believe you, I'm just interested in reading more about it. Thank you!

This article delves into the addition of synthetic methionine and lysine (the two limiting amino acids) in organic diets, some good information about methionine here: https://eorganic.org/node/7902

 

[U_Stormcrow]

I know this is an older thread. Do you know/remember the sources for this (that a shortage of methionine as a chick limits their potential as adults). I believe you, I'm just interested in reading more about it. Thank you!

Most of my links can be found in other threads, but sure. AA levels overall (this is a metastudy gathering other studies of laying hens), and here are the old NRC numbers


Then you can get into the weeds, where I like to read.
1975, Broilers
1978, before Met was easilly measured on its own
2005, here's one
2013, Immune Response
2016, Broilers
2020, Meat birds
2020, Immune response
2021, Met levels and considerations for heat stress

You can't throw a rock without hitting a study on the effects of Met deficiency, even in 2022
Lots of others. Happy reading!

 

[U_Stormcrow]

Or you can just keyword things like Methionine and Pullet

Brazilian Study
This from 1965
2003, Broilers

etc.