I screwed up!! Layer feed

[hpduck]

I've made a huge screw up and I don't know if anything can be done.
background: I have three broods of chickens that I've been raising over the last few years. Group one (3 birds) is now 2 years old and have been laying great, group two (now 1 bird) I moved into the coop at 10 weeks and gave them all flock starter, so she's great.

The problem is group three (3 birds). They were born in late February and are now almost 7 months old. Due to the beautiful weather we've had, I moved them out into the coop at 7-8 weeks, once they were fully feathered. My friend (long long time chicken keeper) told me I was crazy for thinking about switching to flock raiser and to just switch them to layer feed. Trusting my friend (stupid me), I went ahead and did that and just weaned them directly from chick feed to layer feed at about 9-10 weeks old.

Now they are all laying, but two of the three are mildly stunted in growth and one of them is laying the tiniest little robin egg sized eggs (she's an easter egger). I am afraid that I have irreparably harmed my youngest girls and they will always be weirdly tiny and lay weird weeny eggs. Is there anything I can do to jump start their growth again or fix whatever it was that I completely ruined them with? They are my babies and I feel terrible about this. I don't care if whatever needs to happen messes with their egg production for a while, I just want them to heal from whatever I did.

Your help is greatly appreciated.

brood 1: Barred Rock, Speckled Sussex, Buff Orpington. brood 2: Golden Laced Wyandotte. brood 3: Cuckoo Maran, Silver Laced Wyandotte, Easter Egger.

 

[oldhenlikesdogs]

We all make mistakes, what is done is done, best you can do is learn from it, I let a chicken raise one chick in the flock and never switched back to grower, mine free range and my little chick did fine, she's now 6 years old.

I don't think you can undo anything at this point, I would continue feeding them a good quality non medicated grower starter, that would be your best move for any catching up.

All chickens start out laying small eggs, was the tiny one without a yolk, because that happens a lot, it can take a couple of months for eggs to get bigger, more normal, and more regular. It also can take about two years for chickens to finish growing and to fill out, they look like teenagers for quite a while. Don't beat yourself up so much. Your chickens are still better off than production chickens. Good luck.

 

[DanEP]

While the calcium in the layer feed was not good for birds that young the biggest problem was the low protein levels for growing birds. the reason we feed grower or all flock to young birds is they need the extra protein for growing bones and a lower protein level will slow their growth. A few years back I split a hatch of black orps with a friend and he fed his mostly scratch grains and let them free range. when I lost my birds to a feral cat I got a few of his birds and was surprised at the difference in size. with a good diet and time they finally caught up but never did get quite as big as the first ones I had but were ok. I will say that it took till they were almost a year old to do this, and they started out laying small eggs too.Just remember that ee's quite often lay smaller eggs and this may be normal for them. I have 4 ee's now and one lays large eggs at 7 months old and a 2 year old that still lays small eggs. I would put every body on all flock with oyster shell on the side and see what happens. New layers can take a while to get the laying thing down so give her some time and see what happens.

 

[hpduck]

So, you think I should switch them all back to Flock Grower with oyster shell instead of continuing to give them the Layena?

 

[DanEP]

The young girls can use the extra protein and it won't hurt the older girls at all.Trying to feed the young girls all flock and the older ones layer can be a nightmare unless you separate them and it's just easier to feed them all the same food. This is what I did and hopefully It will will work for you as well

 

[oldhenlikesdogs]

I would switch them back and probably leave them like that.