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- #41
That's what I'd do. I've given both feeds when converting chicks to ff and they've always chosen ff but I've only switched over chicks that were 2 and 6 weeks old and never CX. Honestly, I just don't think they could figure out how to eat it or maybe they didn't realize it was food. Once I put crumbles on it, they figured it out but by that time they were 2 days behind. Maybe if I had left it more soupy so they could drink it I would've had better results, I don't know. I'm just surprised I didn't lose any. I would offer both and let them choose. What really helped was putting a scoop of ff on a tupperware lid and then surrounding it with crumbles; they'd eat the crumbles then move on to the ff like a trail of bread crumbs lol. They've been bred for generations to eat crumbles so maybe their adaptive instincts are nonexistent.Given the slow growth at the beginning and the huddling under the heat lamp during the first week (or 2) I'm wondering if it would make sense to either:
- start the birds on dry crumble with ACV in the water OR
- give them a choice of dry or fermented for the first week (or 2)
Once the chicks have that strong initial start, switch to all FF.
I've got another batch coming - maybe that'll be my experiment.