Medicated starter/ grower how long to use it?

[iluv...]

My chicks are almost 8 weeks old and I have been using medicated starter/ grower as feed for them. The manufacture's label said to use it until they are 8 weeks old, but I can I use it longer than the recommended time period? If not what should I feed them next? This is my first time raising chicks so I am a newbie in this.

 

[Fox&hen]

I had asked this same question a while back, and some people feed it until around 16wks. just before or when you get the first egg. some do it differently (sooner) from what I understand. I switched ours over at 16 wks.

 

[Mahonri]

I start mixing in grower/flockraiser at 4 weeks and then stop feeding the starter at 8 weeks.

 

[gritsar]

When my adult flock was little there was no grower type feed available around here. Our farmer's co-op (the only really local source for feed) had three types of feed - medicated starter/grower, layer feed and gamebird feed. Not wanting to put them on the gamebird feed (too high a protein for birds that I wanted to grow slowly), I kept them on the medicated starter/grower right up to the time they laid the first egg. No ill effects.

Now we have a new feed store in town. With my juvenile flock I fed medicated starter until 8 weeks, then switched them over to grower. Last week I switched them to layer feed, at 18 weeks, because I got my first egg.