Mixing youngsters, hens & food?

[Casii]

A year of chicken-keeping and I still have dumb questions.

LOL

So, when the time comes to mix my little girls (almost 9 weeks old and not ready to integrate yet) with the big girls, how do I handle the food situation? The big girls are on layer feed while the chicks are on crumble. Should I switch all food to crumble and trust the big girls to partake of oyster shell if they need it? Keep them separate until the little girls are almost old enought to lay? (which seems like a looooooooooooong time)

I can tell the little girls are desperate to break out and play with the big girls, but it ain't happening yet, well, until we get all our chicks in a row so to speak.

 

[gritsar]

I feed a flockraiser type feed to everybody, from my oldest roo right on down to the two week old chicks. Oyster shell on the side for the laying hens. That way, no worrying about who eats what.

Don't worry. I'm still asking questions.

 

[Casii]

Quote:
Thank you! This simple solution just rocks with me. DH was getting all flustered imagining different types of strange feeding scenarios and I was starting to catch his 'worry' gene.

 

[snowflake]

dido the above I also use flock raiser with oyster on the side