New at Raising Chickens

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SouthernVAChick

SouthernVAChick

Hatching
6 Years
Dec 26, 2013
3
0
9
When do you start feeding the Laying Chicken feed? My Chickens are now 15 weeks old, I have 9 Hens and 3 Roosters "Bantam Chickens" They all get along great but do I really need 3 Roosters? I love to hear them in the morning!! My husband said we only need 1. Will they start fighting with each other if you have too many Roosters? Thanks I'm new at this
 
Hello :frow Welcome to BYC and Happy Holidays! Roosters that are raised together will generally get along (there are exceptions, ie mature game breeds may not) they will decide a pecking order and somebody will be in charge. Three roosters however may well wind up being too many for nine hens, and the hens may get over mated and even hurt, especially when the roosters are young and hormonal. I would be prepared to either place a couple of the roos, or have a separate pen for the boys.
When to start feeding Layer just depends on what you want to do, the big difference in Layer is mainly the extra calcium laying hens need to make good eggshells. Mostly you don't want to feed Layer to young chicks because the extra calcium is bad for their kidneys etc, some people don't like to feed it to roosters or non-laying birds either. Most commercial mixes say to feed after 18 weeks, but you can also wait until they start laying, or you can do what a lot of people with a mixed age flock do, just feed an all age/mixed flock type food and have oyster shell on the side, those hens that need the extra calcium will eat the shell, the others birds will leave it alone.
 
LL
 
Welcome to BYC. You can start mixing a laying ration with whatever you are now feeding gradually increasing the proportion of the laying feed - or can you can follow Kelsie's suggestion of feeding a 'flock' type feed with oyster shell on the side. 3 rooster is more than you need, 1 is probably enough, but with 2 there is a back up if something happens to one of them.
 
I've decided to go ahead and get rid of 2 more Roosters and keep the 1 Rooster. Is it still okay to feed them the Purina laying feed even if I have a Rooster is it bad for him to eat the laying Feed? Thank you for the great Advice :)
 

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