New chicks - what and when can I start feeding them treats?

[sugarbush]

My birds would love to freerange as well, but my neighbors like their flower beds

That is the down side of living in the city.

The OP could feed their chicks fruit scraps all they like as they are not laying for at least another 18 weeks. I was merely commenting on the link to the "treats page" that has a bunch of fruit listed. I agree that the term fruit is broad and I am sure that not all fruit has the same effect on egg production. I will try and find some ligit research on this topic.

 

[JeffKlapper]

Back to the original question: What kinds of treats are OK for very young chicks? I picked up my six yesterday - great fun.
How about lettuce for those very young chicks?

As to the fruit question that generated so much debate, maybe it's CITRUS fruit that is the problem. It is one of the don't feed items on the link provided by purecountrychicken.

 

[NWchickenLuv]

I would like to know how old chicks need to be before they can have treats, yogurt, lettus etc???

Thanks!!!

 

[MamaJohnson]

Quote:
Whoa - cool webcam! I've GOT to figure out how to do THAT!!

 

[MamaJohnson]

Quote:
Hows many birds do you have? No chicken lays every day, the average is 260 days a year so that leave 105 days a year that they are not laying.

I'm quite aware that they do not lay every day. I've been doing this for along time so I pretty much have it down. As to numbers. I spent almost the whole month of Janurary away from home. My son in law took care of the birds. This is something he does not enjoy in the slightest. It seemed to be taking a lot of time so he decided to count the birds. He stopped at 700

lol

 

[MamaJohnson]

I've been chuckling reading all the previous posts... Have to add: have friend with smaller flock (just 9 hens, and she keeps written track of their egg laying accomplishments), and she feeds them all kinds of fruits - says they LOVE strawberries, bananas, tomato, berries... really, whatever's in season or leftover after her sons swept through the kitchen. She's never seen any difference in their laying.
On that note, I didn't really see a difinitive answer in the previous posts about the original question, and thought I might ask it once again: at what (approx. OK) age can you safely start giving your baby chicks treats, and are there some that are safer or better for them than others?

 

[ilovechickens]

I asked that question awhile ago, I was first told that they had to have chick-grit to help them digest their treats, I give mine chick-grit yummy with cornmeal. They also mentioned scrambled egg yolk, oats, but to limit the treats so that they eat their grower and get the nutrition. Some give them worms Mine are going to be 2 weeks old on Friday, they also give them plain yogurt, cornbread without the crust, that is what I remember. Someone else can probably add to this. Hope that this helps a llittle

 

[sugarbush]

The problem with treats is that the chicken will eat only so much per day, the more treats they are given the less balanced feed they will eat. For the first 20 weeks or so of their lives they need all the ballanced feed they can get. May be a few treats once a week or so is fine, but if you are using up half of their daily capacity on treats a day they will be deficient and may develop defects because of it.

 

[seattlicious]

Thanks for all the replies!

To answer kristenm1975 - We have 2 Buff Orpingtons and 2 Barred Rock. The Buff Orpingtons are already pretty friendly and don't mind being pet too much and the Barred Rocks are super frisky.

We haven't quite decided on a coop design yet, but we know that we'll have it fully enclosed (there's lots of raccoons and coyotes around here, even though we live one mile from downtown Seattle).

As to the concern of feeding them too much treats - I mostly just wanted a little something special to feed them while I'm handling them so that they think of being handled in a positive way.

As to setting up a webcam, it's pretty easy - you can use the same website we used:

http://www.justin.tv/di5ide

Just start an account and they will let you set up a channel. It's free.

We just prop up our laptop which has a camera built in (or you can use a USB webcam), turn on the camera and it broadcasts.

We've had friends send text message updates about the chicks while we're out of the house. It's like remote baby sitters. I think there's a couple of friends who know our chicks better than we do

 

[cmom]

I just keep my chicks on chick starter feed for the first month. At two weeks weather permitting. I take them outside briefly and put them in a chicken tractor. I let them peck around at the ground but haven’t given them any treats. When I do give them treats or anything besides their starter feed I put out a dish of free choice baby chick granite grit, which is finer than regular grit.. Not all places carry it. Most TSC's do. I have smashed up some regular grit finer for my chicks.