New to chickens

[FarmerPatrick]

Hello, I have a few different chickens and locations I keep them. My egg birds are in a chicken tractor at my home. A full grown (donated white chicken lays light brown eggs fro me darn near daily and I recently put in 7 black hatchery egg layers in there. Here is my question: the egg layer gets egg laying ration and the pullets are still getting the starter/grower (not meat grower). I also give kitchen scraps and so far they loves bread, watermelon, cukes/peels, tomatoes, etc. So is it a) OK that the young ones are eating the scraps already? and b) having 2 types of food in their enclosure is it bad that they eat some layer but mostly their grower?

 

[redsoxs]

Hello from Kansas, FarmerPatrick and

! Glad to have you aboard. I'm certainly not a chicken nutritionist but I have read on BYC that you shouldn't give layer ration to young birds until a certain age. However, my set up when I started sounds a lot like yours - where the birds mingled and sometimes ate each other's feed. They seemed to suffer no ill effects. Still, there are many on this site who can give more detailed reasons. Best of luck to you!

 

[sumi]

Hello and welcome to BYC

It's better not to give pullets layer food until they are around 16 weeks old. The layer food contains a high percentage of calcium, which can cause organ damage in small chickens.

 

[Kevin565]

 

[weimarmama]

&

from Alabama. Glad you joined us.

 

[ChickenPeep]

From Kansas! Glad you're here.

 

[Fierlin1182]

Hi and

It's fine that your younger chickens are getting scraps. We started early with that... around 2 months
Watermelon is always a favourite.

It's recommended that you don't let the younger chickens eat layer feed.... but I reckon it's ok if they accidentally eat a bit. We could never get our chicks to stay away from the layer feed. They used to eat a little when they were younger. They were fine.

I hope you find all the info you need, and enjoy the site.

 

[4-H chicken mom]

Hi and from Ohio. So glad to have you aboard.

 

[FarmerPatrick]

Thanks all! I had somewhat of a brainstorm (or as much of one I am capable of) and changed the container the layer ration is in. My pullets are 2 months old and the one layer is full grown so I made a container that basically is just too high off the ground for them to get at. Think high sided ice cream pail but feed level not to the top so pullets cannot swivel neck over the top to get layer food (nor can they jump into/onto it and get it). This site has been key in my raising of chickens as I started at this with no experience and no one to show me anything.

 

[kidcody]

from washington state glad you joined us!