Newbie and needing some help

[CandiceN]

Hi everybody! This is my first post on BYC but I've been reading for weeks. My 2 chicks (red and black sex links) are about 5 and a half weeks old. I need to go buy more food today, they are just about out of the chick starter we bought when we got them a few weeks ago. I see that people seem to have differing opinions on when to switch feeds. Should I get more of the medicated chick feed? Or switch to grower? I'm thinking one more bag of the chick feed, but wanted to ask the pros

The person I got them from said they were inoculated, but the medicated stuff was all we could find at the time... Should I try to find non-medicated at this point? There is a feed store not too far from here I can go to, I bet they'd have what I need.

We will be moving them outside in the next couple weeks, my hubby is finishing up their coop/run (using hardware cloth). I can't believe how fast they grow, they are quickly outgrowing their brooder in the basement! I just hope I can sleep at night, I know there are lots of sneaky raccoons and foxes around here :-[ I don't think I'll ever feel like my coop is secure no matter what we do!

Thanks for any replies

These are my girls, the pic was taken about 2 weeks ago and they have more than tripled in size. The black one is definitely the 'mama' hen, she's bigger and more bold than the little red one. We still have to name them, for now they are 'the girls'. We're building the coop/run big enough to get 2 more at some point.

 

[what eggs]

For what it is worth the man that owns our local feed store and has a large flock always tells me 5 to 6 weeks for medicated then switch to grower so by his parameters switching to grower now would be OK. My chicks are now 5.5wks old and my medicated bag will be done tomorrow and I intend on replacing that with the grower.
More experienced chicken keepers should be along soon to let you know what they do.

 

[CandiceN]

Thanks! I found more posts with the same type of question, so I will go from there. Should have searched the forum first, sorry about that

 

[Happy Chooks]

Welcome!

I'd keep them on the medicated feed as you don't have them outside yet. The medication (amprolium) in the feed is for cocci, which is transmitted from wild birds and is in the soil. So until your chicks have had access to the soil to build up immunity, I would keep them on the medicated feed.

I have fed chick started all the way up to point of lay when I started with chickens. Now I switch to flock raiser when they are about 8 weeks old mainly because I have chickens of varying ages together and the young ones can't have layer feed. But my chickens are on the dirt much earlier now, so they get their immunity.