Newbie error! Have we harmed our young ones?

[pdirt]

The nice lady who gave us these birds must have thought we knew about feed. We have two 12-week olds and the others are about 10 months old. We didn't know any better and have been feeding them all layer feed. I just pulled the feed and will go get a bag of starter or grower feed tomorrow and have a separate container of ground up eggshells. We have only had them for 5 days...do you think we have harmed our two younger birds (cuckoo marans)? Thanks!

 

[brahmabreeder]

They probably weren't damaged too badly since they aren't really that young and were only on it a few days. I think the biggest issue with feeding them layer feed is too much calcium.

 

[appps]

. I'm not sure I'd be encouraging egg shell eating, I'd be tempted to just buy some shell grit.

As for the feed two things. Change will probably give them diareah for a few days unless you do a 50:50 mix for a few days before going onto the grower 100%

And 5 days isn't likely to have hurt them. We bought 10 week olds that the breeder had had on layer pellets. What we found was one had problems standing for too long and when I googled I found the high calcium could cause rickets symptoms.

We switched back to pullet grower and after about two weeks it seemed to get back to normal.

If you aren't seeing signs of problems like that yet you should be fine.

 

[pdirt]

Thanks for the responses. I realize now the younger ones are actually now about 13 weeks and no, we haven't seen any problems physically. Will get some oyster shell grit and change the feed 50:50.

I've been reading on this site and others that many people just do starter feed and supplement with calcium for their mixed flocks. We will also be getting about 15 chicks in a couple weeks. From what I can tell, the main difference between starter/grower/layer feeds is that the starter has more protein than the other two and the layer has extra calcium. Though our chickens are not meat birds, we do plan to eat them at some point. What is the reason for the different feeds(other than the extra calcium for the layers)? It doesn't seem like extra protein would hurt the older birds any and my hunch is that it is simply a cost issue?

Thanks again for helping out a newbie!

 

[appps]

I don't know how correct it is but I tried to find an answer to that as well and basically it seems the higher protien encourages faster growth and weight gain. The thought was that keeping them on chick starter could mean their bodies develop too quickly causing problems later. I don't know how true.

I'm about to mix my flicks next week and think ill just do the same and give all grower with shell grit on the side.