Pullets, Hens and Broilers: What to feed?

[Chick Li]

We have chickens and are enjoying them.

I have 4 young hens laying great, untill the little Black Cochin went broody. Two stopped for about 3-4 days, she stopped for about a week. All are laying again. I love.love my RedStar, she never stopped and the little broody hen didn't seem to phase her. She is the first out of the coop, first to lay an egg everyday 6:45am - 7:15 am, top hen of the coop and the first to bed. She sleeps in the nesting box, not roost for her. I think I might try the early up and early to bed thing and cut my web surfing back a little

Enough of that.

I get broiler chick in a week in a half. I have 12 week old pullets in the outside tractor with a container to sleep in and 4hens in the coop. (Redstar, Buff Orp, Amerecauna, Blk cochin) I figured the broilers would be in the brooder for about 3 weeks or so, then move out to the tractor and move the pullet into the coop. The pullet would be 15weeks old then. My feed store did not have the broiler chick starter, but had turkey and game bird feed. Can I use that and if not can they eat regular chick starter? Also, the pullets I still have on chick starter they are almost finished with the bag. Since they are going into the coop very soon what should I feed them. For the hens I crush up their used shells and feed back to them and give them grit. The hens get about4-5 housrs of grass time. I have started giving the pullets a little grit. I'd like to feed the hens and the pullets the same thing. I have some weeks before I want to change them to layer pellets. Please help. Grower pellets, flock raiser with vitamins, layer pellets, it all get confusing. This is my first time having chicken. I wanted to do the starter, grower, layer feed cycle, but not sure now. I think i want to consolidate with the hens and pullets. Please help. Pullets will need a new bag of feed this week. I hope that wasn't confusing, I just need to put my thought pattern down.

Thank you.

 

[BuffOrpington88]

The regular chick starter will be fine for the broilers, although their growth rate may decrease. If they are older, the pullets can have grower pellets, but most chick feeds can be used until 18 weeks. Most importantly, do not feed the pullets layer feed until they start laying. The increased calcium will hurt their kidneys.

 

[Chick Li]

Thank you for all the advice. Well, I went with getting the Nutrena Nature Wise All Flock and Chick Starter/Grower. The pullets are in the coop now and I figured it would be easier to have them all on All Flock until the pullets start laying. Once they start laying back to layer pellets. We are feeding the broilers, Chick Starter/Grower, in a week we will change them over to the the Meatbird crumble. I now have more feed containers than I intended. It will work our, because I will have 5 chicks on chick starter/grower long enough to finish off the feed in the container. They will then switch to All Flock, then again to Layer Pellets. So in the end I will have two empty containers until I get more chicks. This has been interesting learning about the chickens. The do's and don'ts.
Later.