Hello All!! I have a quick question....right now my babies are 5 weeks old...and they have to have food available all the time, correct? I keep their feeder and waterer full all the time. Should I feed them only once a day when they get to a certain age? Or should they have food available at all times at all ages? Right now they are on Starter and they get to go outside during the day with supervision. They love to eat bugs, grass and dirt?. They don't seem to eat as much of the crumbles when they go outside. This is just for future reference...they are just babies now.
How often you feed adults is up to you, but I think the majority of folks just go with the free choice (always provide water). Chicks need food and water available all the time.
We use Free Choice here. The birds can come and eat as they please. And also we have a seperate little bowl for Oyster Shell and Grit which are two important supplements you should provide your birds once they are 16 weeks +++. Hope that helps!
I had fully intended to feed free choice, but just realized that the coop that is being built for us has a small house and the food is in the run portion. We only have 8 bantams, so this is more than enough room for us . During the day, they would be free choice, or free ranging if I am home, but at night they would be in the house with no food/water. I know that it is better for the chicks lower on the pecking order to be able to access food and water when the more dominant chicks are roosting, but being that we have the above coop, is this a problem? Or should we put just the chick water/food into the hen house to provide a bit of food but not be the main feeder?
Having the set up like the one above would be fine to have food and water out all the time. Mine is kind of like that but my run is much larger. They don't have food and water in their direct house, just in the covered run area and they do great.