raising baby chicks

[birdyrosecomb]

is it safe to feed the medicated and very high nutrition starter grower developed for broiler chicks to regular heavy breed chicks like wyandottes and barred P. Rocks?

 

[popcornpuppy]

I tried to look this up on google for you and I just couldn't find the answer. My personal opinion would be that if you are raising the rocks and wyandottes for meat, then it might be okay. If you are raising them for egg production, then they will have different nutritional needs. I have barred rocks and rhode island reds and we use them as egg layers, so we put them on the feed for that even though they are dual purpose birds and can be used for meat.
Hopefully, someone with more knowledge will post with a more definative answer.

 

[Judy]

The heavy breeds will need layer when they get to egg laying age, if this is what they are for. I don't know of any reason why the high nutrition feed would not be fine for all of them while they are babies and growing out, whatever your plans are for the heavy breeds.

 

[Ridgerunner]

I'll include a link that talks about feeding chickens. It might help answer some of your questions.

Oregon State Feeding Chickens
http://extension.oregonstate.edu/catalog/html/pnw/pnw477/#anchor1132074

I don't know the right answer but I'd think it is safe. You won't kill them. What might happen, if you are raising them for eggs, is that they will not develop exactly right for maximum egg production. With a small flock, you probably would not notice the difference, but you might wind up with a laying flock that lays a little less than you would with the regular grower. If you had an operation with 10,000 layers in a house you would probably notice, but not with a small flock. As Ddawn said, feed them layer when they are at the right age and I'd expect you to do fine.

Just my opinion. No experience with feeding broilers and with only a little science behind it.