Y'all probably know this, but as a newbie, I didn't.... so thought I'd share. Went to a different feed store than I usually do because this one had Ag. Food Grade DE. Anyway, I asked about scratch for later since they are still young. He said, well,l we have chick scratch if you want. So, I got some and they love it. It is cut in very, very small pieces. This way, I can give them some in their run to peck at all day, but it should not detract from them eating their real food. Anyway, I had no idea to ask for "chick scratch". Ellie
No one in this entire three-state area has ever heard of chick scratch, although I had heard it existed. Guess it doesn't matter because I don't feed my birds scratch till they are maybe 12 weeks old and with the Big Girls. I bet they do love it!
Mine will be 9 weeks old this week so I hope it is not too early. I just give them (10 of them) about two cups scattered in the run. I can hold off if it will harm them. I just feel sorry for them with only dirt to scratch at all day. Ellie
A little bit won't hurt them; I didn't mean that. I know what you mean about when they seem not to have anything to occupy themselves with and seem so entertained by new foods, etc.
I never heard of chick scratch until I started shopping at a feed store in my area that I've never been to before that carries it. All it is is regular scratch ground into very small peices so it's "bite size" for chicks. The feed store sells it under the Nutrena brand. I like to have treats to hand feed my chicks in order to get them tamed down, but sometimes it was hard to find treats that they could handle, so I was really happy to find this. I hand feed it 1x a day to chicks under 4 weeks and 2x a day to chicks 4-12 weeks. I don't give them a lot; just enough for them to come to me and peck around for a few minutes. If a person is the industrious type, I bet one could make their own chick scratch using regular scratch and grinding it down in a coffee grinder or spice mill.
I didn't know they had chick scratch either-and my DH works in a feed mill. Yours are lucky! Mine just got their food thrown around for them to scratch at.
I suspect scratch feed is one of those things that is subject to local interpretation. I see people warning about scratch being dangerous because of the corn content, but the scratch feed we buy here is almost 80 per cent milo, with the rest being wheat and cracked corn. I am curious as to what the mix is in other areas? I suspect in some areas there is more corn. Rufus
I would say most scratch feed in my area is 50-80% corn. I did, however, find a great 5-grain scratch that has almost no corn at all and 13% protein. It would not be suitable for youngsters, though, I'd say.
Ours seems to be a lot of corn, quite a bit of wheat and a really tiny bit of small size black oil sunflower seed.