What age to feed?

[Tropical Chickies]

Hi, everyone! I am knew to the chicken thing and just came across this forum not too long ago. My question is at what age can you start to give other food or treats (Besides chick starter) to chickens?

Mine are between 5-7 weeks old.

Also, should I start feeding grit and should it be mixed into their feed or fed in a separate feeder?

Thanks in advance!!

 

[MissPrissy]

Mine start off with yogurt the first week.

 

[e2eglobal8]

I think when chick donot want any support from his mother for taking food..... That time the chick can able to eat his own food, the chiks are normally takes 1 or 2 days from his mother to take food........

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Steve

Georgia Alcohol Addiction Treatment

 

[gritsar]

Hi FLchick and welcome to the forum.
Yogurt can be given as early as the first week. It's a fine nutritional supplement. Make sure it's plain, low fat yogurt; not the fruity kind.
After that you can start to add other simple, wholesome foods, but always in small amounts. They need to be eating their starter/grower feed for proper nutrition.
Add grit when your chicks start to eat anything besides their starter and yogurt.
Here's a link to the treats chart to help you get started:
https://www.backyardchickens.com/web/viewblog.php?id=2593-Treats_Chart

 

[Tropical Chickies]

Thank you all so much for the info. It was very much appreciated. I tried the yogurt as suggested and the chickens didn't even bother trying it. I even dipped beaks into it and nothing. Picky I guess!

 

[gritsar]

When you introduce new foods, like yogurt, you're gonna need to leave it in there with them for awhile. Finally one of the brave ones will take a peck and the others see the brave one eating and decide it's okay. Chickens are very much "monkey see, monkey do".

 

[beakkeeper]

Just don't feed them fruit before they lay, because that can delay laying for up to 8 wk. i've heard!

 

[thepetpaw]

I have 6 day old chicks and gave them meal worms already - Oh my goodness - they went crazy....I give them some every morning for that extra boost of protien and now when they see me coming to the cage - they all try to fly and get to my hand first. I put the meal worms in my hand and they all run over and eat them from my open hand. They run around like crazy with the worms in their mouths and some play tug of war with them but I also have a few smart ones who stay perched on my hand a gobble as many as they can!
I also have hatched a few chicks recently and they ate meal worms as early as 3 days old! they love them!!!!

 

[thepetpaw]

Miss Prissy - should I give the chicks some grit also if they are already eating mealworms...I give the meal worms to my week old chciks and week old keets...?

 

[chickenfever]

Quote:
Try sprinkling some chick starter on top of the yogurt, that way they know it's food. This is what I did. The first time I did this all they did was eat the chick starter off of the yogurt, but the next time I did this they were trying to eat around the starter to get to the yogurt.