What happens if you feed hens regular adult chicken feed at young age

[Farmer Mike S]

I split my chickens with my friend that I bought as chicks. I have them to him when they were about 8 weeks old. I give mine the advised purina starter and grower and he's given his some kind of adult chicken feed. Even though I told him not to feed them that he still does, and his chickens are a lot bigger than mine. I am wondering what the problems are going to be that he will face as a result of this, because I've heard that its bad to give the wrong protein but I don't know what will happen to his.

 

[Farmer Mike S]

They're all 15 weeks old right now by the way

 

[chfite]

I don't know that the amount of protein is a big deal, 14% vs 16%. The chickens could always eat more food to get the protein. In nature, the chickens would eat whatever is available to them. We try to promote growth or egg laying, so prepared foods should be formulated to achieve that purpose.

One consideration would be unneeded calcium in the feed for chickens that are not yet laying.

I have a flock of chickens, all New Hampshire Reds, that vary greatly in size from one to the other. It may be that he just got the big ones when you split the flock.

Chris

 

[Going Quackers]

I think that would depend on what his definition of "adult chicken feed" was, if it's layer, not good excessive calcium is bad for young birds.

As for the proteins, depends, my chickens start off on a multi purpose 18% pro feed and now my standards are on a 18% layer, so they never actually changed protein levels.