What to feed?

Maggies Pop

Songster
10 Years
Sep 23, 2009
117
1
111
Middletown (No CAL)
Our chickies are 4wks 3 days old. THey have been on chick starter since day one. How long do we feed starter and when do we start changing their diet.

I have to admit they have had some greens from the garden and little bit of yogurt. They did great, but I don't want to give them things they really cant tolerate. We asked at the feed store and got conflicting info.

What are your thoughts, what have you done?
 
With that age of chicks treats are fine, from time to time. Remember to give them a source of grit, if you give them treats (other than yogurt or scrambled eggs which don't need grit). Otherwise, without a source of grit, they won't be able to digest things like greens, scratch, etc. Chick starter is best to continue feeding them until they begin to lay or get very near to laying. They need that extra protein to develop their internal organs and grow.

With mine, I feed chick starter until the first girl laid an egg (at a little over 19 weeks old). Then I mixed chick starter with layer feed in the feeder and offered oyster shell in a free choice dish in their run. That method provided my laying girl her needed calcium while continuing the protein boost feed for the rest of the flock who hadn't laid yet and were still developing.

ETA: I forgot to mention that treats are fine, but they should be a very small percentage of their overall food intake. Like 5%, maybe? 10% max? Most of their nutrition should come from the starter feed, which has the correct balance of protein, carbs, fat, minerals, vitamins, etc.
 
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Thank you so much for your reply. What you said was pretty much along the same lines as we were thinking.

Who knew I would become so obsessed with chickens????? ROFLMAO
 

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