When to start feeding regular chicken food.

[joeyfender]

I will be moving two of my chicks into the coop today. The RIR and BJG are 6 weeks old today. They have been living with 6 other chicks, 3 Ameraucaunas, and 3 buff orps. The Ameraucaunas will be moving in too as they have a lot more feathers then the buff orps who will be moving in next week. My question is about when do I feed the chicks in the coop regular chicken food instead of chick starter?

 

[Ridgerunner]

The only rule is to not feed growing chicks Layer. The Layer feed has extra calcium in it for the egg shells, but the level of calcium in it has been proven to harm growing chicks. The way I get around this is to feed all the chickens in a mixed age flock Starter, Grower, Flock Raiser, something like that, and offer oyster shell on the side. That way the ones that need the calcium for egg shells can get it and the rest won’t eat enough to harm themselves.

When they mature enough they are no longer growing chicks but I don’t know what that age is. You can switch to Layer for all of them when the young ones start to lay. Twenty weeks age is usually given as a safe age to switch even if they are not laying if you really want to go back to Layer. I generally wait longer.