Okay well I don't have answers for it all but we currently have several 11 week olds in with our adult flock and we have them all on grower. I know not the best idea per we but our big girls are also molting as well so I figured the higher protein would help them. We also have egg shell out always. We would have them on all flock but our local store only carries all flock in pellets. We tried to switch our girls to pellets last fall and they would not eat it and several of them started losing weight. So I'm not really sure how to switch. They do pretty well cleaning up the crumble mess they make but I'm sure it's still wasting some. Anyone have any suggestions on switching them over?
Also we had no luck switching them to nipple waterers. Ours were the ones with the little cup that they peck the thingy and water runs into the cup. Didn't work at all. We would let them out for free range every day and they would all go running out an drink from the pails under the spigot. Very frustrating. We finally switched them back after weeks and weeks of trying with no luck. We have considered switching them to a vertical nipple system but I don't want my flock to die of dehydration. Any suggestions on that would also be appreciated.
Now I don't think that ten week old would starve if placed on layer feed unless it couldn't eat the pellets, or it was getting bullied and not being allowed to eat.
We keep our feeders and waterers on old milk crates in the big girls' side and they very rarely get spilled or messed in. We have a couple waterers that are three gallons from last year at farm and fleet, our local one doesn't carry them anymore. This is very frustrating because the base is one solid piece which cuts down a ton on the leaking. We got a couple 5 quart dark green ones for the grow outs this year and we hate them. They don't lock shut real well but they're made in such a way that the water unless perfectly flat just runs right out the cracks where the lid locks on the base. We will not be buying any more of these.
As the feed does fall a bit under the milk crates we move their positions in the coop once or twice a week and the birds love to scratch through and clean up the mess.
We use shavings and generally clean the coop once a month depending on how it is or we will use the deep litter method and add to the shavings making it last much longer.
I hope this helps. We definitely went through the whole hanging waterer thing and find we much prefer them on a raised sturdy base. We've also used scrap wood to build bases too.
We like the shavings BC we can compost them and use them in the garden or flower beds plus the fresh shavings smell so great. And the flock gets something nice and soft to lay on(we do have silkies and a few other birds that don't generally roost I believe other than the silkies it's due to their size)
Hth.
