Feeding your young chicks-what not to do & what to watch out for.

[wildrose41]

Thank you all for contributing to this thread and continuing it.

 

[Martine]

I had exactly the same when I started. Some idiot at the feed place told me to feed high calcium feed. Only feed layer rations when you see your first egg!
Also and this is a good idea trust me, always feed soured milk to your chicks as this makes the gut work well, eliminates toxins and gives them a balanced fat to calcium ratio as youngsters. M

 

[NewChickHere]

Hi BJ. I never saw your comment till now. Not only am I a new chicken mom I am also new to this forum and how it works. lol.

Thanks for your comment, I am glad you're having fun too. My babies just turned 3 weeks old Friday and boy have they grown. They are doing great, how are yours doing?

On topic, the thing with the dried beans for me is that when the coop is done this week and whenever they can start to forage out there by it, it is built in our field that farmers planted soybeans in last year. They harvested it over a month ago now but I know there are some out there. So I'm concerned about them finding them and eating them.

And I've heard plenty about chickens not really knowing what NOT to eat. Someone said their chickens were eating styrofoam pellets. lol. I pray they will be ok. Kim

 

[midway]

Very sorry about your loss, but thank you for a valuable thread

 

[lorain's fids]

IT WAS NOT MAREK'S!! That's the good news. Results showed visceral renal gout and uric acid (this is what was causing their paralysis) http://www.lorikeets.com/gout.htm , a high levels of Vitamin D and calcium and toxicum levels. Apparently we can only figure that their feed was the cause. I got them started on layer feed way too soon. I had no idea this would happen. I only wish now that I knew better and it would not have caused the lose of 2 little hens.

I only hope this helps out any others that may be experiencing this problem or wondering what to feed those teenage chicks or when to get them started on layer feed. Good luck. Thanks.

Another article on gout:
http://www.hyline.com/redbook/Health/Gout.html

To live, to learn, to live and learn.

Sorry for your loss. I wonder how many other people have lost chickens at a young age due to feeding the wrong food, but didnt get an necropsy done on the chicken and blamed it on a diesease instead.

 

[ignatz]

You're still only guessing that that's what actually caused the problems in the first place. Do/did you feed oyster shell? There's a huge supply of calcium and could be just as much the cause. Maybe it's something in your soil. Birds are constantly pecking and eating bits of soil, and the things growing in the soil will have what's in that soil in them. It doesn't help confirm that it was the feed doing it either since it only happened to two out of 3 and they were almost at laying age when it happened, and not until you let them out to free-range.

I've fed layer feed before to our flocks that had hens with chicks and never had a problem. That vet should have known better than to just 'guess' and give you bad ideas like that. More scientific studies should be done instead of just guessing and giving the same bad ideas to others.

 

[galanie]

You're still only guessing that that's what actually caused the problems in the first place. Do/did you feed oyster shell? There's a huge supply of calcium and could be just as much the cause. Maybe it's something in your soil. Birds are constantly pecking and eating bits of soil, and the things growing in the soil will have what's in that soil in them. It doesn't help confirm that it was the feed doing it either since it only happened to two out of 3 and they were almost at laying age when it happened, and not until you let them out to free-range.

I've fed layer feed before to our flocks that had hens with chicks and never had a problem. That vet should have known better than to just 'guess' and give you bad ideas like that. More scientific studies should be done instead of just guessing and giving the same bad ideas to others.

I disagree. What the vet "guessed" was an educated guess. You say you never had problems as far as you know with chicks eating layer food and I'm sure there are others that have too. But the proof is heavily to the favor of NOT giving them that. Yours did ok, so far as you know. Nice. I'll not do it though. I hope others don't either.