We still feed them chick food, the bag says we can feed them this for up to 16 weeks.
You can feed them chick food for their entire lives, if you want. Just put out a separate container of free-choice oyster shell when they get close to egg laying age. Chick starter is safe for all chickens of all ages, as long as you provide oyster shell as a calcium source for the ones who lay eggs.
"Layer" feed has more calcium than other chicken feeds. It should not be fed to chickens that are too young to lay eggs, because the extra calcium is bad for non-laying chickens. But laying hens can get their calcium from layer feed, or from a separate dish of oyster shell. Most chickens do a good job of eating the right amount of oyster shell for their own needs: more when they are laying, less or none before they start laying or when they take a break from laying.
The "16 weeks" on the chick starter is a rough estimate of when some pullets might be getting ready to lay eggs, if they are from breeds that mature early. Pullets of some other breeds might need another month or two, or sometimes more than that.
I read something about scratch and I have no idea what thst is.
Scratch is usually a mix of grains that can be sprinkled on the ground so the chickens "scratch" for it. Chickens usually like to eat scratch, but they do not really need it. They can be happy and healthy without it. If you want to give them a treat, they can be just as happy with some dandelion leaves or lettuce, or a dish of their regular feed with water added to make it a wet mash, or quite a few other things.
Scratch for chickens is similar to cookies for people: eating too much is bad for the health of the chicken or the person, but a little bit every now and then is fun without causing problems.
I also heard something about putting sand on the ground for them.
Sand can get used for several things.
Some people use sand in the chicken coop and/or run, and then scoop the poop each day like a giant kitty litter box. This works well for some people in some climates, but badly for some other people in different climates (or sometimes even in the same climate.) Maybe that is what was being discussed?
Grit is little rocks, that chickens swallow and then the rocks grind up food inside the chicken's gizzard. Many people buy a bag of grit and provide a dish of it, so the chickens can always get some when they want it. But if the chickens have access to sand or small gravel, they will pick up their own little rocks from there (assuming that some of the pieces are the right size). So maybe someone was talking about providing sand as a source of grit?
Sometimes chickens will take a dust bath in sand. They can also take a dust bath in dirt, and I've seen them do it with wood shavings or other bedding materials too. Someone might have talked about providing sand for chickens to use for a dust bath (I get the feeling that chickens usually like other things better than sand, but some do have different preferences than others.)
I think we still have a ways to go before eggs show up.
First eggs often show up when pullets are about 5 or 6 months old, sometimes as young as 4 months, occasionally as old as 8-12 months. Some chickens mature earlier than others, and the amount of daylight makes a difference too. Pullets that are old enough just as the days are getting short in the fall, will sometimes wait until the days get long again in the spring.
