When to buy chicken scratch?

[Jajika]

At one week you don't need to worry about other food for a while. Keep feeding them chick starter for about six weeks. Then you can mix it with a good commercial hen food. Domesticated chickens need a well balanced diet just like humans. Be sure they get good hen/layer food, some scratch, but not too much, fruits, veggies and oyster shell.

Of course, fresh water always.

 

[hausrx]

I was told to keep chicks on STARTER / GROWER for 8 weeks, but to introduce SCRATCH at 5 weeks, & add MESH or CRACKED CORN @ 6 weeks old,

 

[cgoodloe]

My chicks are only 1 week old. How old should they be before I offer them treats?

You can offer them mealy worms from the store right away or a BabyBlock chick block thing (prefered for the first month). These dried mealy worm things go down easy and not sure if you need chick grit with them but mine are 5 weeks and they fight over the wormies when I toss some in there. Mine love tomatoes too.

I also offer sunflower kernels. My girls always love those the best but offer grit if you feed those.

In any case, think of it this way.....chicks born outside to laying hens untouched by people don't have a monitor for their food. What do they eat if they are naturally born outside? They eat whatever their little beaks can find so don't worry so much about when to feed this or that. Just make sure they have grit if you feed them anything that doesn't dissolve down with water.

 

[mcm]

Sorry to change the subject, but I was wondering if anyone out there has a trick on sexing a English Bantam chick? My banty hen has hatched out her first of two eggs from fellow hens, Rhode Island Red or Buff (they are the contributors) I want to get another banty chick to put under "Momma" to raise along with her other chicks. I did this last year and ended up with a Bantam rooster. He does not care to have anything to do with Momma. He is sooo frustrated with his- fallen in love with a Delaware mix hen and he is too short for her, haha
I was trying to get him a mate his size but am afraid of getting another rooster. Our farm stores only carry the mix bantams, no sexed
chicks. Any trick to knowing the sex?

 

[debid]

Sorry to change the subject, but I was wondering if anyone out there has a trick on sexing a English Bantam chick? My banty hen has hatched out her first of two eggs from fellow hens, Rhode Island Red or Buff (they are the contributors) I want to get another banty chick to put under "Momma" to raise along with her other chicks. I did this last year and ended up with a Bantam rooster. He does not care to have anything to do with Momma. He is sooo frustrated with his- fallen in love with a Delaware mix hen and he is too short for her, haha
I was trying to get him a mate his size but am afraid of getting another rooster. Our farm stores only carry the mix bantams, no sexed
chicks. Any trick to knowing the sex? 

Buy grown pullets, get sexed bantam pullet chicks from My Pet Chicken, or get several straight run chicks and re-home the males as soon as they are old enough to tell. There aren't any tricks to sexing young chicks although if you search, you'll find a number of methods that people swear by. Of course, in practice, a coin flip will do just as well.

 

[erniemcmurray]

please dont feed chickens any thing that is chicken. canabilism. !

 

[Dawna]

I found my chickens eating the cats food. So now, I keep it in a quart size container with a lid and shake it and call chickie, chickie and they come running from where ever they are. Some time I just shake the can and the noise gets them running. Fun to watch them running. They love cat food. That makes it easy for me to get them back into their pen when I want them there. I scatter scratch on the ground around their pen and they work at that for quite a while. Also, I feed them the other suggestions that have come up here. I cut watermelon rinds up so more than one chicken can eat them, I have a few very BOSSY hens!

 

[AussieHens96]

please dont feed chickens any thing that is chicken. canabilism. !

Did that once by accident when girls were being given scraps, they didn't seem to mind

 

[1girl2chicks]

Did that once by accident when girls were being given scraps, they didn't seem to mind

haha

 

[dclovrek]

its a treat. use sparingly. try to limit corn during hot weather.