Crumble and grower - same feeder

[CalgaryFarmer]

I am sure I am not the first to suggest this.

I am putting crumble and grower feed in the same feeder.

I pulled the crumble to one side and poured in some grower feed. I then dug out some of the crumble in the feed trough so the grower feed was available.

Obviously the chicks will choose what they want.

Gratuitous photo of chicks. 5 weeks old.

 

[wrathsfarm]

I feed all my birds whatever the youngest needs. Multiple flocks with roosters.
I feed everyone a chick starter/grower crumbles. Last time I went to buy feed they were out of chick starter/grower so I bought All Flock pellets as my youngest are now 14 weeks old. But my birds seem to prefer the chick starter crumble better.

 

[Ridgerunner]

I am putting crumble and grower feed in the same feeder.

Grower refers to the nutritional make-up of the feed. Starter, Grower, Layer, Flock Raiser, All-Flock, and such are marketing names to help you decide which feeds are appropriate for your flock.

When the commercial operations make chicken feed they gather all of the ingredients and grind them to a powder. That is called Mash. To make Pellets they take Mash and wet it with water to make a paste and extrude that through a dye to get the pellet shapes. They flash dry that and break them off to get the pellet size. To make crumble, they partially crush pellets to get them to the consistency they want. So Mash, Crumbles, or Pellets tell you nothing about the nutritional value of the feed.

I have no idea what nutritional value that feed has after it is mixed. As long as the Crumble is not a Layer it should not harm them.

View attachment 4038842

With those wattles the chick in front is a male. You probably knew that.

 

[K0k0shka]

Yes, "crumble" only refers to the size of the particles, it's not a type of feed. So in the context of your post, it says nothing about what kind of feed it is. The only thing that matters is not to feed them layer feed that has extra calcium added, before they actually start laying. All the rest of the feeds are basically the same thing and interchangeable. Starter, grower, finisher - it doesn't matter. I feed an all flock feed (a crumble) to the whole flock year round, with calcium on the side for whoever is laying. I don't use any of the other feeds (including layer). No switching feeds or mixing feeds or worrying who eats what and when. Easy peasy.

 

[CalgaryFarmer]

Thank you. Yes, crumble and pellets is a better way to describe the feed.

Funny story. I got my golden laced wyandottes last spring. My first time. 15 as day-old chicks. Weeks later, I could not figure out which were cockerels and which were pullets. Being my first time I was looking for a group that were clearly cockerels and a group that were clearly pullets, to identify the early indicators of each group. They all looked the same. There must be 6 to 9 of one and 6 to 9 of another. I could not find those 2 groups. I don’t remember when I finally clued in, but at that point the cockerels were really showing and it was really obvious at that point. It was really late as well. It makes me laugh now. Maybe 10 or 11 weeks. I forget. Well, it turned out I had 12 cockerels and 3 pullets. I just thought the 3 pullets were slow in developing and I kept looking for those 2 different groups. Argh! The upside is I got a couple of beautiful roosters.

I have 8 that I hatched and at 5 weeks I have an idea as to some who might be a cockerel and some who might be a pullet.

 

[K0k0shka]

Thank you. Yes, crumble and pellets is a better way to describe the feed.

Funny story. I got my golden laced wyandottes last spring. My first time. 15 as day-old chicks. Weeks later, I could not figure out which were cockerels and which were pullets. Being my first time I was looking for a group that were clearly cockerels and a group that were clearly pullets, to identify the early indicators of each group. They all looked the same. There must be 6 to 9 of one and 6 to 9 of another. I could not find those 2 groups. I don’t remember when I finally clued in, but at that point the cockerels were really showing and it was really obvious at that point. It was really late as well. It makes me laugh now. Maybe 10 or 11 weeks. I forget. Well, it turned out I had 12 cockerels and 3 pullets. I just thought the 3 pullets were slow in developing and I kept looking for those 2 different groups. Argh! The upside is I got a couple of beautiful roosters.

I have 8 that I hatched and at 5 weeks I have an idea as to some who might be a cockerel and some who might be a pullet.

Each round it gets easier to tell them apart. Then after a few hatches, you'll go back to old photos of your first brood and wonder how you didn't see the obvious

 

[Al Gerhart]

Watch out for encouraging feed raking when you mix different kinds of feed in the same feeder. Not likely to be much of an issue with crumbles vs pellets but anything significantly different will cause chickens to rake out feed looking for the goodies.

 

[CalgaryFarmer]

Good point. Thank you.