Feeding layer feed to early question

[JULIE L CORWIN]

What would happen to chickens if fed layer feed to early. Mine will be 15 weeks old soon. I am almost out of grower feed in the bottom of the bag. Buying another large bag of feed. Seems like a waste to me. As they will change over to layer feed soon in 2 weeks. Or is it ok to finish the bag of grower feed first?

 

[AlleysChicks]

Layer is for actively laying birds. You can feed what you have until they lay. Which may be awhile with the time of year.

 

[Ol Grey Mare]

Buy and feed out the grower...switch at the next bag.

 

[Dayrel]

I'd stay away from layer until needed. The key difference is that is provides 2-3x as much calcium and generally lower protein. Too much calcium can cause physical problems in birds that don't need it, such as young pullets or roosters and higher protein is more important during growth.

I'd recommend either getting another grower bag to keep feeding a nutrient mix best for young growing birds or possibly switch to flock raiser feed which is more for mixed flocks. You can continue to use either after they start laying and just offer calcium on the side.

 

[junebuggena]

Layer feed is for active layers only. Your birds are still about a month or two from being ready to lay, which is plenty of time for them to go through a few more bags of grower. Your birds are at the age where they will be going through juvenile molts, shedding their baby feathers and growing in their adult sized feathers. At this stage, protein is just as important as it was a few months ago, when they were first starting to feather in. Most layer feeds do not have enough protein to support both the growing of those feathers and their internal development. The high levels of calcium in layer feed can also cause serious harm to the kidneys.

 

[aart]

You don't need to follow the manufacturers 'schedule' of 'labeled' nutrition.

I like to feed a flock raiser/starter/grower/finisher type feed with 20% protein crumble full time to all ages and genders, as non-layers(chicks, males and molting birds) do not need the extra calcium that is in layer feed and chicks and molters can use the extra protein. Makes life much simpler to store and distribute one type of chow that everyone can eat. I do grind up the crumbles (in the blender) for the chicks for the first week or so.

The higher protein crumble also offsets the 8% protein scratch grains and other kitchen/garden scraps I like to offer. I adjust the amounts of other feeds to get the protein levels desired with varying situations.
Calcium should be available at all times for the layers, I use oyster shell mixed with rinsed, dried, crushed chicken egg shells in a separate container. I also regularly offer digestive granite grit in the appropriate size, throw it out on the ground with the scratch. http://www.jupefeeds-sa.com/documents/GraniteGrit.pdf.

Animal protein (a freshly trapped mouse, mealworms, a little cheese - beware the salt content, meat scraps) is provided once in while and during molting and/or if I see any feather eating.

 

[Ridgerunner]

The feeding schedule on the bag was developed for the commercial hybrid layers, those are the ones the research has been done on for laying flocks because those are the people that can spend the money on research. They control when those pullets start to lay by selective breeding, manipulating lights, and some adjustment to the feed. They want to slow the start of egg laying a bit so the first eggs are a little larger which means they are worth more, plus it avoids some issues with them starting to lay really young. Those pullets are bred to lay so well that if they didn’t slow them down a lot would start to ay really young. That’s part of why many of them cut back to a 15% protein developer for a while.

Our birds aren’t bred that way or managed that way. Unless you have a special need, like show birds that need to grow bigger so you need to feed a higher protein level, you have a lot of flexibility in how you feed them. Some of that depends on your goals. Another part of it is that if your birds forage for part of their food you’ve lost the ability to micromanage every bite. Or maybe you feed them treats so they eat something other than just the feed you buy. It’s not what is in just one bite, it’s how many total grams of the various nutrients they eat in a day, and even then it’s more of an average over several days. Protein and calcium are not the only nutrients involved in this either.

There are plenty of studies out there that prove that excess calcium can damage internal organs of growing chicks. Not all chicks are damaged and how much excess calcium they eat has a big effect. If yours forage or get a lot of low calcium treats where the purchased chicken feed is a small part of their overall diet, Layer won’t be nearly as harmful as when Layer with the excess calcium is all they eat.

All this can be really confusing. There are a lot of unknowns in this. The way I avoid all these issues is to never switch to Layer. I always feed a low calcium feed to all my flock, high protein Starter when I have small chicks with the flock and a medium percent protein Grower when they are older. I offer oyster shell on the side so the ones that need the extra calcium for egg shell development can get it while the ones that don’t need it won’t eat enough to harm themselves. The ones that need it seem to instinctively know that they need to eat it.

 

[Molpet]

I also feed grower w/oyster shells on the side to everyone.. I always seem to have chicks running around.

 

[JurassicBawk]

I have quail, young bantam pullets, and laying EE hens. To avoid having to special order high protein quail food and so that I don't have to worry about the bantams getting layer feed, I feed everyone Flock Raiser with oyster shells available on the side. So far it's worked out great, and I throw in a Flock Block for extra protein during molting season, plus some mealworms as occasional treats.

 

[aart]

high protein Starter when I have small chicks with the flock and a medium percent protein Grower when they are older.

So do you keep the chicks separate until they are old enough to eat the Grower,
or maybe use a creep feeder??