Am I doing right?

[Snadger]

I have seven chooklets which are 20 days old. They have been fed on chick crumb up til now but sometime they are going to have to be weaned onto big girls food.

Although the majority of what i am feeding them now is still chick crumb, I have added mixed corn, grit and growers pellets in with it to a small degree..........am I doing right, or is it too early?

[di]

When we got ours (if I remember correctly) they were 8 weeks old & they were still on chick crumb.I think we made the switch over to Growers pellets when they were about 14 weeks old.
Don't know if we did it the officially correct way,but they were fine & still are!

[Nicos]

Here's what I found....

Chick Feed | Chick Crumb | Chick Food | Chick Feeding

Mine are on crumb in the mornings until allowed out to free-range ( after M Reynard has gone to bed..hopefully)
I throw out porridge oats,crushed corn and raisins during the day to call them back and my chicks( same sort of age as yours Snadge) eat all but the raisins( cos they're too big!)

Growers pellets next??...hmm- not sure I'll bother with them free ranging.

Local peeps give youngsters boiled spud peelings- and leave them to it until they finally end up in the pot!!!

[MaureenHall]

Mine are between 8 and 11 days. I started off giving them wet chick crumb now they're having it dry. I also added a tiny bit of chopped parsley and put in a little cabbage leaf. They've either chewed it or scratched it to pieces I was thinking that when this bag of chick crumb is finished, I'll get some growers pellets and crush them up a bit with some mixed corn and seeds. Hopefully by then they'll be able to go out into the garden in a huge dog-cage so they can scratch around a bit. Isn't it amazing that even at this early age they scratch around just like grown-ups

Thanks for that link Nicos, it's really useful

[chicken slave]

For LS I would change food at about 4-6 weeks depending on there size, mine went to crumb and growers at about 4 weeks and by the time they were 6 weeks they were eating the pellets and leaving the crumb. Mix the crumb and growers together and let them lead the way.

[Snadger]

Wifes been giving them porridge oats and they love it! Tried them with dandelion leaves and PSB leaflets (not too much as I luuurve PSB!)

They've had a bit nibble at each......which is fine!

Just cleaned them out and moved them to the garage this evening......so I'm missing having them chirp in my ear when I'm on the puter......not missing the smell though!

They still have the heatlamp although it's generally a lot colder in the garage. No chance of any rats getting them (not that i think there are rats in the garage!) as I've got mesh over the front of there brooder with a hinged door!

[KimT]

The chicks need to be on chick crumbs until 8 wks old then onto growers and at 16 wks they go onto layers pellets or mash.

They will love the corn.