Bought 30 chicks for free range in my orchard (80x220) Built 8x8x4 pen with playpool brooder...
Chicks came in mail WOW....Supplied all necessities
and all went well WOW...On starter feed and they,
pardon the pun, eat like pigs...the question is at what age do they come off starter feed...?

I don't keep them on any specific schedule. I watch how they grow and change the feed according to how they're developing. This might not be exactly following the "books", but it has worked splendidly for me!

Hi Larry, I'll tell you what I've done with my birds, following advice here on "The Coop."

Start and Grow should be fed to the little "piglets" by the shovel full if necessary. It contains all the good stuff their rapidly growing bodies need. If you've never raised chicks before, you will be amazed at the growth that takes place in the first few weeks alone.

Make sure they have the required heat they need and all the fresh water and start and grow they can get. Don't let either run out. Birds crops aren't as big as you think and like a cow chewing cud, the crop slowly grinds the food they eat and then sends it on to the rest of the digestive system.

Laying mash or "Layana" (what I feed my layers) has harmones in it to help the birds create eggs (ovulate). Giving it to pullets before they start laying can cause them to mature early, which is not how nature intended. Just like any other female, giving birth (laying the egg) before complete maturity is detrimental to the overall health and longterm laying ability of the bird.

As long as you do not withhold feed (ever!) and wait for your first pullet eggs to start before switching to laying mash, your birds will do great.

When you do start getting the first pullet eggs, then you know the pullets are maturing and you can start adding laying mash to the start and grow. Mix 4 to 1, then half and half and 1 to 4 gradually (I usually do it over a week or so.)

I usually take the first pullet eggs and scramble them up and give them back to the birds. Because start and grow is medicated, and I don't want to eat the medicine myself, I give it back to the birds. They love it and after they've been on Layana exclusively for a week or so, then I eat the delicious eggs too!

This is the way I was taught to take care of my birds by the wonderful and knowledgeable people here on the coop (CJR, Dr. Bruce, Rokimoto) and I've not had a health issue since I started keeping chickens. If you manage your birds correctly, keeping them clean and happy, they will reward you with good health and more eggs than you'll know what to do with! Good Luck!!

Hi again Larry, I forgot to mention another possible health hazard of laying mash in young birds. Laying mash has lots of calcium for strong shells on the eggs. While this is great for laying pullets, in very young chicks it can be a real problem.

Too much calcium in young chicks can ruin the chicks kidneys. Too much calcium, kidney failure and death for the chicks. Sounds scary I know, but true, thought I should add that. Best of luck to you and your new babies!!

I agree with you, HannahH. I follow the same "process", but change it every once in a while. :)

Its worked well for me so far. However, I don't use medicated feed. Although I might run a risk of having a higher chance of disease, so far I've tried to practice good sanitary methods and my chicks haven't gotten sick yet.

Hi Josh, can you give me an example (brand name) of an unmedicated chick feed? The Purina Start and Grow is the only feed available for chicks in my area that I know of. If I knew what to ask for I might have some luck finding it. I'm like you, I keep my birds as clean as possible, at all times!

Hannah,

I buy Purina Starter/Grower that is UNmedicated! I've read that you should only give birds medicated feed if they are raised in wire cages. Otherwise, you want a slow exposure to them pecking around in their litter so they will develop immunity to coccidocis (I probably just misspelled that but I'm betting you know what I mean! LOL!). We start our chicks off with a very clean brooder and gradually wait a little longer in between cleanings. Since we start them in our house, we can't tolerate too much "yuk" so it never gets bad but they need a little exposure to the droppings gradually. The medicated feed can prevent them from building up an immunity so we feel this is necessary for our yard birds.

I also will never buy anything with hormones. I don't want it in my eggs or meat.

Susie

Just curious, what ingredient on the label of the Layena is the one that has the hormones in it? I wasn't aware that such stuff was in everyday commercial feed.

Hey HannahH,

I'll look into the brand of feed I use. I can't remember its name specifically...although I do know that the feedstore buys it in bulk and sells it in little brown bags. I'll probably have to ask them. They are a family-based business and really, really nice and VERY helpful. I've tried buying feed from a larger business but my chickens hated the food and I felt that the people who worked at this big feedstore were rude and didn't really care about their customers.

I also didn't know that there were hormones in "normal" layer feed. I know I read my feed bag's label once and was able to "de-code" it to see that the majority of the nutrients were derived from supposedly natural sources.

I'll have to look at my feed label again. I'm not too happy with feeding my girls chemicals that might be harmful. Also, my customers won't like eating eggs from un-naturaly fed hens. Hmmm...

Well tan my hide with a wet noodle! Went outside with the flashlight and pulled the labels off the start & grow and the layana.

Don't see where it says medicated anywhere. No harmones either! Now I feel horrible. I consider "The Coop" to be one of the best resources available to the novice chicken raiser, like I obviously still am. I was told about the medicine in Start and Grow and harmones in laying mash when I first got my birds. Just took it for granted that was how the feeds worked. I never looked on the bags (and took off my glasses to read the fine print) to see what was in the bags. I was concerned about the guaranteed analysis, mainly protein and calcium.

Asking questions and getting correct answers is what the coop is all about, and here I am giving out bogus info. Feel like I've let everybody down, especially the folks who've taught me so much.

I'm going to go in the corner and hide now....

Oh no, Hannah! This is how we all learn! That's the advantage to having a group like this. It offers a lot of checks and balances. I sure don't want anybody feeling like they have to know everything under the sun before posting here. We've all had different experiences and different ideas on things.

Don't feel bad!!
Hugs,
Susie

Thanks for the hug Susie, I needed it!

Ditto,
Hannah

Hannah: Don't hide! There are hormones in some meats, but it's usually beef. Many of the commercial steers are injected with hormone pellets (Ralgro, and others) so they will develop fat in the muscle like the heifers do. This makes it more tender and tasty. People have just assumed that all meat must have hormones in it. I even saw a Tyson chicken commercial which boasted that tyson chickens were "natural" because they didn't have added hormones! The problem with commercial meat chickens and caged layers (and pigs) is that they are routinely medicated to prevent bacterial diseases. When resistant bacteria develop, then getting sick from one of these birds is a real problem. This is why the egg board now cautions everyone to cook eggs hard. Salmonella resistant to common drugs is considered a real possibility in almost all commercial chickens, eggs, and turkeys.
Usually when feed is medicated, it will say so in bold letters near the top of the label, and the active ingredient will be listed next, along with the quantity per pound, or per ton. In starter feed, this is usually Amprolium, which is an antibiotic used to prevent coccidiosis in chicks.
Hannah, please don't stop posting on the Coop! You have offered lots of good help to many of us here. It's appreciated!

HannahH, please don't hide and dissapear! I think your...cool. The advice you give is great. Everyone makes a few mistakes, including me. Hey, some of the mankind's greatest discoveries were from accidents or mistakes!

Dr Bruce, are there any laws regulating what kinds of hormones and chemicals are put into chicken feed?

You people are just tooooo sweet!!! (Brings a tear to me eye!)

Dr. Bruce, I really did think layana had harmones in it and I'll tell ya why. I had read here many times about not giving layer mash to pullets because it makes them mature too fast. I've read not to give it to them till they start producing eggs on their own. That way you know their reproductive organs are mature enough.

Can you explain how the Layana will cause a bird to mature too fast? I thought it was a very small amount of estrogen (?) that helped them ovulate! Oh, and I've learned so much from you, thank you so much.

And Josh, your pretty cool too... and smart!

If you fed nothing else from day one, I would expect Layena to slow down maturity, because it does not have the protein those little growing bodies need. On the other hand, I have see bantam chicks grow under their mom's tutelage with only some starter feed for 2-3 weeks, then nothing but straight layer mash and bugs after that. They seemed to do fine, but being bantams, I wasn't expecting egg production at five months, either. The maturation rate is no doubt set by the bird's genes, so that if growth is optimum, then things happen just when they should. Leghorns begin to lay before Rocks, even if raised together. I always feed layer mash before the eggs start, usually by 2-3 weeks.
Josh: I would expect that there are some general laws concerning what can be put into feed, especially after the "mad cow" problem in Europe, but I'm not sure whether they would be state laws or federal laws. Your state's Farm Bureau office could probably connect you with someone who could answer that question for you. At your local court house you would also find a compilation of state laws, with indexes, that would be a place to look, too. Lots of times simple economics determines what is or is not put into feed. There would be no need to put hormones into chicken feed because chickens have been bred to mature early and produce heavily. Carryover into the food chain is also a concern, as with the results of feeding meat scraps and byproducts to cattle in Europe. There is also a concern about early maturation in people who eat too much hormone-fed beef.

HannahH: I know that higher protein feed makes the hens mature too quickly if fed too early in their life. That's why some people add scratch or oats to the feed to lower the amount of protein contained in it.

Dr. Bruce: I think I will ask my Farm Bureau office. I'm friends with the cooperative extension agent. He's the once who gave me my first chicken cage! I used to call him all the time to ask questions or give advice, but since I've gone to this site and met other chicken farmers I don't need to anymore.

I still remember when I wanted to join a chicken 4H club and I was the only one who wanted to start it! I was kind of dissapointed, especially since the extension agent (a different one) knew less about raising chickens than I did! Oh well...

Thanks for the good info, Dr. Bruce. So does that mean giving newly hatched chicks layana is OK and won't burn out their kidneys, (due to the calcium content?) I'm pretty sure I read that here on the coop also. I really don't go to the other boards, the way their's are set up makes my poor old 56K (that only ever connects at 24,000bps's) slow down too much. Just about everything I know about chickens I learned here from you and Jean and Rokimoto.

Thanks to you too, Josh!

Like Hannah, I don't like other boards as much as this one. Its not that I have a slow modem (although I do have a 56k) but their format isn't as "smooth" and easy to use. One reason why I like The Coop is because the question and all the replies are on one page.

I start my chicks on Chick Starter, or that's what my feed store calls them. It gives them lots of protein and helps them grow very quickly. Once they're fully feathered and are starting to look like hens I give them Triple-Duty, which is an all-purpose food for chicks, pullets, and layers. My feed store doesn't have grower feed or anything like that so this is my only choice. Once my pullets start laying I switch them to a 20% layer feed (supplemented with kitchen scraps and eggshells).

Yep, you nailed it Josh, the question and answers are all on one page. SO much easier to read!

Hannah, have you gone to the Poultry Information Exchange? The URL is www.ameraserve.com/chickens.html

If you like all your answers and replies on one page then you probably will prefer The Coop over PIE, but this message board is still intersting...sort of.

Haven't tried it, but I will. Thanks!

You're welcome...

Would like some general info on raising laying hens. I am doing this as a small home project. Bought 12 chicks. Am Feeding them medicated starter feed recommended by store I purchased the chicks. From reading other postings I have learned to switch them over to laying feed when they first start egg production. I also would like info on any diseases I should look for and their symtons. General care, like do they need worming at regular intervals after going on laying feed or any other info that would be helpful.I read that someone was feeding them egg shells. Is this part of a good feed program? I was told if they start pecking their own eggs they will
quit laying? Also any thing particular in their housing I need to know.Any inforamtion will be helpful. Is there a book I can purchase to give me the general information I need about rasing chickens?
Thanks!

Chickens are pretty rugged birds. They can tolerate most climates and seem to need moderate cover during storms. My first year, I lost all 10 chickens within 3 months. Second year, I bought 5 and have only one left now. The biggest enemy is predators. The feeding stuff and care is simple

A little side-bar
I recently discovered that feeding my hen a slice of bread with peanut butter spread is quite the treat. She pays back by laying killer eggs.

Read through the message boards for answers to most of your questions, and use the keyword function to the left of this message to search for specific topics. Eating eggs won't prompt your birds to stop laying. This usually means they need more calcium (feed oyster shells free choice) or higher protein (avoid too many treats and too much straight grain). There are a number of good poultry books, but take care to select the ones that provide the information you need. They all have their strong and weak points.