Can my two week old chicks eat some oats?

[deltawave]

The baby chicks are growing like MUTANTS. They are now living in the barn--I commandeered one of my tractor-tire hay feeders, flipped it upside down and voila'! Chick housing. Put two heavy galvanized dog kennel panels on top to keep the varmints out. The cat lays there and just d-a-n-g-l-e-s one paw down, hoping to catch something, but the chicks are no dummies! :lol:

Question--they are ravenous little buggers; can I give them some hulled oats to eat at this stage? Is it too early to give them grit if I add something besides their chick growth feed?

[Carol Ames]

See if you can get them some "scratch", have no idea what that is:confused:, but, my chicken raising friends all feed it along with fresh water:yes:.

[slc2]

baby chicken feed is best

[Calvincrowe]

Mine are 4 weeks old (Australorps and Delawares), and are HUGE. My dear little mother has them in her kitchen in a lawn mower box, but they are coming home to my spare stall tomorrow. I created a cat-proof (fingers crossed!) pen using pallets, garden fencing and bird netting. I feed mine only chick starter at this stage, augmented with weeds/grass/green stuff that they are terrified of until one brave little Delaware steps up to attack.

I'd hold off on anything else for them to eat, yours are a bit young yet. Although, apparently, my mother (who is 80 and has raised layers for decades), tells me she tosses my girls cantaloupe rinds and pizza crusts and they gobble them up, so who am I to say?:lol:

[feather river]

you should be feeding them chick starter. Read the directions. In fact go to http://www.mcmurrayhatchery.com/ and check with them on what you should feed and for how long. I get all my birds from them.

[tikidoc]

Just starter feed is recommended for the first 8 weeks.

Two references that we use frequently are:

"Storey's Guide to Raising Chickens: Care / Feeding / Facilities" by Gail Damerow

and

"Chickens In Your Backyard: A Beginner's Guide" by Rick and Gail Luttmann

You can pick them up used on Amazon for about $10 each and both are well worth having on hand.

[LAZ]

Mine are 4 weeks+ old and I feed them green stuff, hay, and they had some grapes yesterday (which they thought were GREAT) in addition to their chick feed and grit. They've also grown like mutants and can now get up onto the perches in their coop! They are a bit bigger than a pidgeon now.

I'm comtemplating letting them out in their chicken yard today for the first time, it's sunny and nice.

[hoops04]

we fed our chicks our horse sweet feed since they hatched and they are all fine! although im sure its not recomended they were all fine! so i would think they would be fine!

[Auventera Two]

We always fed ours dry oatmeal mixed with chick starter from a few days after they hatch. If they were with a momma hen, she'd be showing them all sorts of bugs, flower heads, and seeds to eat. But I agree that chick starter should be the bulk of the diet if you want them to grow fast and healthy.

[deltawave]

I have all of those books, and of course I am feeding them chick starter. Neither book addresses whether or not a very young chick can eat "extras". But judging how they devoured a couple of past-their-prime strawberries, and the handful of oats, I'd say they're ready for something more than just chick starter. Just for a treat, a means of making them see me as the All Benevolent Provider, and for entertainment value! :D

[Tiempo]

I've been wondering the same thing..my week old Cuckoo Marans chicks are in the only place I have available to brood..the bathtub :eek:

Everyday, take them out, take out the poopy old towel, clean tub, shower, dry out tub, replace clean old towel, replace chicks.

It's getting old already :no: :lol:

[subk]

One of our chicks at a week old had a condition referred to as "pasty bottom" in our books. The survival rate once they get it is very low, but the recommendation was to feed her oats in addition to the starter--as in Quaker oatmeal out of the round box that's in my pantry for oatmeal raisin cookies kind of oats. We did switch to plain rolled oats that a friend feeds her horses and gave us a couple scoops. All the kids loved it so we fed it as a treat out of our hands. The doomed chick recovered. So I can't imagine as long as they are getting their starter that oats in addition is a problem. Of course these are our first chicks so taking my advise comes with some risk! :wink:

[JSwan]

As subk already noted - it's ok to give them oats. A mash is actually recommended for chicks with pasty bottoms.

Yesterday I cut the grass and put some clippings into my brooder, along with some chick grit. The chicks went nuts. Running around, flapping, scratching through the clippings - and voila. One them found a little bug. Then all hell broke loose. The other chicks chased him trying to get the bug out of his beak.

But their main source of nutrition should always be the chick starter - especially heavy breeds. Otherwise they'll develop problems like rickets, stunted/delayed growth, etc. Anything else would be for entertainment or for prevention/treatment of a condition.

I got the grass clippings suggestion from another BB - last year my chicks started picking on each other and someone said they might be bored. I made a hill out of clippings and they played king of the mountain for a long time. It also seemed to encourage them to scratch and engage in other natural behaviors.

This year I ordered 50 chicks. Unfortunately, they became chilled during transport and when I got them home, it took a long time for them to warm up under the lamps. I gave them a bit of sugar water and kept one waterer with plain water, and one with the sugar water. All except one recovered - but some developed pasty bottoms. I was saddened to lose one chick the first day...an Australorp. Just couldn't save him.

[Catersun]

I've been wondering the same thing..my week old Cuckoo Marans chicks are in the only place I have available to brood..the bathtub :eek:

Everyday, take them out, take out the poopy old towel, clean tub, shower, dry out tub, replace clean old towel, replace chicks.

It's getting old already :no: :lol:

I've missed reading your posts since you got the farmette.
Glad to hear you have chicks! Although it sounds like you need a better system.

My chicks have been in a chicken tractor since they were 3 weeks old, and are doing just fine on all the bugs, grass and chickfeed they care for. they are 5 1/2 weeks old now... tossed them some cantaloupe the other day, they kinda looked at me like I had lost my mind. and then shortly it was gone ;-)

[Calvincrowe]

I add all sorts of yummy weeds (they love vetch and clover), with the dirt still attached, sure breaks up the monotony. I hadn't heard of adding oats--what a great idea. I almost lost an Australorp to "pasty bottom", but careful application of warm water to the affected parts (eesh!) and removal of the obstruction seemed to do the trick.

I am really worried about my cat getting into the barn and attacking the girls, they are robin sized right now, and I hope I've made it impossible for my two boy cats to get into the barn...but they are pretty, well, catty.

I may run home at break and check on them. My "mother hen-ness" coming out!:lol:

[ReSomething]

This year I ordered 50 chicks. Unfortunately, they became chilled during transport and when I got them home, it took a long time for them to warm up under the lamps. . . . . . .


This can be a big problem. We've had large orders of chicks die of temperature related stress during shipment. Depending on from where you order your chicks they can spend as many as 14 hours in one truck, just going from hub to hub, and the backs of those trucks will get over 100 degrees easily in the summertime, and ambient temperature in the winter, as low as 10 degrees here. Depending on the hatchery and the employees handling them during transport you run a risk buying them outside of spring. Granted the hatcheries will refund and sometimes replace it is still inhumane, plus you get a box of dead chicks you have to dispose of.
The USPS ships most of them and you can sometimes make the trip to the postal hub, usually a big city, and reduce the last bit of stress by picking them up (as well as making your local postal people happier, they are awful smelly).
Adult fowl are supposed to go via Expre$$ Mail in special containers and fly to their destinations.

To get back on topic here, I give mine Cheerios and "stuff" to supplement their feed, it keeps them out of trouble. The Future Fryers are rapidly outgrowing their space and starting to pick fights, the ladies are out in a movable hoop coop with attached roofed range area (to keep the hawks off). The ladies are happy. DH has to do something for the FF's soon.