Hand feeding baby chickens
What to Feed Baby Chickens
Chickens 101 Nutrition Raising Baby Chicks
Kassandra Smith
Senior Editor • Backyard Chicken Coops
Last Updated: 26 June 2020
Like all newborns, baby chicks need special attention. Chicks need egg-cellent nutrition to equip them to travel the journey from chick to fully feathered adult. From down to feathers, from peeps to clucks, from an almost imperceptible nub on the top of their heads to pretty red combs, a chicken undergoes the biggest and most rapid transformation from the day they hatch up until about eight weeks old when they are almost at three quarters of their adult weight. That’s quite egg-straordinary, I know! So, what type of fuel do these amazing critters need for this awe inspiring journey? Let’s stake a “peck” and egg-splore the nutritional needs of baby chicks!
First things first, a baby chick needs access to fresh clean water at all times. Water plays a key role in a baby chick’s overall health and wellbeing by aiding most of its bodily functions. Chicks and mature chickens alike consume approximately double the amount of water as compared to feed and therefore, a lack of it can seriously affect a chick’s health.
For starters, to get a jump-start in life, chicks begin by pecking at Chick Starter! Chick Starter contains all the essential nutrients a chick needs to grow and develop into either an egg-cellent egg layer or a robust cock-a-doodler! Typically, a chick will eat a starter mix up until eight weeks old; however, many commercial brands now sell chick starter as Chick Starter/Grower and it is fed up until Point of Lay in hens or at sixteen to eighteen weeks for the young gentlemen. A great alternative to commercial chick starter is a wonderful concoction of two staple ingredients; eggs and oatmeal. Simply, hard boil some eggs, mash them up and mix with oatmeal. Although, if you are raising a large number of fuzzy little chicks, feeding commercial starter is a wise choice and is available at most farm supply centers.
As with humans, accurate nutrition in these early stages is essential to ensure your chick's growth. Even the smallest inaccuracies in these early stages could cause them serious health issues and even death. To become confident and learn all there is to know about raising healthy happy chicks into egg-laying hens, visit Chickenpedia. They have a comprehensive course that will give you step-by-step instructions at every step of the way. I highly recommend them to all my readers.
The anatomy of chick starter begins with a most necessary nutrient-protein. Next to water, protein, both plant and animal, is the second most essential nutrient for young chicks. This star body builder stimulates the growth of muscles, tissues and organs-it’s basically what makes your wee ones grow. Feel free to offer your young chicks some small worms plucked after a spring or summer shower-nature’s homemade protein! Carbohydrates, fats, and vitamins and minerals make up the rest of the cast of nutrients needed by your ever growing wee chooks.
Rest assured, though, in the fact that commercial chick starter comprises everything a baby chick needs to mature into a lovely hen or dapper rooster.
Whilst I can give you some knowledge you get you started, it's our friends over at Chickenpedia that can give you a fully comprehensive guide to raising baby chickens. They cover everything you need, from food & water to temperature and vaccinations, so you can experience all the triumphs and avoid disasters with these precious little fluffballs.
Now, let’s get down to the nitty gritty matter of offering your baby chicks grit. Do baby chicks or growing young chicks need grit? Basically, if your babies are only eating starter, then they really don’t need added grit. If however, you begin adding supplemental foods such as kitchen scraps and treats, then a little bit o’ grit is necessary to aid digestion. Grit is egg-actly what it sounds like-minute pieces of earth, stone, and sand. If you live in a nice temperate climate, and your babies are out and about much of the time, they will most likely “peck up” sufficient grit to balance out their diet.
Do you give your baby chicks shell grit? Tell us in the comments below, I would love to hear from you.
An alternative to commercial chick starter, is to simply make your own baby chicken food. Although this choice provides you with the knowledge and peace of mind that your babies are getting egg-actly and only what you put into it, it is a complex process and can be difficult attempting to purchase all the necessary ingredients and then measuring out the egg-act quantities.
There really are no guidelines as to the amount of feed to offer baby chicks. Being the “always hungry” ravenous little critters that they are, it’s just fine to keep their feeders filled and at the ready. They will peck and peck until their little bodies let them know they’ve reached their fill. Then, being the egg-spert little poopers that they are, they’ll poop it right out again. Uh, oh…time to clean the bedding, yet again! Such is the life of a chicken keeper-aren’t you the lucky clucky one! Ha Ha
Oh and… I should also mention, click here to check out Chickenpedia.
As a member, you will get access to the Ultimate Chicken Health Course. I highly recommend this to all of my readers because it has everything you didn’t know you needed to know (and lots of free guides). So, don’t wing it. Click here to check out Chickenpedia.
Sources and further reading
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How do I hand feed a new chick that was rejected? | BackYard Chickens
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- Thread starter Rickster
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Rickster
Hatching
My silky, a very young hen, got off her nest after 3 chicks hatched.
One is very small and she is ignoring it and perhaps even hurting it. I have taken it away. it is very weak and I need to know what and how to hand feed this chick for a few days until it gains some strength.
I've tried the chick starter in a syringe with water.
Help.
swedishfish
Songster
Pick her up and dip her beak in some sugar water. I like to use brown sugar. After dipping her beak, set her down to let her swallow it. Put her under a nice warm light! Hope she does okay! Is she a silkie too?
ranchhand
Rest in Peace 1956-2011
Rickster, first
!
Keep the chick at about 95 degrees, reducing by 5 degrees per week. Maybe get a small stuffed animal for company. Dip it's beak in sugar water, as swedishfish said, and try a little scrambled egg for food. Tap it, to show it how to peck at food.
Then a mash of chick starter and water, same thing, tap the food to show it how to eat.
It's going to be very lonely, and I see a potentially difficult time reintegrating it into the flock.
I wish you the best of luck!
Chirpy
Balderdash
People hatch chicks all the time and they do just great... if they are healthy. It could be that momma knows there is something wrong with this little chick and has 'naturally culled' it by ignoring it.
As stated, dip it's beak in water and then put some 'Grower' feed in with it. If it doesn't start eating you can certainly try to hand feed it as suggested above.
It will certainly be happier with another chick as company. Could you take one of the other two chicks from momma and put it with this one? My broody raised a single chick last year and it did great since it had it's momma as company.
Good luck.
swedishfish
Songster
Maybe you could put a little mirror in with it too, to get it used to seeing other chicks.
I put rubber duckies in with mine!
barbara4rb
In the Brooder
I have brought in the late hatchers several times. They spend a day or two inside, being fed yogurt+baby scratch "soup" from a dropper. I keep it warm and covered. We put uncooked rice in a baggie and nuke it. Then put a towel on it, and make alittle nest. The baby settles into the warm rice bed and covered with a towel, and it usually drifts off to sleep and is quiet. The rice stays warm for several hours. When the babies get stronger, they start pecking at the chick starter and walking well, I put them back in with the group.
Last summer I had a momma hen with around a dozen chicks and one hatched out late. She ignored it. I brought it inside, fed it, kept it warm, etc. Little thing cheeped its head off night and day. After a few days, this little one seemed stronger, and I put it back w/ group at night. It ran in and got under momma.
She killed it that night. Really hard lesson. I'm guessing momma knew something wasn't right.
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What and how to feed chickens from the first days of life: recommendations and a photo review
Everyone who decides to have fluffy lumps - chickens, hopes that he will be able to grow a strong and strong livestock.
Doing this at home is not so difficult if you approach nutrition and bird care in the right way. Unfortunately, very often the cause of the death of young animals is precisely the wrong diet. In order to prevent this from happening, you need to know what to feed the chickens, when and how to do it correctly in accordance with their age needs.
Features and rules of feeding
A chicken is essentially a child, and all children need to be fed correctly and nutritiously. To avoid possible negative consequences in the future, a balanced diet should be established literally from birth. If you are buying day old chicks from a hatchery in the market, ask how long ago they hatched and if they have been fed. Set the feeding schedule for your feathered babies. At first, they will have to be fed every 2 hours, but this is not for long, after the chickens celebrate their monthly anniversary, only 3 feedings will be enough for them.
In addition to a balanced diet, your chicks should always have clean and fresh water.
Some breeders recommend periodically soldering chickens with a weak solution of potassium permanganate. Others consider it poisonous and argue that with the slightest violation in the proportions in the process of preparing the solution, it can bring harm to the birds, not benefit.
Newly hatched chicks only
The first feeding of the chicks should take place immediately after they have dried. Nature has programmed the brain of a newborn chicken in such a way that immediately after he swallows something on his own for the first time in his life, this will start the mechanisms for the formation of the “correct” digestive system and the feeding reflex. The process of leaving the egg itself is very energy-intensive. In order to somehow compensate for these energy costs, the so-called yolk sac is provided, which will serve as a source of nutrients for the newborn for the first 10-12 hours of life.
In order not to provoke a deficiency of these same nutrients in your hatched birds, immediately offer them food.
Small corn grits are ideal for the first feeding. Scatter it simply on the floor of the cage or on the cardboard, so it will be more convenient for the chicks to peck at it. After that, take care of drinking, in the first 24 hours of life, the chicks will benefit from a 3-5% glucose solution - a powerful source of energy. It's great if you also add vitamin C there, at the rate of 10 g per 10 liters of liquid.
Day old
Many are accustomed to feeding small day old chicks hard-boiled chicken eggs. And more recently, they began to talk about the fact that it is wrong to use such food for chickens in the first days of life. The egg does not give the proper load on the chicken stomach, which interferes with the formation of the correct muscles of the gastrointestinal tract. Protein oversaturates the body of the chick with proteins, and the yolk with fats. And this, in turn, negatively affects the process of assimilation of B vitamins, which are essential for the nervous system of chickens.
Although there is a successful experience of growing chickens at home on chicken eggs, it is probably not worth neglecting the latest research in this area either. Therefore, it is still preferable to dilute corn grits for chickens on the second day of life with such cereals as wheat, barley, semolina, oatmeal or millet. Make sure that all the chicks peck at the grain.
If a chick's stomach turns out to be empty, it is better to remove it from the common cage and feed it separately until its appetite returns to normal. Recall that daily babies need to be fed every two hours (that is, more than 10 times a day). In addition to mixtures of cereals, starting from two or three days of age, finely chopped greens, cottage cheese, and wet mash are introduced into the diet of chickens.
Dairy products, a source of calcium and proteins, deserve special attention in the diet of feathered babies. In addition to cottage cheese, do not forget about kefir and yogurt.
If the chicks refuse to voluntarily consume these products, they will have to drink yogurt from a pipette. Thanks to this, the microflora of the gastrointestinal tract of your small pets will be populated with beneficial microflora. Of course, he does not forget about greenery, from the third day of life, the chickens can already eat it. Young nettles, dandelions, clover, green onions from their own garden are the best food for chicks.
Weekly
At the age of one week (7 days) we continue to feed the chickens with mixtures of cereals, herbs and cottage cheese, the consumption rate during this period is 10 grams of feed per chick. We add wet mash with the same cereals and boiled potatoes or grated carrots to the diet, red carrots are especially useful. Starting from the 6-10th day of life, you can introduce mineral supplements, such as small shells, chalk, do not forget to water the chicks. We put a container with sand - in it the chickens not only swim with pleasure, but can also peck some grains of sand.
For them, this is very useful - the esophagus is cleared and the food in the stomach is better ground.
Monthly
Three-week-old and one-month-old chicks can already spend most of their time in the pen. You can no longer chop the grass for them, as before, but hang bunches of herbs in bunches so that they can peck at the greens they like the most. You can give the birds more mash, but it's time to wean them off the "children's" cereals. For them, crushed grain is already suitable, and from the age of one and a half months and whole. Since the babies are in the stage of active growth, increase the proportion of minerals and vitamins in their feed.
Mix three-week-old chicks with meat and bone or fish meal, fish oil, pieces of sea fish. Some breeders prefer to feed their chicks with special baby food balanced for their age requirements.
Care considerations
In addition to a balanced diet, home chicks must be provided with the necessary comfort and care.
It is better to settle them in well-ventilated cages, it is not bad if it is possible to provide them with walking. The cage needs to be cleaned every day. For convenience, a newspaper is laid on the floor where day old chicks live, which is easily removed as it gets dirty with droppings. The floor in the cage where chicks older than 10 days live is covered with sawdust. So that your feathered babies do not get stressed, feed them at the same time and keep the cage at a constant temperature and sufficient light.
Wash drinkers and feeders daily, especially after wet mash. The slightest violation of sanitary conditions can lead not only to illness, but also to pestilence among young animals. Make sure that a sufficient front of feeding and watering is provided - the length of the feeders and drinkers to which the chickens have free access. Everyone should have enough space, food, drink, heat and light, then the safety of the young will be consistently high, and the adults will be healthy and active!
Chicken Nutrition and Care Video
We invite you to watch the video, which explains in detail how to ensure the correct feeding and maintenance of chickens!
- Author: Mykhailo
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How to feed chickens from the first days of life to adulthood at home?
Important factors in the choice of feed for chickens should be its completeness and nutrition, but at the same time it should be easy to digest.
Chicks need to be fed enough, there should always be food in the chick feeder. Chickens should not be given coarse, hard-to-digest food. For each age there is a special compound feed. The ration must be correct.
Must include:
- Carbohydrates. They are mostly found in grain feed. The bird consumes carbohydrates when moving, and the rest is deposited as fat.
- Protein. The most important component of chick growth.
Chicken meat itself is 20% protein. In order to provide birds with this microelement, in addition to grain, it is necessary to give boiled meat leftovers, lentils, cake. - Fats. Chicken feed is rich in fat. Separate fats should not be given, this can lead to problems with digestion.
- Vitamins. Do not forget about vitamins. Without them, normal growth and development of chickens is impossible. Insufficient amount of vitamins can lead to beriberi. Avitaminosis disrupts metabolism, and the bird becomes vulnerable to many diseases.
- Vitamin A is found in large quantities in carrots, greens, fish, and dairy products. If the chicks are in a closed space, it is necessary to include fresh grass (dandelion, quinoa) in the diet, approximately 30 grams per chick.
- Vitamin B. Found in yeast, sprouted grains.
- Vitamin D. A vitamin obtained from sunlight. Very important for the prevention of rickets, and for the formation of eggshells. The bird can be fed with fish oil (from 3 to 10 grams per day) and yeast irradiated in the sun.
- Vitamin E. It is very important in the process of metabolism. Found in legumes and wheat germ.
Contents:Display
- Healthy diet and feed intake for chickens
Chicks must have access to water at all times and be careful not to get wet or the chicks may get sick. The drinker and feeder should be located in a warm, bright place.
Week-old chicks should be given boiled water at 30 degrees, then gradually reduce the temperature, by the age of three weeks the drinking temperature should be 18 degrees.
Vitamins and amino acids can be mixed into the water of chickens, and antibiotics in case of diseases.
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Newborns
As you know, the first food for a chicken is provided in the egg .
Before hatching, he eats the rest of the yolk, so there is no particular need to immediately feed newborn babies. Let them dry and rest for a while. The first feeding should take place no later than 12-16 hours after hatching. According to statistics, the survival and viability of chicks fed in the first 16 hours is significantly higher than chickens that were not fed at all for the first day.
The optimal diet for chicks in the first week of life is every 2 hours, including at night. By the end of the week, feed should be reduced to 7-8 times a day. Make sure that the feeder is always full, rinse it with boiled water.
There are a lot of disagreements and disputes about the first food. The fact is that for many years, crushed boiled yolk was considered the optimal food after hatching. But recent discoveries have found it too fatty for the delicate stomachs of chicks. In view of this, it is now customary to consider the best first food is corn grits .
Afterwards, babies can be given hard-boiled yolk mixed with semolina (so as not to stick together), starter feed, boiled and finely chopped nettle greens. On the third - fourth day, you can diversify the diet by adding wheat and barley groats, grated boiled potatoes and carrots, chopped green onions.
Chickens should be given kefir to drink or finely crumbled cottage cheese, because chicks need calcium. Some poultry farmers mix linex or bifidumbacterin into the water of chickens to maintain the intestinal microflora.
In the first week, be sure to check the stomachs of the chicks before going to bed. Feed those who have them empty separately.
Week-old
Week-old chicks are fed with a mix of corn, barley, wheat and oatmeal (or compound feed for chickens) + grass, vegetables (potatoes and carrots) and fermented milk products. The number of feedings per day is at least 7 times. At a week old, chicks should be given a weak solution of potassium permanganate 3 times a week to prevent infections.
Two-week-old
Already grown chicks can be added to the diet of soaked bread (mixed into cereals), boiled fish. Remember to keep the food in the feeders fresh, always give the chicks as much food as they will eat at a time so that they do not trample it. Compound feed can already be slowly replaced with bran. The number of feedings of two-week-old chickens is 6-7 times a day.
Monthly
Month old chicks can already be allowed outside, so fresh greens are considered an integral part of their diet. At this age, young animals can be given a little coarse grain, and by one and a half months - whole.
We also continue to feed the birds with vegetables and vegetable waste, fermented milk products and cereals. You can give low-fat meat waste (boiled). Chicks should have a separate feeder filled with gravel, sand, or crushed eggshells.
Earthworms should not be given to chicks, even though they love them very much.
From such food, chickens can become infected with helminths and even die. Three-month-olds
From the age of three months, chicks are already switched to adult hens, but the young should be fed more densely and more often.
The main food continues to be grain, but the birds will not refuse table scraps either. It can be: bread crusts, leftover meat, fish, etc.
If young animals do not grow greenery in the pen, you need to give them fresh grass every day. Most often, hanging feeders are made for birds so that the greens do not get trampled.
For home raising chickens for beginners, it is best to use an incubator.
What is egg candling and how is it done? We talked about this in detail here.
You can find the recipe for chicken masher in our article.
Feeding considerations
Laying chicks
For the first five days of life, future laying hens are fed the same way as all chicks.
From the fifth day, you can feed dry food. Before feeding with oatmeal or barley flour, it is necessary to weed out grain films, as chickens do not digest them well. There must be feed containing proteins and vitamins (sour-milk products, herbs, yeast, carrots, coniferous and grass flour). Try to immediately accustom the bird to eating greens. This will help you avoid additional costs for vitamins and supplements in the future. After all, fresh herbs are a real pantry of vitamins.
Calcium is of particular importance for egg breeds, it is necessary for the correct formation of the shell. Feed the bird the same crushed eggshell, chalk, bone meal.
If the chicks are kept in an enclosed space, fish oil should be given to them from 5 days of age at 0.1-0.2g per chick. It is advisable to mix fish oil with crushed grains, so it will feed faster.
At the age of one month, young hens should weigh 220-270, males 290g; at three months - 970-1000 and 1150; at the age of five months - 1600-1700 and 1900.
Thus, weight should be controlled in order to select the strongest individuals. Sample rations for egg breed chicks, g per head per day, are shown in Table 2 .
Table 2
Feed Chicken age, days - 0.2 0.4 0.5 0.8 0.9 0.9 - - 4 -- 4 -- 4 - 9017A0.05 0.08 0.1 0.1 Broilers
That is why most poultry farmers prefer broilers. In two months, birds reach 1.4–1.6 kg of weight.
They are usually not grown for more than three months, because later they grow worse, and it becomes less profitable to feed broilers.
Broiler chicks are usually given little space. They should not move much, their main task is to gain weight.
After hatching, the diet of broilers is almost the same as that of laying chicks, except that broiler chicks need to be fed more protein.
Compound feed should be introduced from the second day to 20 g. For the first two weeks, pre-start compound feed is better. It contains all the necessary elements for the growth and development of broiler babies. Starting feed is suitable from 14 days, and from a month the birds are transferred to the finish feed. Be sure to read the composition of the compound feed before buying, it should contain only natural ingredients.
Vitamins A, D2 and E must be introduced into the feed from the 5th day. Taking vitamins will help to avoid many diseases, including rickets. From ten days old, chopped carrots are added to the main feed in the amount of 5 g per head per day. From two weeks, you can replace a quarter of the grain with boiled potatoes, at this age they begin to slowly give fish and meat. Do not forget about dairy products.
Number of feedings per day:
- in the 1st week - up to 8 times;
- in the 2nd - 6 times;
- in the 3rd - 4 times;
- from 1 month - 2 times.
