misfitmorgan
Herd Master
Cornish can be lazy but ours have always eatten grass and moved around. I'm surprised they are having feather issues on chick starter, that is normally 22% protein or better. Meat crumbles are usually only 20% protein.i just finished the medicated chick starter so today they will be getting meat bird crumble. I have a turkey/gambird chick starter for the turkeys. I have been putting kale that i shred in pieces and the turkeys are right there with a look of "what you got??" I put the clump of dirt the kale has around the roots hoping to give them a worm and they don't seem interested. The chicks are too lazy to get some good food. Maybe i should put the kale in before the crumbles? When i move the run, it is quite a production since the chicks don't want to move, I am certain to squish one. The run is a bit to heavy, so i pull it with a rope hooked to the bumper on my jeep.
Since this is our first batch, we are learning and the next ones will have a box to put them into with a door so they move inside the run. The run is plenty big enough, I just have an old wooden box Dad had for firewood in the house for a coop. I have blue tarp held on with ziptiesover the whole fence area. It is truly a bonus to be able to stand up in the run.
and yep they go nuts over my rings. I went through my craft supplies and found some big fake jewels and they go nuts for them. I bought some marbles to put in there too. That seems to satisfy that urge for pecking at shiny things.
We used gamebird starter for our turkeys as well.
Heritage birds: 28% protein for 8 weeks, then 24% until 14 weeks old, now they get 16% layer.
BBB: 30% protein for 8 weeks, 22% until 14 weeks, then 20% until butcher.
I made an entire spreadsheet with feeds and type for BBB, heritage, cornish cross, Bresse chickens, heritage ducks/meat ducks. Amount of feed, butcher age, cost to raise based on current feed price, etc. I then put all the dates in my google calendar color coded and printed out the calendar pages so I could keep them in the barn.