Raising Chicks? Choosing the Right Chicken Feeder is Easy - by Solway Feeders

The spring season is almost here and you may be thinking about the best way to raise chicks into strong adult hens. If you have just started keeping hens, you may have bought them as adults or Point of Lay (POL), this is an ideal introduction but eventually you may progress to buying in chicks (which is cheaper than POL) or rearing them from eggs.

The feeding requirements for chicks differ from full size birds and therefore the poultry feeders you need will also be different. Looking through magazines and the internet will show you a bewildering variety of feeders in various shapes, sizes and construction, however choosing the correct feeder doesn’t have to be difficult.

Day old chicks will nearly always be reared indoors so there will be no need for all weather feeders with rain guards or waterproof lids, this will probably halve the number of feeders to choose from. The next decision will now be down to your personal preferences.

Very young chicks will seldom need a chicken feeder that holds more than a kilo of feed so simple plastic trays or small plastic feeders are normally used for the first few days. Once past this stage, larger chick feeders will be required.

Chick feeders will be built either from plastic or metal (usually galvanised), plastic feeders are cheaper to buy but galvanised feeders offer a longer lifespan and can work out cheaper in the long run.

The size of the feeder is not critical however chick feed is quite fine so smaller feeders with a capacity of between 0.5kg and 6kg are all that is needed, some feeders such as the Blenheim Feeder have feet that can be removed to feed chicks and then replaced as the birds grow.

It is definitely worth the small extra cost of the correct chick feed, which has a properly balanced composition to ensure your new stock has all the required vitamins, minerals and essential nutrients to grow into healthy adult birds for egg or meat production or just for general pets.

Feeders sometimes come with a scratch ring or scratch guard, this is a feature that stops the chicks from scratching feed out of the trough, this can save money as the feed is not spoiled by the chicks walking all over the spillage it is also more hygienic as the chicks eat the clean feed straight from the trough.

An alternative to the tube type feeders is the feed trough; these are normally a simple rectangular design that can also incorporate some form of anti-scratching device, which are also available to buy.

If your chicks can easily access the feed and there is sufficient feed for all the chicks then you shouldn’t have any problems, just remember that hygiene is all important at this stage and that feeders should be cleaned and disinfected on a regular basis. Once the chicks have put on weight and have started to mature then its time then to think about moving onto adult feed and feeders.