Feeding 4-6 month old chickens: What food & common medicines?

There is really not anything you can give a chicken for pain that is over the counter. Even if there was, you would never be able to get a dosage small enough for a 3 month old chicken. You will have to take her to a vet if you think she is pain and needs medication. They are tough so as long as she is eating and drinking and active I would not be overly worried about pain. Just continue to keep the wounds clean as you have been doing. Hope this helps.

If your hen is free ranging, ie, can walk and eat wherever she likes, then she will teach her chicks to eat insects and seeds and grit and you will not need to add anything. If your chicken is in a coop and cannot take her chicks out to forage, then you need to buy either commercial baby chick starter food or feed them insects and worms and chopped greens. You can also feed them chopped boiled eggs. You can also mix finely chopped hard-boiled eggs with oatmeal ground lentils, ground maize, flax, millet. You can add worms and other insects. They will always need fresh water available.

Choose a commercial pelleted diet labeled as "all flock" or "flock raiser". This is a complete diet for most chickens. For the hen, you will need to supplement calcium, especially if she is a layer. You can offer her crushed oyster shells freely. Do not use a layer diet for both. The calcium levels would be too high for the rooster leading to potential health issues for him. The website www.backyardchickens.com is an excellent resource for information regarding the husbandry and feeding of domestic chickens.

If you are concerned about your birds getting cold you should keep them in a wind-proof enclosed shelter and provide them additional heat with a heat lamp. The feed you described is appropriate provided they are in cold weather. You should not feed corn if the temperature is above 90 degrees Fahrenheit or 32 degrees celsius.

Without knowing more about the signs that your birds are showing, it is difficult to say what is going on with them. There is a lot of overlap with infectious diseases in chickens, so many of them can look alike. The treatments for them, however, can vary, and need to be initiated by a veterinarian. I would recommend that you contact a veterinarian in your area so that s/he can do a physical exam on at least one of your birds. I was unable to find where you were located based on your zip code, as it did not give any results for the US. There are some regions which have avian diagnostic labs, and many times they have a chicken veterinarian on staff. This may be an option for you depending on your location. At home, you can try supportive care for the birds. Ensuring they have a warm place to go is crucial, so they don’t have to work as hard to keep warm (chicken body temperatures are about 102-104 F). Also make sure they have fresh water and food easily available to them, and monitor to ensure they are eating. To do this, you can feel along the bottom of their necks - this is where the crop is, and it is a pocket in their esophagus where good is stored when they eat. If you feel good in it, that is good as it indicates they are eating. If it is empty, they are not. Please do not give any human medications to your birds, as many of them can be harmful to chickens. I hope that gives you a place to start, and good luck.

These foods can be fed to poultry but they may not include all the nutrients necessary for optimum health. It is good that the potato is cooked because a raw potato can cause health issues for chickens. Depending on the type of whole grain offered they may not be getting enough protein. Usually chickens are fed a grain mixture, called scratch grains with a pellet or crumble made for the age of the bird. For example, we feed a growing ratio when developing when chickens are young or a laying ratio when the hens are old enough to lay eggs.

Hello. It is very common to see reproductive disease in chickens including salpingitis & egg yolk peritonitis. If you could bring her indoors where it is a bit cooler, feed her nutritious foods such as cornbread, cooked eggs, even a bit ( not much ) of canned cat food & see if she perks up. Many of these birds are actually in quite a bit of pain, so if there is any way to have her seen by a vet, this would be best. X-rays are often taken in these cases to evaluate the internal organs or see if she is actually egg bound. There is a lot we know about chickens, but sometimes not much we can do to save them. Hope you can have her evaluated soon. Thanks for using Petco Pet Education Center, formerly Petcoach.