What is the ideal first food for my newly hatched baby chicks?

Baby quail will need to be fed a starter/grower mix designed for game birds. Most feed stores will carry this in addition to other poultry starter foods. Once the chicks are old enough you can then begin to feed them the same diet as their parents. You'll also want to have a heat lamp in the brooder that they can move to and away from as needed in order to better regular their temperature until their adult feathers come in.

Budgies will typically eat a portion of their own food, and then regurgitate it to the babies so it can be more easily digested by them. If the parents aren't feeding the babies, there are commercial baby bird foods available that when added to water, mix up into a slurry that is easy for the baby bird to digest (since we can't regurgitate to them!). As the babies grow and start to explore on their own, they will begin to eat the regular adult food as well.

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.

Hello, thank you for using Petco Pet Education Center, formerly Petcoach. With very small chicks, you often need to grind up further the chick crumbles that you can buy from the feed store. I put some in a ziplock bag, & roll over them with a heavy rolling pin making the crumbles even finer. Feed this in a very shallow dish, changing it frequently if they soil it. Once they are bigger, you can use a chick feeding trough. This should be available to the chicks all day long. Water needs to be supplied using a small chick waterer making sure it is fresh every day. Good luck with your little chicks.

Cuteness overload! Ducklings should be given access to enough water that they ate not going to run out. I would go to somewhere like tractor supply and pick up a water dispenser. This will help keep things sanitary. Diet wise a good chick starter feed should be sufficient unless you can find a duckling specific food. High protein at first is best like 20 percent or more. Consider adding something like brewer's yeast as well to the diet to cover additional vitamin requirements. If you end up keeping them for longer, their nutritional requirements will change.

If they are egg layers, feed a layer feed. For chickens raised for meat, feed a grower feed. Vitamins can be added to food or water. Medications should only be administered on the advice of a veterinarian who has physically examined them.

They can eat chicken feed, cracked corn, oats, groats, greens, oyster shells (crushed), mealworms, nightcrawlers, crickets, berries and carrots just to list a few items. This is by no means an all inclusive list. You can find more acceptable foods at www.backyardchickens.com.