Our 6 Buckeye chicks seem to be doing well, but, those darn things don’t recognize anything but chick starter as food. I keep trying to mix in other things, let ‘em get hungry, etc., even bread crumbs they ignore. The only thing NOT Chick Starter they’ve eaten in 3 weeks is some little pieces of cut up red grapes, and a little scratch grain. I’ve never seen this problem! The 6 ISA Browns that preceded them (and are doing very well) would eat almost anything that we gave them.
BTW, tho’ they may not kill rodents, these ISA Browns are very nice birds. Although I know they can fly well enough, they don’t try to fly out of the fenced in area we sometimes leave them in. They will fly up to the top of the chicken house (higher than the fence) but seem content to stay inside the fence. All in all, they seem to be very friendly, “manageable” birds. Hopefully they’ll crank out some eggs in another month or so, tho’ I expect low production at first due to it being winter.
I don’t remember what the packaging said, but I think I’ve fed Chick Started to hens longer than 3 weeks? Can’t remember. And, yes. Egg production goes hand in hand with hours of daylight. I used to compensate for that by buying Buff Orpingtons and other breeds that lay through winter months.
We also had electricity to our coop, so we had shop lights in there and kept them on all the time once Fall hit, and I also had a radio going on Talk Radio and that helped somewhat with predators as they heard human voices and stayed away.
However, my chickens were very opinionated and quoted Rush Limbaugh to me all the time. ;)