Can Baby Chicks Eat Fruits and Veggies? Yes, but Starter Comes First

Yes, baby chicks can eat fruits and veggies. Just not in their first two weeks, and never as much as the old version of this page let on. I rewrote it from 13 sources, and they’re all listed at the bottom. Two are Purina’s feed tags. A hatchery and a farm store wrote one feeding guide each, and five are university extension guides. Then there’s the Merck vet manual, plus three from federal agencies. One is the CDC, and the other two are USDA’s food data and the FDA’s Bad Bug Book. Where they disagree, you’ll get each one’s answer and whose it is.

One old tip has to go before anything else. The old page told you to dust chopped treats with calcium or oyster shell powder. Please don’t. Every source here that touches calcium says too much can hurt a growing chick’s kidneys. Merck calls the damage irreversible.

The short version.

• For the first two weeks, chick starter and water only.
• After that, Cackle Hatchery’s guide allows small treats, up to a tenth of what your chicks eat by volume.
• The treats it names are greens and ripe fruit, chopped small. Pumpkin and carrot go in cooked soft and mashed.
• Once anything but starter goes in, put chick-size grit out in its own dish.
• No oyster shell and no layer feed for chicks, ever.
• Wash your hands after the brooder, every time.

Starter Is the Whole Meal at First

Chick starter is made to be everything a chick eats. Gail Damerow, who wrote Cackle Hatchery’s guide, says starter “provides all the essential nutrients for proper growth”. Then comes the line that matters most for this page. “Anything additional that you feed baby chicks will dilute these nutrients and can create nutritional imbalance.”

So keep your feeder full and let them eat. Cackle says chicks need free-choice access to starter, and “they won’t overeat”. The guides don’t agree on the exact protein, but when I lined them up, they land close together:

• Purina Start & Grow: 18 percent, on its tag.
• UF/IFAS Extension: “about 20% crude protein”.
• UC Davis with UC Cooperative Extension: approximately 20 percent.
• Cackle: 20 to 22 percent, up to 6 weeks old.

UF/IFAS adds one warning I’d tape to the feed bin. “Do not feed three-grain scratch or ground corn.” Its reason is that chicks need more protein than those grains carry (and more vitamins and minerals too). If you want the whole feed plan by age, from starter to layer, it’s on our feeding guide from chick to hen. That one’s written for Reds, but the tags it reads fit any laying breed.

When Treats Can Start (the Guides Split)

Here’s where the sources part ways, and you’ll want to know who says what before you open the treat bag.

I read Purina’s two tags side by side, and the bag is the strict end. Its Start & Grow tag says to feed it “as the sole ration” from hatch to laying age, 18 to 20 weeks. The medicated version says to feed it “continuously as the sole ration from day one until onset of egg production”. So the feed’s maker lists nothing else at all, start to finish.

Cackle’s guide is looser. It says “Feed only starter ration for at least the first two weeks”. After that, “you can start giving them treats, but only small amounts at a time”. And it caps them: no more than “10% of the chicks’ diet by volume”. Colorado State University’s extension sheet gives grown chickens the same ceiling. “Treats should make up no more than 10% of their daily diet.”

The Merck Veterinary Manual sits in between. Birds “should receive most of their diet from a balanced, nutritionally complete ration”, it says. Most, not all.

But here’s what I take from it. Two weeks of starter only is the one stretch where all of them overlap, so that’s the floor. After that, a tenth is the most any of them allows. And if you’d rather skip treats until your chicks join the flock, they lose nothing. The bag is complete without them.

What a Tenth of the Plate Really Is

You’d think there’d be one number for how much a chick eats, so your tenth would be easy to measure. I looked, and there isn’t one.

• Merck says a day-old chick eats “approximately 30–60 g (1–2 ounces) of feed per day”.
• Cackle says “about one pound of starter ration during its first eight weeks”, depending on the breed.
• The University of Kentucky’s feed table puts a dual-purpose pullet (a brown-egg breed) at about 1 pound by week 2. By week 8 it’s 5.46 pounds.

Cackle’s pound in eight weeks is less than a fifth of Kentucky’s figure (my arithmetic). So don’t work from a chart. Work from your own brooder. Fill your feeder, and see how much starter is gone 24 hours later. A tenth of that, by volume, is the most treat for the whole brooder that day.

Say your chicks go through a cup of starter a day. A cup holds 16 tablespoons, so a tenth is about 1.6 tablespoons (shared by everybody, not each).

Why so little? I ran the numbers on carrot, since it’s the one the old page started with. Purina’s starter is 18 percent protein. USDA’s FoodData Central lists raw carrot at 0.93 grams of protein per 100 grams, and 88.29 grams of water. Mix 90 parts starter with 10 parts carrot by weight, and the whole bite comes out around 16.3 percent protein. That’s my arithmetic, and it’s already about the top of Cackle’s 14 to 16 percent grower range for older pullets. Go to a fifth carrot and it drops to about 14.6. So a tenth isn’t much of a cushion. It’s about where a treat starts turning a starter bite into a grower one.

Which Fruits and Veggies the Sources Name

Only one of my sources gives an actual treat list for chicks, and it’s Cackle’s. Here’s what you’ll find on it:

• Greens, like grass or clover. Kale is on the list too.
• Ripe fruit, “chopped small”.
• Pumpkin or carrots, “cooked soft, then mashed”.
• Plain oatmeal (cook it, then let it cool), with a little starter mixed in.
• Two more that aren’t produce: eggs scrambled or boiled, then cooled and mashed, and dried mealworms, crushed.

Colorado State’s sheet, written for grown birds, adds leafy greens and vegetable peelings to the scrap pile (with a caution on potato peelings). That’s all I found in the guides.

The old page went a lot further. It said carrots help chicks’ eyes, and that bananas help their hearts. It credited cranberries with vitamin C and zucchini with magnesium. None of the sources I read says any of that about chicks, so it’s gone. It also told you to avoid broccoli and cauliflower. But Cackle’s list has kale on it, and kale is a brassica like those two. No guide I read warns against brassicas for chicks.

Not sure about something that isn’t on the list? Our Can Chickens Eat It? tool is quicker than guessing.

What Stays Out of the Brooder

Cackle’s rule for your chicks is short. Nothing seasoned, so no sugar or salt on anything. Nothing with butter or oil on it either. And clear out whatever they leave, because “moist foods in warm brooder can develop mold and bacteria”.

Of everything I read, the University of California’s guide has the longest list of foods you should keep out. It says to avoid these for chickens:

• Avocado.
• Raw beans.
• Chocolate.
• The green parts of potatoes.
• The leaves of tomato and rhubarb plants. Pepper and potato leaves too, and those of eggplant or any nightshade plant.
• Alcohol or tobacco.

Colorado State’s list overlaps it. Its sheet says no scraps that are salty or moldy, and no citrus. It also says to skip undercooked or dried beans. Onions are out, and so is rhubarb.

The two split on avocado, though. Colorado State says the skins and pits are toxic, but “The avocado flesh is fine”. UC just says avoid avocado. With chicks, I’d leave the whole thing out of the brooder.

One more fix to the old page. It said oranges and lemons (limes too) are too acidic for chicks. None of the guides gives that reason. Colorado State says no citrus without saying why. The old page also put tomatoes on its avoid list, but UC’s list names tomato leaves, not the fruit. The full list for your grown flock is on our page about what not to feed chickens.

Grit: Four Sources, Four Start Dates

Your chicks don’t have teeth. They grind food in the gizzard, and Cackle describes grit as “finely crushed granite that lodges in the gizzard and grinds fibrous foods”. UC Davis says a chicken on commercial pellets alone doesn’t need grit, because those feeds are already highly digestible. So the real question is when your chicks start eating something else.

I found four answers in four sources:

• UF/IFAS, at the very first feeding: “fine grit can be added to the feed in a 1:10 ratio”.
• UC Davis, after the first week, but only for chicks not on highly digestible pelleted feed.
• IFA’s chick guide: “Offer chick grit separate from their feed, starting around one week of age.”
• Cackle: none while it’s only starter. Once they eat “anything fibrous”, chick-size grit.

Here’s how I’d square it. Cackle says a chick on starter alone doesn’t need grit, and UC says the same of a pellet diet. The day the first green goes in, a small dish of chick grit goes in beside it, on its own the way IFA does it. Mixing it into the feed works too, by UF’s method, though a 1:10 mix means one part in eleven of the feeder is stone instead of starter (that part’s my arithmetic). Kentucky’s Jacquie Jacob notes commercial grit comes “in chick or hen size”. You want the chick size at the feed store.

Never Oyster Shell or Layer Feed for Chicks

This is the old page’s one tip that could do lasting harm. So here’s every source I read on it.

Jacob, at Kentucky, is direct. “Oyster shell should not be used as grit since it is too soft and does not aid in grinding.” Then she goes on, “growing chickens have a lower calcium requirement, and too much calcium can adversely affect their kidneys”. Further down she says growing chickens “require only 1.2% calcium in their feed”. Purina’s Start & Grow tag holds its calcium between 0.75 and 1.25 percent. Dust oyster shell on the treats and you’re adding calcium a chick’s feed was built to keep low.

Layer feed is the same problem in a bag. Merck says layer diets fed to nonlaying, growing birds can cause “irreversible renal damage” (renal means kidney), because of their high calcium (3.5 to 6 percent) and too little protein. Cackle says it in plain words: “the higher calcium content in layer ration can seriously damage young kidneys”.

So I’d keep oyster shell for your laying hens, in its own dish. Kentucky’s guide says laying hens may need ground oyster shell, offered free choice. Chicks get none. And if layer feed is in the coop for the hens, keep the chicks off it until they’re laying too.

Chop It Small, Then Wash Your Hands

Start with size. Cackle says to “Chop everything into chick-size bits to prevent choking”. Hard vegetables like pumpkin and carrot get cooked soft and mashed before they go in. Oatmeal goes in cooked and cooled.

Then wash what you’re serving. The FDA’s Bad Bug Book says to “Wash raw fruits and vegetables under running water”. That’s written for your own food, but it’s the same carrot you’d share.

And wash your own hands after. Poultry can “appear healthy and clean” and still spread germs that make people sick, the CDC says. Salmonella is the one it names for young kids. The CDC says to “Wash your hands after handling poultry”, and that covers their food and anything in their space too. It also says to keep them away from your face, so no kissing or snuggling. And if a little one wants to help with the treats, the CDC’s line is clear: “Don’t let children younger than 5 years old handle or touch chicks”.

Updated October 2026: rewritten from the sources below and checked line by line. The old version told a story about a chick named Betty grabbing a carrot, and that’s gone. So are its vitamin claims for carrots and bananas, and for cranberries or zucchini (no source I read makes them for chicks). Its advice to dust treats with calcium or oyster shell powder is reversed. Kentucky warns against extra calcium for growing birds, and so do Merck and Cackle. Its “too acidic” reason for skipping citrus is cut. Broccoli and cauliflower are off the avoid list. Its 10 to 15 percent of the meal is now Cackle’s 10 percent at most, by volume. Its fridge and freezer times and its blanched green beans are cut too, since no source I read gives them. And its AI illustrations are now real photos, each one credited under it.

Sources

• Cackle Hatchery: What to Feed Baby Chicks (Gail Damerow, 2026).
• Purina Start & Grow (the feed tag).
• Purina Start & Grow Medicated (the feed tag).
• UF/IFAS Extension: Care of Baby Chicks (Christopher DeCubellis, AN-170; reviewed November 2024).
• UC Davis and UC Cooperative Extension: Feeding Your Flock (Dr. Maurice Pitesky and Dr. Nancy Reimers, PDF).
• IFA: Starter Guide and Timeline for Raising Baby Chicks.
• Feeding Chickens for Egg Production in Small and Backyard Flocks (Dr. Jacquie Jacob, University of Kentucky, on poultry.extension.org).
• University of Kentucky Cooperative Extension: How Much Will My Chickens Eat? (Jacquie Jacob and Tony Pescatore, ASC-191).
• Merck Veterinary Manual: Management of Backyard Poultry (Yuko Sato, DVM; reviewed November 2024).
• Colorado State University Extension: Raising Poultry the Organic Way, Disease Control and Feeding (Howard Enos; reviewed August 2025).
• CDC: Backyard Poultry.
• USDA FoodData Central (Carrots, raw: SR Legacy food 170393).
• FDA: Bad Bug Book, Handbook of Foodborne Pathogenic Microorganisms and Natural Toxins (second edition, PDF).

Sources checked October 26, 2026. The tablespoons in a tenth of a cup are my arithmetic, and so are the carrot mix’s protein and the grit share. We aren’t vets. If your chicks look sick, call a vet who sees poultry.

Related read: How to Raise Chickens for Eggs — Instant PDF download. Secure checkout by Stripe