Ohiki Chicken Thread

[Boggy Bottom Bantams]

yep you can do that for sure, if you see something that makes your flock better diet wise, by all means stick with it. Mine like the fish food, plus I do a ton of offshore fishing, and save a lot of the scraps for them, slightly cooked down and crumbled up for them, they love it. But the mainstay of it is normal chicken feed

 

[Treatsrule]

Technically it's not a corn issue, that's just the most commonly used feed, so people just call it a corn problem.
The real problem is Gluten. The birds of Japanese origin were not raised on it, so never developed a way for their system to process it. Over time, 1.5- 2 years on a gluten based diet, it just builds up in their systems til it kills them. Here's the kicker, aside from brown rice ( Japan) all grain is a source of gluten pretty much. SO to have a gluten free diet for them you have to completely make it from scratch yourself for the most part. Just about every bagged feed is going to have it in it from the use of grains to make it.

Ongagdori are especially sensitive to this. Good thing with the American lines of ohiki is the work Toni-Marie did with them in the beginning. By doing the out cross work to add new blood into the weak lines and basically save the breed here, it also added the ability to process gluten. So long story short, or maybe too late for that, the American lines of ohiki for the most part do not have an issue with this any more. Some do still monitor what they feed, but for the most part it's no longer needed on stock we have access to. I give mine normal bagged chicken feed, so do most other breeders with them, and so far all mine are just as fine as can be. Now I dont intentionally feed strain corn or grains to them, but the main percentage of bagged feed is grain based.

If you do want to go the gluten free way, a fish based protein diet is always a good route for them or onagadori.

Hope that helped a little

Thank you, yes, that helps a lot and I appreciate you taking the time to share the long story. You have put my mind at ease.

I've been giving them sprouts and fodder and wanted to start fermenting some grains for them which got me looking more closely at what grains they had in their diet. I had thought that sprouts and fodder greatly lessened the amount of gluten from the grain, but now I'm reading that actually isn't the case and started worrying, again, about how many sources of gluten I was actually feeding them.

 

[Treatsrule]

I haven't looked into finding a fish chow to give the birds. What brands are people using to add to their rations?

I've been giving them Ultrakibble because it contains fish and salmon meal.

 

[tandersphoenix]

A very TINY Shojo Ohiki hen, she has just started laying so can't wait to get some chicks out of her!

 

[Treatsrule]

Adorable!

 

[onagadori]

A very TINY Shojo Ohiki hen, she has just started laying so can't wait to get some chicks out of her!

She is a beauty for sure.. I have a silver one like this one that is just too sweet.

 

[Boggy Bottom Bantams]

I haven't looked into finding a fish chow to give the birds. What brands are people using to add to their rations?

I've been giving them Ultrakibble because it contains fish and salmon meal.

I just use Purina Catfish Chow

 

[Boggy Bottom Bantams]

A very TINY Shojo Ohiki hen, she has just started laying so can't wait to get some chicks out of her!

she is a little knot aint she. Got a few hens like that now too, like Amanda all silver stuff on mine though. I really like the hand sized ones though.

 

[OhikiPL]

Hello and greetings from Polish.
How do they bring to you ohiki?
Here in Poland poorly.

 

[OhikiPL]