The truth about fatty liver disease?

[Brizi]

I saw some people discussing fatty liver disease on Facebook, and there was someone who claimed a few things that confused me. I'd like to know what you guys think.

1. More than 16% protein is bad unless the flock is molting.
2. Corn shouldn't be the first or second ingredient because it is high-energy.
3. Too many fatty treats are bad.

My thoughts:

1. I don't see how the amount of protein has much of anything to do with fatty liver disease. In fact, I thought 18-20% protein was the recommended level?
2. If a diet is balanced properly, why would corn as the first or second ingredient be a bad thing? What does being a high-energy ingredient even entail?
3. I totally understand how feeding too many fatty treat could be bad. However, how much fat would be too much fat in a main feed?

 

[Sally PB]

@U_Stormcrow, this is right your alley.

 

[EggSighted4Life]

Great questions!

I'm gonna give a reply to, when I get my second hand free.. from my recovering surgery pup. Hopefully this post will make it esay to find the thread again.

Anyone know how to turn my spell check back on?

 

[U_Stormcrow]

Wait, there's a spell check???
TY for the reminder of why I never go to FB for information, excepting what books my friends are reading, and what movies they may be watching. Sometimes, funny memes.

The FB poster is woefully misinformed.

1. 16% (typically, "Layer" formulations) were designed to provide the minimally necessary nutrition for commercial laying hens under commercial management conditions, and commercially expected lifespans (that is, until first adult molt) below which losses in egg production, quality and hen mortality exceeded savings in feed costs. While the benefits reported in studies of higher protein feeds are generally pretty small (slight increases in frequency of lay, egg size, egg nutrition, feed efficiency, growth rate, chicken mortality, average duration of molt), the ONLY downside is cost. Unless you are at commercial scale, and need to deal with the potential of excess nitrogen in waste - in which case, you are concerned with "ideal" protein, meaning a discussion of amino acids, potential chemical supplimentation with synthetic aminos, and similar. If you are prepared to have that conversation, we can talk about how the EU's layer formulation is synthetic supplimented 14 or 15% total crude protein, but with a differing AA profile.

2. Poster has already demonstrated his ignorance of poultry feed science. It is very easy to formulate a low cost poultry feed with corn as the first ingredient, because the cost savings associated with use of large quantities of corn can then be used to purchase small amounts of more nutrient dense ingredients of higher cost (like soy). Yes, corn is a low value ingredient nutritionally, but its of average lows, easily compensated for, not grossly deficient, as some ingredients. Can you make a high quality feed starting with wheat? ABSOLUTELY. Sorghum? Its not done here, but plenty of countries produce adequate sorghum based feeds. Even rice. Making feed is a balancing act - how you balance (including mKe or metabolizable Kintic Energy or Calories, or however you want to count it) is not as important as that you balance.
I poke at corn all the time. Routinely refer to it as "filler" - but in a well balanced feed, its filler that serves an important purpose. Mostly I poke at corn when people feeding a bare minimum (nutritionally) feed who clearly know nothing then decide to practice feed science by throwing a bunch more corn at their birds in the form of "scratch".

3. Its complicated. A feed CAN be balanced for high fat, low carb - much like a human diet from certian geographic and ethnic groups, like the Inuit. HOWEVER, to know if a feed has been balanced for that purpose, you need to know its mKe/kg or a similar measure of total useful energy content - and that isn't printed on most feed labels. Without that guidance, the recommend is to seek a feed with fat levels of about 3.5%+/-. 1% higher for waterfowl (ducks, etc). Cx (Cornish Cross, Supermarket birds, "frankenchicken" are briefly feed feeds at 7-8% typically to fatten for market weight, and we all know both what their insides look like AND that they aren't intended for long life.)

Hope that provides some useful guidance. Thank you for coming here and asking.

Feel free to link my comment above in response to the FB post so others might benefit.

 

[Brizi]

-

Thank you so much for the detailed response. I really appreciate the information being laid out this way.

The original Facebook post was about a person's chicken who died of fatty liver disease. The person admitted to feeding way too many treats on a daily basis, but then also mentioned swapping to a lower protein corn-free diet. A different person then commented saying that's exactly the right thing to do, but didn't explain why.

The food I plan on feeding year-round is Tucker Milling Show Flock Developer. It's got 20% protein, 4% fat, 4% fiber, 1.2% lysine and 0.55% met. The first ingredient is ground corn. I wanted to check here and make sure I wasn't making the wrong decision. I do have other options, but they're nearly twice as expensive.

 

[U_Stormcrow]

Thank you so much for the detailed response. I really appreciate the information being laid out this way.

The original Facebook post was about a person's chicken who died of fatty liver disease. The person admitted to feeding way too many treats on a daily basis, but then also mentioned swapping to a lower protein corn-free diet. A different person then commented saying that's exactly the right thing to do, but didn't explain why.

The food I plan on feeding year-round is Tucker Milling Show Flock Developer. It's got 20% protein, 4% fat, 4% fiber, 1.2% lysine and 0.55% met. The first ingredient is ground corn. I wanted to check here and make sure I wasn't making the wrong decision. I do have other options, but they're nearly twice as expensive.

I've used Tucker Milling before. Was satisfied, not thrilled (for reference, I'd say the same of Nutrena's NatureWise). You must be geographically close to me, its only sold in a few states. Nothing about TuckerMilling's products that I have seen raised my eyebrows any - even the price wasn't horrific - though I was looking at (and then purchasing) their non GMO for one of my buyers, the six or seven of their product line whose tags I inspected revealed they inderstand what they are doing, and make an effort at doing it right.

The responding poster (I hope) was suggesting that cutting out the treats was exactly the right thing to do. Plenty of people seem to over-treat their birds.

 

[RoyalChick]

Fatty live disease is a complicated disease related to manufacture of fat in the liver.
I am too tired to look up all the references now, but the worst thing would be a high calorie but low fat diet because the liver would have to turn all the calories into fat and that is what causes the problem rather than dietary fat
I don’t recall reading anything about protein related to fatty liver disease.
However I do recall low levels of exercise being a problem. So letting the chickens out to forage is a good mitigation.

 

[Brizi]

I've used Tucker Milling before. Was satisfied, not thrilled (for reference, I'd say the same of Nutrena's NatureWise). You must be geographically close to me, its only sold in a few states. Nothing about TuckerMilling's products that I have seen raised my eyebrows any - even the price wasn't horrific - though I was looking at (and then purchasing) their non GMO for one of my buyers, the six or seven of their product line whose tags I inspected revealed they inderstand what they are doing, and make an effort at doing it right.

The responding poster (I hope) was suggesting that cutting out the treats was exactly the right thing to do. Plenty of people seem to over-treat their birds.

I live in northern Alabama. Tucker Milling Show Flock varieties are $19/50 lbs here, which is pretty great compared to Tractor Supply feeds!

I attached a file of exactly what was said, personal info redacted of course.

 

[U_Stormcrow]

I live in northern Alabama. Tucker Milling Show Flock varieties are $19/50 lbs here, which is pretty great compared to Tractor Supply feeds!

I attached a file of exactly what was said, personal info redacted of course.

Yeah, they are sadly misinformed.

 

[U_Stormcrow]

Fatty live disease is a complicated disease related to manufacture of fat in the liver.
I am too tired to look up all the references now, but the worst thing would be a high calorie but low fat diet because the liver would have to turn all the calories into fat and that is what causes the problem rather than dietary fat
I don’t recall reading anything about protein related to fatty liver disease.
However I do recall low levels of exercise being a problem. So letting the chickens out to forage is a good mitigation.

There aren't many (re: protein) - I'm unsure why the belief is as widespread as it is. The one stuff I can routinely find, at need, used something like 40% protein feed to induce problems in the chickens. You aren't going to find 40% protein chicken feed on the shelves. If youc ould find it, the cost would be prohibitive.

Ultimately, the biggest problem with Fatty Liver Hemmhorhagic is that its descriptive, not diagnostic - like observing your hair falling out. Yes, you can see it happening, but nothing about it happening tells you WHY its happening.

OTOH, there any many other studies finding FLH as a symptom in birds fed high fat diets, "high fat" being a relatively low fat ratio. Clinical presentations are more often associated with birds getting high fat or high carb diets - often both, which can make finding a root cause more difficult. Its a complicated pathology, with environmental, and a likely genetic component as well.