Acting 'hot' on the roost?

[KayTee]

The diptron insecticide your vet gave you contains Fipronil - the active ingredient in Frontline. I have also used Frontline spray on my girls, but the puppy / kitten version, as I have read bad reports about it affecting chickens if it is too strong or you use too much. As with many things, some people swear by it, others tell of bad experiences using it.

If you are nervous about using the diptron directly on your girls, you can still use it in the coop - as well as spraying the birds it is a good idea to spray the perch and nests when you let them out in the morning, to kill any lice that are hanging about there.

Keep an eye on them, and retreat in about 7 days (and then again 7 days later if you want to be really, really certain!)

 

[kurui]

Eggs today from all three, no sign of lice. I am however a bit concerned about their weight, and I'm feeling really guilty for never weighing them before now- they just seemed absolutely fine, so I never checked . However with all this crop observation I noticed their keel bones are really prominent- and when I weighed them it seemed like they are pretty underweight. I wonder if this is why they've been overstuffing themselves and causing crop impactions? I weighed them just before bed, too, so part of the weight was probably food in their crops rather than meat on their bones. I can try weighing them tomorrow morning to get an 'empty' weight.


Cordelia, the hen who first had the crop impaction - 1,770g
Parmazina, the hen acting hot on the roost - 1,880g
Celestine, who as of yet has no visible issues - 1,510g

They lay consistently. Parmazina lays between 58g and 70g, Celestine usually lays between 50g and 58g, and Cordelia manages a 48g-55g egg.

I'm comparing to ISA's product leaflet about ISA browns: http://www.integrazabcice.cz/en/products/isa-brown/
which says they should be 1,460g by 17wks and 2,015g by 90wks. My girls are about 35wks old, and Celestine in particular isn't much heavier than the 17week guideline! (I was pretty proud of my girls, especially Parmazina my monster egg maker, but reading that the average egg size should be 62.9g...)
Am I right to be concerned, and if so, how do I get more meat on dem bones? I've tried feeding them mashed up hard-boiled eggs, but they're not hugely interested. They absolutely love yoghurt, but I can't think of anything else I've given them that is protein-rich, and I read somewhere that chickens can't properly digest lactose... the feed I buy for them from the local chicken shop- it's probably spanish only on the packaging but I'll check. It looks like a mix of grains and a pellet of some kind. In addition they get a kind of calcium grit pellet and grit from the dry river bed by our property. They also get kitchen scraps, peelings and so on, and bunch of wild cabbage from our property which they absolutely love the flowers of but mostly ignore the leaves. Their favourite thing really does seem to be grass. Are they eating so much grass that they're not getting enough good stuff in them?

I feel like such an idiot- I just asked the chicken man what I needed feed-wise and took his word on it without checking into it myself...

Edit: I put the ingredient list of their feed through google translate.

Alfalfa
Oats
Barley flakes
Corn flakes
Wheat middlings
Carob
Calcium carbonate
Soybean oil
Sodium chloride

 

[MrsBrooke]

Chickens are pretty good at keeping themselves fed, especially given access to free-ranging.

I'm more worried about the slow crops I hear about. Forgive me if you mentioned it already, but do they have access to hay or long, stringy grass? Chickens aren't able to chew, so if they get a long piece of something, they are kinda "forced" to keep swallowing it. :/

What percent protein is the feed?

MrsB

 

[kurui]

They don't usually free range, because our property isn't fenced and there are lots of dogs, cats, birds of prey etc around so unless they're actively being watched, they get to forage in the tractor, which I wheel out onto a fresh patch of greenery every day- and then they get maybe half an hour or so of free ranging time while I sort out the tractor and the coop for their bedtime.

The crop problems began the day after I set up to do my work down in the garden so I could let them free range with a bit of supervision- they were out all day, coming over to me to say hi every once in a while but mostly just doing their thing quite contentedly. I'm almost 100% sure it was the long, new spring growth grass around the carob tree that caused Cordelia's crop problems. The girls always make a beeline for it immediately if they're allowed to free range (scratching in the leaf litter is great for finding bugs, and it's nice and shady!), and they spent a lot of time under there that day. The only other thing that happened that was out of the ordinary was that Cordelia worked out that the food I'd prepared for the chicken babies was delicious (they had some pelleted feed soaked into a mash with a little yoghurt) and pigged out on a lot of it before I realised what she was doing.

The next morning Cordelia was so unwell I honestly thought we would have to euthanise her, so I separated her from the other two and began treating her crop. I'm not entirely sure what Parmazina ate that day because I was so preoccupied with the cycle of feeding Cordelia yoghurt laced with olive oil, massaging her crop and praying she'd poop :/ but the other two were in the tractor that whole day. I kept Cordelia inside that night, and as the other two looked fine, I didn't check them for any problems. In the morning Cordelia's crop was much less full and clearly things were beginning to move, so I kept her in the coop while the other two were in the tractor again. I don't think I checked to see if there was any long grass... and it was that evening that I posted this thread, noticing Parmazina's behaviour and later her crop problems. That morning they were all completely clear of anything in their crops, so I had them all out in the tractor on ground that barely had any greenery just to be on the safe side, and I've had no further crop problems since.

I'm pretty certain Cordelia's impaction was grass,though I'd be happy to be corrected - all the poop I inspected (so glamorous, this chicken business!) had stringy grass in it, along with undigested grains. There was one kind of pebble thing too, about 4mm or so, but just the one. I'm not so sure about Parmazina, though the poop she left under the perch was absolutely huge- like, almost a tennis ball size, and that kind of green colour they get when they've been eating a lot of grass... so I suppose I just didn't check the ground I wheeled the tractor on carefully enough, or she snatched enough long grass on the way to bed from the tractor to the coop to give her some problems. She did pass it herself though and her crop was entirely empty by morning, so I'm not sure if it even counts as an impaction... call me baffled!

I'll go google translate the word for protein and see if I can find the nutritional information on the package.

 

[kurui]

...... so it seems the chicken man sold me horse feed? I translated the label using Google...

ANIMAL FEED
Legaz E-2 SADDLE HORSES WITH FLAKES

Type of Feed: Supplementary Feed
Animal species: Equidae
Age and weight: Horses from 3 months of age
How to use: Administer 3-6 kg per animal per day divided into 2 or 3 shots with good quality forage.

ANALYTICAL CONSTITUENTS:
Gross Protein 12.50%
Gross Fiber 10.62%
Gross Oils and Fats 3.97%
Gross Ashes 7.18%
Sodium 0.26%

ADDITIVES:
Vitamin A (E-672) 6000 IU / Kg
Vitamin D3 (E-671) 600 IU / Kg
Copper (cupric sulfate pentahydrate) (E-4) 5 mg / kg
Zinc (zinc oxide) (E-6) 30mg / kg
Iron (ferrous carbonate) (E-1) 20 mg / Kg
Iodine (potassium iodide) (E-2) 0.50mg / kg
Manganese (manganese sulfate monohydrate) (E-5) 20mg / kg
Selenium (sodium selenite) (E-8) 0.05mg / Kg
Cobalt (cobaltous sulfate heptahydrate) (E-3) 0.05 mg / Kg

TECHNOLOGICAL:
Sepiolite (E-562) 8 mg / kg

COMPOSITION:
Alfalfa
Oats
Barley Flakes
Cornflakes
Wheat middlings
Carob
Calcium carbonate
Soybean oil
Sodium chloride

The feed comes in bags with pictures of a pig, a rabbit, a sheep and a chicken, on. I've been feeding this to my girls since I got them in November! Is it okay? Maybe I should post in the feed/nutrition section?

 

[justplainbatty]

No! That food is not ok! Go to the Purina website and look up Flock Raiser. there you will find what should be in chicken feed. No wonder your chickens don't weigh anything! Gullinas' food not caballo!

 

[kurui]

Yeah I-- have no idea why he sold me this. I bought my chickens from him and bought feed at the same time, he knew I wanted feed for them. I'm just utterly baffled, embarrassed that I didn't check sooner, and so sorry for my poor girls. I just trusted that he knew better than I do what chickens need as it's his business... and as I'd never kept them before why would I know better than him? I just got a new bag, too. I haven't opened it yet so maybe I can return it...?
Ugh. I've totally failed my girls

 

[KayTee]

Kurui don't beat yourself up - keeping chickens is a permanent learning curve! Ask anyone who's kept chickens for 20 years or more - they will tell you that they still don't know everything there is to know!

12% protein isn't enough for the feed - it needs to be a minimum of around 17% for laying chickens. That's probably one of the reasons that your girls are a bit underweight - they should all be around the 2kg mark. You say that you have chicken babies and that Cordelia gobbled a load of their mash down - that makes sense if she was missing out on protein in her own feed. Check the label on the chick feed that you've got and if it's a good protein percentage it won't hurt to put your girls on that for a few weeks to get their weight up a bit. Give it to them as a mash with yogurt or hot water if that's how they prefer to eat it (mine seem to prefer their pellets made into a hot mash every morning). Just remember that if it's a chick feed it won't include the higher amount of calcium that your girls will need for the eggs they lay. Whilst they are on the chick feed make certain you give them access to crushed oyster shell (or crushed egg shells) in a small bowl, so that they can top up if they need to.

 

[kurui]

Oh that's a relief- yes, I have enough of the chick pellets to make mash for all of them for a couple of weeks- and I can try to find a source of better food for them while they're on it. I've been crushing up their eggshells for them since I got them, so that's good, it won't be a weird new thing for them- they also have kind of crumbly pebble things the man at the shop sold me when I asked about calcium, but given that I just discovered he sold me horse feed... I guess I'll keep feeding them yoghurt and boiled egg too to up their protein intake.

It's almost a relief to know what the problem is with regards to their weight- at least I don't need to be twisting myself in knots wondering about worms or God knows what else.

Going back to ventilation- I'm not allowed to attack the door, but I could drill some holes through the bricks on the other side to maybe create a bit of a through-draft? That way I can just fill them back in when we leave, whereas butchering the door is a bit more permanent. Do you think a few holes on the other side of the coop will make much of a difference? They have a fan in there now that seems to be helping out, though P is still sitting with her wings open. I did notice she tends to feel the heat more than the others during the day too.

 

[KayTee]

Just out of interest Kurui, whereabouts are you in Spain? I spent quite a lot of time in the far south, but unfortunately my Spanish is very limited. I tended to find that when I couldn't make myself understood shopkeepers would simply give me the first thing they laid their hands on in order to get rid of me!
However it is a bit strange that it was the guy that sold you the chickens who recommended the feed - he must have known what you wanted it for.