Are Jersey Giants bad eaters?

[TheSpiceGirls]

I have a 9 month old Jersey Giant and she's eating straw. I put straw in her run a few weeks ago to give her and her sisters something interesting to kick around and apparently, she's been eating it. It started to ferment in her crop. Gave her a bad, bad tummy ache and gas. So we spent the day at the vet yesterday who gave her something to help push it all through her system and today she is MUCH better. (And I raked up the straw from their run and put it into the compost bin.) And according to her x-rays, she's ingesting the sand from her house and pine shavings from her nest box.

Neither my EE or BO eat this stuff.

Are Jersey's more prone to bad eating habits? I don't see her spending as much time at the feeder as her sisters do. I'm just looking for some input from other Jersey owners. I feel awful that I caused her to have this problem. And I want to do everything I can to prevent it from happening in the future and keep her as healthy as possible.

I call her my vegetarian because if it were all up to her, she'd spend her days eating bananas, spinach, etc.

 

[Sugar Sand Farm]

I have alot of jersey giants and have never had any problems with them eating anything strange. What are you feeding her Maybe your not giving her enough protein. I always try to give my jerseys at least 20-25%.These are big birds and they need the extra protein. I supplement with black sunflower seeds,oats and sometime I add cooked hard boiled egg to their feed. I grind it up shell and all this gives them the added calicum as well. My birds are on sand as its everywhere here (hence the name Sugar Sand Farm) but I do not give them grit. I feel they get enough with the sand Try adding some additional protein to their daily feed It wont hurt your other birds either. Hope this helps its what I do for mine.

 

[TheSpiceGirls]

Quote:
Great advice. Since I brought her home, I've been giving her egg and yogurt and she's eating it up so I think you might be on to something w/ upping her protein intake.