bald bottoms and swollen tummys!

[Bogtown Chick]

Shell: I did a little research. Long Standing member on BYC and a person who's had chickens 40 plus years says "feather-picking" is usually attributed to lack of animal protein--if you are feeding a plant based feed and/or boredom. It sounds like you've pretty much figured out the trigger --when they didn't have meal worms for a week (animal based protein). Hopefully a return of the meal worms or introducing a fish protein will cease and desist Bombie's new past-time.

Have you thought about setting up your own mealworm beds? They are quite easy to maintain and they just keep reproducing...so you really only need to buy live ones once. You'd always have some handy, then.... But I understand raising/caring for yet another thing....A chicken Mum's work is never done....

I think your bitter spray sounds like quite the deterrant as well. LOL. Nasty stuff, eh?

 

[Haunted55]

Shell: I did a little research. Long Standing member on BYC and a person who's had chickens 40 plus years says "feather-picking" is usually attributed to lack of animal protein--if you are feeding a plant based feed and/or boredom. It sounds like you've pretty much figured out the trigger --when they didn't have meal worms for a week (animal based protein). Hopefully a return of the meal worms or introducing a fish protein will cease and desist Bombie's new past-time.

Have you thought about setting up your own mealworm beds? They are quite easy to maintain and they just keep reproducing...so you really only need to buy live ones once. You'd always have some handy, then.... But I understand raising/caring for yet another thing....A chicken Mum's work is never done....

I think your bitter spray sounds like quite the deterrant as well. LOL. Nasty stuff, eh?

X's 2!

 

[shell3]

excellent information, thank you so much for taking the time to research for me! i had a little look myself but times something im kinda lacking right now, everything i read is backed up by your info, so im giving a scoop of mealworms to each chicken every day, also im keeping bombie in a seperate coop and run for the time being and just letting her out with the others for about 40 mins a day while i sit and watch! i read the coment about the water spray and wondered if noise would have the same effect so i let her out and everytime she looks under a hen to pluck a feather i hiss at her!lol i know its a bit mad but it does work, it stops her in her tracks and it does mean she can get some time with the others. hopefully it may help a little to break the habbit and when she has enough protein and the need is gone i hope she'll just stop this. im adding the mealworms for now but im going over a few towns tomorrow to look for a non vegetarian chicken feed, they dont do one here, only vegetarian! im not sure what animal protein the other food has, im not sure cow or pig meat is a good thing if thats what it has, i mean that wouldnt be in thier natural diet, i dont know if they do one made with insects ect?? prob not, ill have a good read of the labels and make a decision.
ill keep posted on progress and thank you all for your input xx

 

[realsis]

hi just wanted to chime in here. meal worms as gross as it is are Easy to raise. I raise my own. you simply get two cups of live worms from the pet store and they are raised in bran.you put a vegetable in every now and then for liquid. they turn to Beatles and breed lay there eggs then die. you remove the dead beetles and the eggs hatch starting the cycle again.I keep mine in a medium size clear container with a lid with air holes in it. be careful when you clean it out because you don't want to throw the eggs out.now I have a fresh supply of meal worms when ever I want them just from the container from the pet store. it saves a lot of money! my birds love them! hope this helps. its super easy to do and well worth the effort. good luck and best wishes. they have some great videos on how to raise mealworms on you tube. you should check it out.

 

[Haunted55]

Just a heads up here about raising meal worms. If you have Marek's in some of your birds and not in others, you really want to think twice and then think again. These same worms that all of our chickens love, when mature as beetles, can carry the Marek's virus. I'd love to raise them myself but with my situation and the research I've done on raising these, it wouldn't be a smart thing to do. Awful huh? It would be fine if I could be sure they never got out but with my luck....Think I'll just buy them instead.

 

[Bogtown Chick]

Wow that's the first I'd heard of mealworm beetles carrying that virus. It's sort of interesting as I thought viruses are host specific. I've never done the research Haunted so don't get me wrong...I believe you; but would be interested to see where you read that as I raise meal worms myself....and since my birds are from a farm supply I doubt they are vaccinated for Mareks. Yikes...

 

[Haunted55]

Wow that's the first I'd heard of mealworm beetles carrying that virus. It's sort of interesting as I thought viruses are host specific. I've never done the research Haunted so don't get me wrong...I believe you; but would be interested to see where you read that as I raise meal worms myself....and since my birds are from a farm supply I doubt they are vaccinated for Mareks. Yikes...

I'll see if I've still got the link. You know...it may be in the thread I started about Marek's in the Flock. I'll check and see what I can find out.

 

[Haunted55]

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15077807

 

[Haunted55]

http://www.ehow.com/about_5459666_darkling-beetle-life-cycle.html?ref=Track2&utm_source=ask

http://www.ask.com/wiki/Mealworm

 

[Haunted55]

Wow that's the first I'd heard of mealworm beetles carrying that virus. It's sort of interesting as I thought viruses are host specific. I've never done the research Haunted so don't get me wrong...I believe you; but would be interested to see where you read that as I raise meal worms myself....and since my birds are from a farm supply I doubt they are vaccinated for Mareks. Yikes...

Hey, can you imagine how I felt when I first heard this and started doing the research? OMG!!! I gave my chickens Marek's! Then I calmed down, lol, but ya know something....that thought may not be as far fetched as it seems. This is one of those posers that hits you at 2am when you can't sleep. What if, these worms were exposed to the Marek's virus through Darkling beetles and what if the process for processing them wasn't sufficient to kill the virus. Yeah, lol, my poor birds didn't get meal worms for a long, long time. Then I found one of these beetles in a bag of shavings from TS and it was still alive! The bag was totally sealed so it had to have been there from the place they make and bag.

edited for spelling, punctuation, sigh, fingers trying to keep up with my head.