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Kelp's known to bring non-layers into lay. Will be interesting to see if it does with her, if you give us an update sometime; but no pressure.
It can be an issue to supplement a 'nutritionally complete' diet, but I'm not sure what the ratios are in your 'nutritionally balanced' diet. It would probably be worth looking into daily nutritional maximum levels of vitamins and minerals and trace elements etc to make sure you don't overdose them on anything.
I've seen some pics of the wild fowl chickens are descended from and some of them do get pale faces when not in breeding condition, but these were all in captivity, so I'm not sure if that's why; but I've never seen a pale face in adult domestic poultry that wasn't a sign of deficiency. But then again I'm not an expert on breeds.
If all her family line have the same paleness, it could be diet or it could be genetic. If it is the diet, kelp will correct it, but if it persists after a while of kelp supplementation then it's familial, and then it remains to see if it's just coloration due to genotype or coloration due to congenital heart conditions. Many animals as well as humans carry on despite heart insufficiency or failure, seeming to be healthy. It's certainly not the happiest thing to have to weed out an entire family tree from your flock, but if they're just pets you're saved that issue. I'm still clearing out some bad genes from generations back. Sneaky things they can be! And such a shame when it's found in some otherwise great birds.
Best wishes with your flock.
Interestingly, the hen's face is more pinkish today, including her wattles and comb. She is back with the flock, being very active. So, we'll see how she fares. I am going to harvest kelp from a nearby beach and dry it for use. Some folks eat the kelp themselves here, so it probably is fine for chooks.
I keep the labels from my feed sacks. Being that it's going toward winter here in the Northern Hemisphere, I begin to taper off the layer feed (though I provide ground oyster shell in a separate tub for pullets and hens still in lay) and put the flock on a maintenance feed (the label recommends it for show birds and general flock maintenance). It has a lower percentage of protein than the other feeds, which (in my opinion) contain too much protein for mature birds. As I use the same feed for all the chickens, ducks and geese,both female and male, I have to aim toward the mid-point in protein content to avoid over-feeding of protein.
Here are some (not all) of the contents of the feed pellets: ground corn and soybean meal; grain by-products; the full spectrum of necessary amino acids, vitamins and macro- and micro- minerals (e.g. phosphate, calcium, vitamin D3, K, A, folic acid, choline, lysine, manganese, selenium, etc., etc. -- too many to list, but you know what the full B complex and other required nutrients are.); 4 species of fermentation bacilli; yeast, mineral oil, "roughage products"; vegetable oil (I hope not hydrolized or partially-hydrogenated...). The various versions of the feed range in protein content from 13% to 22%, the latter being for the chick starter and grower feeds.
The "guaranteed analysis" of nutrients for the various feeds indicates the percentages/ratios of protein, lysine, methionine, crude fat and fiber, calcium, phosphorus, salt (minimum and maximum range), vitamin A and vitamin E, but not for the other nutrients. These ratios vary with the type of feed (starter, grower, layer, maintenance, etc.).
This is a long-standing flock. I have Nankin bantams from a bloodline I introduced in 2002. Other bantam breeds I keep are more recent. Some of my birds are 7, 8 and 9 years old now, all native to my barn, and I've had bantams live 10 years or longer. My waterfowl also range in age from 4 to 13 years.They have overall been healthy and long-lived, so I figure that their diet is not an issue. More trouble has come from diseases borne by wild birds and varmints -- almost impossible to keep out of the barn and run -- and from accidental introduction of disease-carrying fowl years ago. Live and learn.
The other problem is lack of sufficient breeding stock. Nankins are fairly rare and it's difficult to get new birds. Mine have been line-bred from limited stock for too long, and probably recessive genes with bad traits are showing up more in each new generation. This year I brought in some new stock as chicks, but they turned out to be less than ideal, so I am in a quandary as to how to refresh the gene pool.
Anyway, I really appreciate your and Eggcessive's help and insights, and I will incorporate your dietary recommendations. I figure that anything I can do to reduce stress on the flock, may help even though they likely have some genetic and congenital strikes against them.
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