Buff eating a lot but super thin

[allpeepedout]

Are you sure they have access to layer rations all day long? When you say they go through their food fairly fast, it sounds like they might be running out.

 

[srfjeld]

The feeder is available to them all day long. It's in their run with them and it's never less than a 1/4 full. They've never run out of it. Now it's a few months later and she's still so thin AND has recently gone broody. So now I have the wonderful job of removing her from the nest on a daily basis to make her eat as I try to break her of the broodiness.

Maybe my problem is that I'm comparing her to my hefty little black cochin.

 

[speckledhen]

I lost a Buff Orp from a good breeder that we tried for two months to save. She laid maybe three or four eggs, then quit and began losing weight. She refused to eat the pellets anymore. We did special feedings of yogurt, salmon and oatmeal/grits, vitamins, changed her feed to crumble which she ate for awhile, etc, consulted experts, and she was just bones and feathers and in the end, just refused food and water. It wasn't pests at all. Seemed as if it was some health issue within her alone that was triggered by her coming into lay, which she did at around 34 weeks old. She died before her first year birthday. It was a complete mystery. Sometimes, if it's internal, some insufficiency in a single bird you just can't see, you never find the cause, unless you get a professional necropsy done.