FERMENTED FEEDS...anyone using them?

[azygous]

Feather Fixer in FF is a giant NO-NO! I'm convinced the yeast culture is what makes the fermentation so gassy and evil smelling. I noticed, in very small print on the bag, they have "satisfaction guaranteed or your money back" and you should take the bag of feed back to the dealer and get your money back. So I'm taking them up on their offer.

My poor cat sleeps in the garage where the FF developed a positively flamboyant degree of air pollution during the night. When I let him inside this morning, he really chewed me out.

Yeah, everyone is going to be very happy to have this last bucket eaten up.

 

[Beekissed]

 

[kpgoldstar]

I am cracking up at all these juicy descriptions of the feather fixer ff. I have a super busy day and rest of week at work and this just lightened my mood! Thanks Chicken Peeps!!

 

[22qZoo]

I have to agree, FF is the ultimate feather fixer. I have a BO hen that was really bare backed, I thought I might have to cull cuz I didn't want her to suffer. (We had a cad of a roo and she was his favorite .) She didn't get cut or have sores but I did worry about sunburn and the cold. Now that she's gone thru molt all her feathers are coming back great.

These chickens are teaching me patience and simplicity , even with all the froo froo stuff out there that I could get sucked into, the FF is way more comfortable in the long run.

 

[Beekissed]

Wow! FF did a feather good on that gal!

Very nice feathering. I have had a few of those stories myself....recovered some birds back from a place of poor care and found them to be very sickly and molting severely, covered with lice and mites. In almost two month's time these birds were back on track with the FF....

Mama Chicken AKA Middle Sister the first week after returning home looking like 100 miles of bad road....



Same bird 7 wks later....




Raggedy Ann...first week home, possessing one tail feather...



Raggedy Ann, 7 wks after starting FF...plenty of tail feathers now!

 

[22qZoo]

Those poor gals, were they part of the gnarly bunch? Mama chicken had cankles, bless her heart .

 

[Beekissed]

Those poor gals, were they part of the gnarly bunch? Mama chicken had cankles, bless her heart .

Yes, they are and yes, she does! Congestive heart failure after the way she was living..she wasn't like that when she went to that place. Now that she is home it's not quite as evident but in the summer you can still see those kankles showing up. She had impacted glands in her feet too which still gather debris and have to be cleaned out periodically.

 

[niqueie]

That transformation is awesome. It's amazing.

I'm so sad, I have a bird that got severely picked to the point of having a bloody stump of a back end. It's so bad. My husband was thinking maybe we should put her out of her misery. I washed her and I'm going to buy some blue-kote today. I don't know why it happened. She was always the picked on bird, but it was usually a small patch by her tail. They must have just attacked her for that much damage after only 8 hours. She can barely walk. My birds have had a small picking problem in the past but it was small. They just got their big run opened and now they have a lot more space. I'm going to need a miracle for my injured bird. I have her isolated now in my garage. Her back end is picked so terribly and so bloody. I don't think that she should be outside even though it isn't terribly cold here 40* lows and 65* highs. Should I make her a safe place in the coop so she can see everyone but not be in danger of being picked, or leave her isolated in the garage?

 

[ChickenCanoe]

If she seems like she doesn't feel well, I'd put her somewhere you can put some heat on her like up to 80 degrees.
I'd also put some Betadine on the wounds. Campho-Phenique relieves pain.
I'd definitely keep her separated till she grows new feathers or at least heals.
Small space is a big reason for picking. They don't like to be bored.
Insufficient protein is also a culprit.

 

[Beekissed]

If there is one bird that is continually getting picked on in a flock, it is usually for a good reason. The flock are wanting to eliminate her for some reason, usually it's a health issue. You can't kill the whole flock for picking on the one bird, so the solution is obvious though not many want to do it. Everyone wants to fight for the underdog but in nature the underdog is a weaker, less desirable animal in the gene pool and the others will cut it from the herd or even kill it for that reason.

Here's the choices...you can isolate her and doctor her back to health but then you have to re-introduce her to the flock which, no matter how you do it, may again make her a target for aggression. You can Blukote her or otherwise cover the site and leave her in the general population but they may resume picking on her again once she is healed. You can try to change the flock matrix by penning this or that bird with her during her isolation but you have no assurances that bird won't peck her also. Or you can eliminate the problem and her pain and misery by culling the bird~ it takes all the guess work out of it all, provides mercy for the bird and also eliminates your work, worry and stress over one bird.

If you had several birds having a picking problem, it can be space or a breed issue. If you have just one bird that is singled out from the flock, it's a bird issue. The former is a little more difficult to assess and resolve than the latter. A lot of people will tell you to keep her, nurse her back to health, change this or that to try and fit her into the flock, will give you all kinds of success stories about how they changed the life of a bird just like that by doing such things.

The only thing I can tell you is that I've never had such a problem in any of my flocks because I cull yearly for laying, healthy appearance, and behavior....and that seems to remove misfit birds, those that would be aggressive enough to peck holes in another one, birds that would develop health issues and also any bird that is too weak to defend herself in a flock society. A lot of people think culling is cruel but it's rather the opposite...it prevents things like what has happened to your poor chicken. I've never had to walk out and see a bird with a bloody behind from cannibalism and aggression. Any old timer in poultry is usually a proponent of judicious culling of the flock to improve overall flock health, genetics and social interaction...that's how they become old timers in poultry.