Fluffy Butt Acres: Stories of our flock

[GregnLety]

Poofy Jr, our resident broody is a happy mom to be. I've been trying to break her for a few weeks now. My wife's friend wanted some eggs hatched se we put her on a nest in the broody cage. She has a higher hatch rate than our incubator.

 

[GregnLety]

For @Ponypoor

 

[ChicoryBlue]

Specially for @micstrachan - I have done this as a reply to my original post so the sources and my summary stay together.
A few caveats:

• I am not a vet or a poultry nutritional scientist. I do have some experience in reading scientific papers but it is all a long time ago!
• I did not pay for access to full tex t if it was not available for free (I also didn't sign up for anything in order to get access to full text). This means that in some cases I could not judge the scientific methods because only the abstracts were shared. This is important because not all methods are robust and many studies are based on quite small numbers of observations
• In reading any scientific paper on chicken health you need to look carefully at the end point measurements in terms of what they consider a good outcome. Many articles are aimed at the commercial chicken industry and so measure outcomes related to that - such as carcas weight or increased laying. Obviously I was not interested in that so I rejected a load of articles (mainly not included here) whose measurements I could not connect to health in the way we mean it for our beloved chickens

With all that said, here is some reading for anyone who wants to go down the same rabbit-hole that I did!

https://www.merckvetmanual.com/poultry/fatty-liver-hemorrhagic-syndrome/fatty-liver-hemorrhagic-syndrome-in-poultry?query=fatty liver in chickens
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0032579119319856
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/8378221/
https://www.dopharma.com/technical-support/fatty-liver-haemorrhagic-syndrome/ (this one is from a company selling choline supplements but it is a well written summary of FLHS and cites multiple academic sources)
http://www.poultrydvm.com/condition/choline-deficiency (not really an academic source)
https://cdnsciencepub.com/doi/pdf/10.4141/A06-043
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/0300985813503569 (this is the California study - it is based on necropsies sent into the state system over a number of years)
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/03079457608418164?src=getftr (this is not a scientific paper but a published review - old but very helpful - it explains why higher fat and lower carbohydrate in the diet may be best for the chickens because the disease seems to be caused in part by pathology in the manufacture of lipids from carbohydrates in the liver - this is referrred to in the Merck Veterinary Manual and is what @bgmathteach spotted - higher dietary fat reduces the liver manufacturing fat)
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0032579119458914 (support for a diet with 4% fat)
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0032579119473720
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31565961/
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/12828209/
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/27143762/
https://poultry.extension.org/artic...ients-for-poultry/flax-seed-in-poultry-diets/ (this is the article that had me thinking long term use of flax seed increased FLHS - it does not cite any sources for the assertion and I have found no academic study to support it - most say flax is beneficial in reducing FLHS and some say it doesn't have any effect - shame on the USDA, university extension organization and the author!)

PHEW - that was a marathon.

And here is a small tax contribution for Bob as I may now have provided the longest post on this thread ever with no pictures!

View attachment 3057243

No tax required on posts about chickens, I have the @BY Bob Tax Manual, and I'm pretty sure that is a main directive, although it's a late edition.

Excellent posts, thank you again @RoyalChick !

@MaryJanet I will try to search your posts/thread to find the amounts of each - volume or weight - that you supplemented Peggy with. Did or do you supplement your whole flock, or just Peggy? Did you tailor it to the feed you were using, to compensate for it's particulars? For instance the Nutrena Feather Fixer label does list "choline chloride" and "sodium selenite" (is that selenium?) and "biotin" but they don't list amounts - maybe on their web site they might have a better breakdown, then go from there?

So - if one were to give their chickens some cottage cheese (whole milk?), how much per bird, and would that be per day, or what? Is it considered a "treat" and does one follow the "no more than 10% of diet" rule? And how do you figure that anyway? By weight? Calories? I actually don't know if I've ever seen a calorie listing on a feed label.

Does anyone know how the feed contents / ingredients are figured? When something like fat is measured to be 4% of the feed, is that by weight, volume, or calories? By the way @bgmathteach 's quoted ratio, though I think I understand the concept, had me wondering - energy to protein, but how measured?

@micstrachan I think RC's posts might have answered your question - that it seems better for the chicken to be using dietary fat to make yolks with, rather than making the fat for the yolks from carbohydrates, yes?

OK sorry again for a long post. Looking to translate our learning to actionable information, but I am way over my head.

 

[RoyalChick]

No tax required on posts about chickens, I have the @BY Bob Tax Manual, and I'm pretty sure that is a main directive, although it's a late edition.

Excellent posts, thank you again @RoyalChick !

@MaryJanet I will try to search your posts/thread to find the amounts of each - volume or weight - that you supplemented Peggy with. Did or do you supplement your whole flock, or just Peggy? Did you tailor it to the feed you were using, to compensate for it's particulars? For instance the Nutrena Feather Fixer label does list "choline chloride" and "sodium selenite" (is that selenium?) and "biotin" but they don't list amounts - maybe on their web site they might have a better breakdown, then go from there?

So - if one were to give their chickens some cottage cheese (whole milk?), how much per bird, and would that be per day, or what? Is it considered a "treat" and does one follow the "no more than 10% of diet" rule? And how do you figure that anyway? By weight? Calories? I actually don't know if I've ever seen a calorie listing on a feed label.

Does anyone know how the feed contents / ingredients are figured? When something like fat is measured to be 4% of the feed, is that by weight, volume, or calories? By the way @bgmathteach 's quoted ratio, though I think I understand the concept, had me wondering - energy to protein, but how measured?

@micstrachan I think RC's posts might have answered your question - that it seems better for the chicken to be using dietary fat to make yolks with, rather than making the fat for the yolks from carbohydrates, yes?

OK sorry again for a long post. Looking to translate our learning to actionable information, but I am way over my head.

I have partial answers to some of that.
First off, most of the scientific stuff has ‘eat at will’ as the standard baseline. I have seen nothing to say the hens need food restricted. Of course genetics plays a role in that if you think about CornishX, but otherwise the studies looking at calories force feed the hens the extra.
Second, there is a standard metric around protein and energy (that is what @bgmathteach saw in the Merck Veterinary Manual). Basically that means for a given number of calories per day, how much comes from protein (vs carbohydrate or fat). So what this points to is that it is better if more of the calories come from protein than carbohydrate. If they come from carbohydrate the liver has to convert them to fat to make yolk.
As far as dosing is concerned a really careful pick through of many of those papers would allow some calculations but it is too much for me!

 

[Ponypoor]

I'm pretty certain my apple trees survived it. They had not put anything out yet but I am getting concerned about the butterfly bushes. They are completely dead looking right now.

I just took a look at my peach trees and looks like lots of good buds, hopefully lots of flowers and lots of peaches

Better not jinx myself tho!

 

[ChicoryBlue]

I have partial answers to some of that.
First off, most of the scientific stuff has ‘eat at eill’ as the standard baseline. I have seen nothing to say the hens need food restricted. Of course genetics plays a role in that if you think about CornishX, but otherwise the studies looking at calories force feed the hens the extra.
Second, there is a standard metric around protein and energy (that is what @bgmathteach saw in the Merck Veterinary Manual). Basically that means for a given number of calories per day, how much comes from protein (vs carbohydrate or fat). So what this points to is that it is better if more of the calories come from protein than carbohydrate. If they come from carbohydrate the liver has to convert them to fat to make yolk.
As far as dosing is concerned a really careful pick through of many of those papers would allow some calculations but it is too much for me!

Thank you!
I just looked up something - with human food, whole milk fat content (3.5%) is figured by weight.

 

[Ponypoor]

No tax required on posts about chickens, I have the @BY Bob Tax Manual, and I'm pretty sure that is a main directive, although it's a late edition.

Excellent posts, thank you again @RoyalChick !

@MaryJanet I will try to search your posts/thread to find the amounts of each - volume or weight - that you supplemented Peggy with. Did or do you supplement your whole flock, or just Peggy? Did you tailor it to the feed you were using, to compensate for it's particulars? For instance the Nutrena Feather Fixer label does list "choline chloride" and "sodium selenite" (is that selenium?) and "biotin" but they don't list amounts - maybe on their web site they might have a better breakdown, then go from there?

So - if one were to give their chickens some cottage cheese (whole milk?), how much per bird, and would that be per day, or what? Is it considered a "treat" and does one follow the "no more than 10% of diet" rule? And how do you figure that anyway? By weight? Calories? I actually don't know if I've ever seen a calorie listing on a feed label.

Does anyone know how the feed contents / ingredients are figured? When something like fat is measured to be 4% of the feed, is that by weight, volume, or calories? By the way @bgmathteach 's quoted ratio, though I think I understand the concept, had me wondering - energy to protein, but how measured?

@micstrachan I think RC's posts might have answered your question - that it seems better for the chicken to be using dietary fat to make yolks with, rather than making the fat for the yolks from carbohydrates, yes?

OK sorry again for a long post. Looking to translate our learning to actionable information, but I am way over my head.

I am now more than ever thinking that following a more natural diet is advantageous, protein and fats from animal products rather than plant based, and grains and greens that would be found in the wild.

This follows my thought on horses diets also - they are plains animals (Steppes and Prairies) where there are tough grasses, low in sugars which the horses gut is better able to digest. Feeding horses alfalfa and grains is just not a normal diet for horses.

Just like a strict veg/grain diet is not normal for chickens in the wild.

Having said that, I feel it would be difficult to ensure chickens get a more 'wild' diet this day and age. I am very interested now to know what my feed contains....

 

[Ponypoor]

You are just like me. I had a very old peach tree that simply fell over. But it started sending up new branches from where it was on the ground. Instead of removing the whole thing we let it grow from horizontal. I now have a thriving peach bush - and it is easier to harvest peaches off a bush than a full size tree, so it really was a win-win!

That is awesome! I see they cut back orange trees like a bush in Arizona, making it easier to pick!

Last year the magnolia 'bush' had lots of flowers we shall see this year....

 

[Ponypoor]

Visitors this week: hoping they stay and raise a baby like last yearView attachment 3057295

Spoiler: What are they?

pair of sandhill cranes. Llast year's baby was so cute, and the hawks are wary of them. have even had them in the yard....

Wow that's wonderful!

Need pics of those babies

 

[Ponypoor]

Poofy Jr, our resident broody is a happy mom to be. I've been trying to break her for a few weeks now. My wife's friend wanted some eggs hatched se we put her on a nest in the broody cage. She has a higher hatch rate than our incubator.

Can't wait to see pics of those babies also