Fluffy Butt Acres: Stories of our flock

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That magnolia was a huge tree, and back in 2014 I was out west working and we had a vicious winter here, 4' of snow on the ground and -35c daytime temps for about 5 weeks straight.

I got home April 1st and when I checked the property I noted the rabbits had chewed the bark off the trees at the 3' and 4' height, they completely ringed the magnolia of bark, the tree of course died.

But it sent up suckers which I have been trying to train one main one into a tree, unsuccessfully tho.... It's now more a bush. Every year I tell myself cut it down get rid of it.... but it seems to be thriving as a bush so I keep it ☺️
 
BY Bob said:
That bug looks alive. Here's hoping that no hard freezes come your way.
Click to expand...
Ya as long as it's not a big frost after its half way open like yours did...

Everything is about two weeks behind here, we should have green grass now, and crocus coming up.... Nothing so far!

But the frogs and toads are awake and croaking up a storm - always a sign of spring here!

Next it will be the barn swallows arriving - guess I will let them nest in the barn. I think risk is low, seems it's water fowl mostly carrying avian flu.
 
RoyalChick said:
Yes I think you are right. Let me try and summarize what I have learned having spent a few hours deep in academic articles. Hope it helps everyone. The disease is called FLHS (Fatty Liver Hemorrhagic Syndrome) and I am only talking about chickens not people.

FLHS is a metabolic disease related to how the chicken metabolizes carbohydrate and fat. Like most metabolic diseases it is very multifactorial with the main factors generally recognized as contributing to it being:
  • Genetics - particularly high production breeds as well as age of chicken and time of year. Basically it is associated with high laying so 'peak production' is often what stimulates the fatal event. This is where the link to estrogen comes from and why some have the hypothesis that a diet low in soy would be best. There is no experimental evidence that soy causes FLHS, but many want to reduce the use of soy for other reasons (bad for the environment, GMO etc.)
  • Temperature and stress - both seem to be triggering factors
  • Low exercise - this may be independent of obesity - like running around is good in its own right
  • High calorie diet, particularly when the calories are mainly from carbohydrate
Several papers believe it should be renamed as Liver Hemorrhagic Syndrome because not all of the cases have fatty liver or are obese.

The role of flax is poorly understood. There are papers that suggest it protects against FLHS and others that suggest it doesn't and one that suggests it is harmful. The source that said it was harmful was not a peer reviewed journal so I am now thinking maybe flax is just fine (or it is unknown). Sorry to introduce the flax red herring!

Beyond Flax which is a puzzle, the interventions that have been shown to be helpful are:
  • Exercise and not over-feeding
  • A diet where a lot of calories come from protein and fat
  • A diet which includes Selenium - farms with multiple cases of FLHS are recommended to supplement feed with selenium. Diary like yoghurt and cottage cheese are good dietary sources of selenium
  • A diet that is rich in lutein - again this can be supplemented - but comes from leafy greens like kale
  • A diet that is rich in choline - corn is low in choline, wheat, barley, oats and oilseeds have more choline
Putting this all together the Scratch and Peck feed does look like it is scientifically better for FLHS than many of the others.

Phew! I really should not have read so many papers. My brain hurts!

One tidbit I picked up for @micstrachan is that FLHS is the most common cause of death in backyard flocks in Northern California!

I am going to give the Scratch and Peck food a try, but it is very costly so I may do a mix and just try and give them more meat and introduce kale on a regular basis.

Edit: Sorry folk for long post - I didn't source all the papers I read - I started reading and didn't keep track - I read about 15 papers - if anyone really wants to dig through them I can probably figure out what I read from my browser history.
Click to expand...
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/poul...rome-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!

C5C8BA95-491A-45EE-B341-695A69204FC8.jpeg
 
Ponypoor said:
That magnolia was a huge tree, and back in 2014 I was out west working and we had a vicious winter here, 4' of snow on the ground and -35c daytime temps for about 5 weeks straight.

I got home April 1st and when I checked the property I noted the rabbits had chewed the bark off the trees at the 3' and 4' height, they completely ringed the magnolia of bark, the tree of course died.

But it sent up suckers which I have been trying to train one main one into a tree, unsuccessfully tho.... It's now more a bush. Every year I tell myself cut it down get rid of it.... but it seems to be thriving as a bush so I keep it ☺️
Click to expand...
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!
 
RoyalChick said:
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!
Click to expand...
Hmm...did you say 'easier for the chooks to harvest peaches'...I could have sworn that's what you said!:lau:gig:lau Really is a win-win (says Maggie!)
 
RoyalChick said:
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
Click to expand...
All the links: well worth the long post.

No pics: worth it, ALL about feeding our feathered friends well.

Tax pic: not taxable (love the pic anyway)
 

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