Help! Chickens forgot they like greens and weeds

[LibertyChick]

I have one SS hen who is 2 and 4 Welsummer hens and 1 Welsummer rooster that are 1 year old. I have been feeding organic non-soy feed from a supplier who decided to change the formula. I don't think they told anyone until they started getting complaints about shell-less eggs.

So, my SS has experience with laying shell-less eggs... and I have a technique that helps...but my Welsummer girls don't have the experience to get them out. Since the feed was 30% less calcium (the feed company claimed it was only 4% less) I have been trying to supplement the calcium and other deficient nutrients but have been unsuccessful. My SS would lay a shell-less one day, then the next a very thin shell, then the next egg would be shell-less again.

I lost one of my Welsummer girls last week. Now my Rooster is pale, one of my girls has a shrunken comb and wattles and they have all seemed to have forgot that they are supposed to be eating grass and weeds. They are lazy now and won't try too hard to tear the dandelion leaf that I'm holding. They have tons of dandelions and plantain in the yard but are not eating it.

How do I get them to start eating the grass and weeds like they are supposed to be eating again???

Now I've started picking the greens and putting it in my blender with some water and milk kefir to make a slurry. Then I am soaking the new organic layer pellet with soy overnight with the green slurry to get some greens into them and have stopped all scratch and other stuff for right now.

Please help!!!
Liberty Chick

 

[countrygoddess]

I don't think the fact that their feed now lacks soy has anything to do with their health problems (I make my own feed because I stay away from soy and my chickens are healthy). The supplier certainly should have known how much less calcium the feed had, however, but you could feed a chicken feed completely lacking in calcium and they would supplement it on their own naturally through foraging and with free-choice oyster shell (which should always be available to them). I think you might have another problem on your hands, but I can't say what it might be without more in-depth information.

 

[Judy]

I believe I'd find another feed supplier.

 

[LibertyChick]

The old feed was organic soy-free from a company called Lakeview. The new organic feed is from Green Mountain and it has soy in it. I'm not saying they are lacking in soy because I hate soy, but I don't have any other choice in my area.

The only soy-free feed I could get was Lakeview but they've tinkering with the feed a d a lot of people were complaining about shell less eggs, including me. So, I gave the feed a good long time...I didn't have any other choice since I only had 7 chickens and didn't go thru the feed very quickly. There are no other feed companies I can get feed from that is organic and non-gmo.

I only have a backyard and not a farm, so I don't have a lot of room to allow the chickens to roam too far. They have the entire backyard except for my small garden. I believe it's a nutritional deficiency and not a disease.

In the process of supplementing them to keep the shells hard, they seemed to have forgotten they were supposed to eat the grass, dandelions, plantains and other weeds in the backyard, which is now very lush. They are fertilizing the grass nicely, but not eating it. They are getting lazy in that if a leaf doesn't break off easily they won't try again. They used to tear right into it jerking their heads hard to tear off pieces of leaves or weeds, but they don't do that anymore. I'm doing the slurry with kefir and the layer feed to get them to eat greens just to get some nutrition into them.

I took some pictures of the roo today to show how pale he us and his eyes are not looking so good. He's been pale for about a week now.


Thanks,
LibertyChick

 

[LibertyChick]

I really, really want another local chicken farmers custom soy-free recipe, but he won't share. He has a very complicated formula that works great and the birds have hard shells and are very healthy. He apparently doesn't see the need even though epigenetics is showing that the chicken breed is getting weaker and weaker because of the chemicals, pesticides, herbicides, fungicides and GMOs in the feed.

LibertyChick

 

[LibertyChick]

So getting back on topic...My chickens won't eat the grass, dandelions and plantains that are all over my yard and I think that is part of the reason they are not going so well. I don't know how to get them to eat the greens again. They have gotten so LAZY that they don't want to put any effort into tearing the leaf. They used to really rip into it and really go for it, but won't even try when they can't tear it easily the first time.

Another chicken farmer told me about the green slurry in the layerfeed with the kefir. She said to stop completely giving them any other food (besides the slurry in the layer as mash) and to starve them for a few days to get them to start eating the greens. I'm trying that but only 2 out of the 6 seems to be eating any of the grass/weeds. The others haven't had full crops in like a week. I feel like a terrible chicken mom.

LibertyChick

 

[LibertyChick]

Update. The chickens did eat the mash slurry during the day but not aggressively. There are a couple chickens eating some grass seeds and grass but not aggressively. Those same chickens seem to be able to get about a golf ball sized crop. The others have flat crops. The rooster is still very pale and is not acting like himself today. He's usually the first one out of the coop and wants sex. But today, he was the third one out and didn't even try to have sex while I was standing there. It seems they are not even smart enough to eat the grass since I'm not giving them any other food other than the green slurry mash. It seems they are starving to death.

I think I probably should lightly cook up a bunch of eggs to give to them and try to coax them into eating greens aggressively another way. It just feels like I'm going to have some dead chickens on my hands if I don't do something...and I won't be able to eat them, wasting all is the money on the feed and food I have trying to give them.

I will have to teach them to eat the greens another way. I don't want them to starve to death.

Liberty chick

 

[LibertyChick]

My rooster was even more pale this evening than he was this morning. Man, I hope he's not dead in the morning. At least some of the girls are starting to aggressively tear at the dandelion leafs I hole out for them but he won't touch them. Nutritional deficiencies are so hard to deal with.

LibertyChick

 

[countrygoddess]

So odd that they aren't interested in foraging. I hope you're able to get it sorted and that they are the road to recovery soon...

 

[LibertyChick]

Update...Today, I didn't have the green slurry mixed in as a mash and just had the mash. I made it with ozone water. The rooster was pretty weak coming out of the coop this morning. He was pretty shaky from starving. He started to eat the mash with the ozone water. It was like him saying that he would rather starve to death than be forced to eat that green slurry mash...poor guy!!! "Some" of his color came back. I don't know exactly how much he had to eat, but I know I saw him eat more this morning than I "saw" him eat the last several days. I tried to give them some ozone water in a green plastic waterer so that I didn't have to use that much water and didn't waste the ozone water, but they didn't touch it. I thought maybe they weren't thirsty when I was offering it and maybe they drank water later on, but actually, I don't believe they did. They forgot and didn't recognize that the green waterer was actually water. I poured the water from the green plastic waterer into the metal waterer and offered it to him and he started drinking right away. I didn't think they would be confused on that, but now I know. He drank a bunch...poor guy, must have been dying of thirst all day as it was about 92 today, feels like 97. I added more ozone to the water he was drinking from and added a couple drops to the kefir he and the girls were drinking from. Some of the girls are looking much more healthy and bright red in their combs and wattles. I think it's just going to take some time for him since he was way, way sicker and more malnourshed than the girls. I prayed this morning for a complete recovery for all my chickens. I think he is on his way back to health.

I saw something today that absolutely made me want to vomit!!! My girls kept (saw this yesterday too) pecking at the rooster's butt. I don't know what they saw, but I had to keep shooing them away, over and over again...YUK!!!!! I don't know if they are seeing worms or what coming out of his butt or not. How on earth would they see that between all the feathers??? I asked my husband to help me tomorrow take a look because I can't do it by myself. I really, really don't want to look at his butt and see worms or maggots coming out of his butt, but I need to. Please God, please don't ket there be worms or maggots in his butt. I know the ozone will help kill those, but I think I need to get enough into him to do that. He still doesn't have a huge appetite and I don't know how far gone he may be. Please God, let him not be that sick, I don't want to lose my rooster. - LibertyChick