Hens eating sand and losing weight

[centrarchid]

In addition to what your are providing them now, give them free-choice access to chick starter from a freshly opened bag. Make so you can "guestimate" how much they are consuming. It is likely they will direct much of their feeding activities to the starter. The intact / non-violent or otherwise processed corn suggested previously will approximate natural fare that will get their appetites up. Also try live versus dried mealworms. Most of eats you are currently providing is extremely processed may not be nutritionally balanced, especially if not consumed immediately. Used fermentation as part of feeding regimen but never more than about one third of total ration.

Get them back on food then be watching for parasite issues. Do not over medicate and be prepared to look at knob more poo.

 

[chad-o]

You can prevent boredom by hanging a head of cabbage, broccoli or cauliflower. This keeps them busy for hours and it is healthy.

 

[centrarchid]

Rather than an issue of inadequate mental stimulation, I think it is a problem of too much love resulting in an imbalanced diet, at least at the point of consumption. It is time to back off and provide a simplified ration based on what is known to be complete. Once health is restored then boundaries can be tested again with fermentation and the like options but such should be done slowly. Folks that successfully employ the voodoo in a bucket had to work a long time to figure out what works for chickens they kept.

 

[melinda653]

I had actually ordered live worms and put them in my gardens so that I could dig them later and give them to the ladies. They do get live bugs fairly often. Yesterday they ate cutworms (caterpillars) that were destroying my gardens. I checked poo again this morning and there was some sandy stuff inside where they slept and a nice fairly sand-free fresh poo in the coop. I know my food regimen sounds crazy but it was the only thing they would eat. I struggled so hard to find something to give them that they would actually consume. One of the medications they had to be on for a month caused them to NEVER want to eat. So what I gave them was unbalanced I'm sure, but it was better than starvation. I have discovered recently that they like cherry tomatoes and will steal them out of my harvesting bucket. So now they get those as a snack. When they were sick, they didn't even want their grapes, which was the best thing on the planet prior. They are now starting to like grapes again. I will get some chick starter today and put it out in a separate cup/feeder and see how they take to it. I think I will try the broccoli/cabbage hanging thing as well, if only to provide them with a good time.
I wormed them last week because I noticed the weight was dropping. I thought that might be the issue. It had been a while since I had wormed them, so I figured it couldn't hurt.

 

[jak2002003]

Take the sand out of the coop if you think they are eating it.

Could it be that the sand is getting mixed up into the poop from the coop floor, or the birds feet, or flapping wings?

Stop feeding them anything else apart from chick starter feed.

If they are laying eggs, then keep in the crushed oyster shell, and you can feed them egg shells too.

A few times a day feed them high calorie treats, like mashed up hard boiled eggs.

If they are de wormed and over the illnesses, then they will get back to a good weight after a couple of months.

I think, if they are eating the sand, this will be due to an imbalance in their gut - leading to digestive problems. Feeding a simple bland diet will help their gut bacteria to recover.

The more you add different foods to their diet the more stress it will put on the birds gut bacteria, and it will not get the balance back.

 

[lazy gardener]

I'm going out on a limb here and throwing an other suggestion at you. You only have 2 girls. How big a bag of feed are you buying, and how long is it taking them to eat it? Perhaps it is stale. I had a bag of feed that my girls absolutely refused to eat, though it smelled and looked fine to me. They were never filling their crops. I returned it, and got a bag of multiflock 22% protein feed, and they are doing much better. Also, if the feed was growing mold, that leads me to believe the feed quality is the issue. In addition to the crumbles, I'm giving them sprouted BOSS, wheat and barley, occ sprouted alfalfa, and cracked corn. Since replacing their feed, their poos are bulking back up.

 

[melinda653]

I actually had to throw out a big bag of feed recently because it was moldy. Never even got to use it. The crumbles from another bag I have been using may not be fresh anymore. I think I will throw it out. It isn't easy to find small bags of food. The poos still have sand in them, but not as bad today.

I bought a small bag of chick starter and mixed it with their "regular" food this morning for a much drier breakfast. They were not thrilled. They didn't eat much and picked out the good stuff. When I offered them hard boiled eggs later, they snatched them up. They did "help" me in the gardens later and ate cilantro, tomatoes, a caterpillar and some grass. I just need them to eat normal food and I am afraid I have created some spoiled little monsters. It is a tough thing because they are already skinny to begin with, so "starving" them out is harder to do than with a healthy chicken. I will continue to mix the chick starter and hopefully they will give in and eat it.

 

[centrarchid]

Once opened, make sure a bag is used within 30 days. What brand of starter is being used? The all plant types aren't always tasty to my birds. Also make so only feed available in morning is the starter. That should get them to fill crop with it at least once. If vitamin intake has been out of wack, then feed intake should improve quickly.

 

[melinda653]

The only small bag of chick starter was Manna Pro. It was five pounds. I didn't want to get a giant bag that would go bad. I have been cutting down on their previous food and mixing more starter in it. They didn't eat much at first, but they have slowly been picking up. I tossed out the old layer crumbles entirely because they smelled a bit off compared to the chick starter. Their poos still have some sand in them, but not as much. I am going to slowly wean them off of the old food and I would love to get them back to being normal chickens who eat normal chicken food. They are still underweight, so I still do an evening feeding of baby bird food. Without that it seems they can't keep the weight on.

 

[centrarchid]

How is the food applied? As a restricted ration, ad libitum, to apparent satiation, free-choice? Then is it scattered on ground or in a feeder of some sort?