Hen's odd behavior (update)

[seminolewind]

My one hen is a year old. She is really really skinny because she won't eat chicken feed. This has been going on for months. I watch her, she scrapes around in the feed and walks away. I've used different feeders, different places, everything. She will eat people food. I feel like I've been keeping her alive by making her meals. I did not start this prior to her behavior. What's wrong here?

 

[dawg53]

Stop feeding her people food. She might go hungry for a few days... she'll get hungry enough to eat her feed eventually.

 

[seminolewind]

Her foster mother was the same way, I put her in a pen with feed and she died!

 

[welovechickens]

How does her beak look? Sometimes if there is some sort of malformation, they can't pick up crumbles/pellets and will stop trying. Try giving her some wet mash and see what she does with that. If there are no obvious malformations, she may have just figured out how to get yummy food all the time.

 

[drumstick diva]

I think there is more to it than that- I don't think she spoiled. Maybe she can't handle something in the chicken feed. If her mom was the same way - there could be an inherited problem. How did she eat as a young chick? She may have a condition where she can't absorb nutrients from food - even yours.

 

[seminolewind]

Welovechickens, there is nothing wrong with her beak that I can see. I'll try the wet mash today.

Drumstick, Her "mother" was an older bigger chick that acted like her and my roo's mom. I think she ate normal until the "mom" died. I keep thinking it may be a behavioral issue, it almost seems like eating feed was not a behavior that she learned. Sounds weird but that's how I can best describe it.

I gave her hard boiled eggs today on the patio, and she wolfed them down.

 

[Judy]

Quote:
Since her "foster mother" died when penned with regular feed, it sound like this may be it, though I've never heard of this. I wonder if you could gradually teach her to eat chicken feed by mixing it with people food. Maybe put the people food on top of the chicken feed in the feeder so she gets some feed accidentally.

Strange. Anyway, good luck. If you ever get her eating chicken feed, let us know.

 

[chickenzoo]

Try mixing some egg in with the feed into a mash. If she starts gaining weight on people food, then you know it there is either a behavioral issue or a vitamin issue etc.... There may be something in the people food that she needs that she's not getting in the chicken food. Check her throat, around her tongue to make sure nothing has gotten caught around the base of it, I've had it happen.......

 

[seminolewind]

Hey Jen!!!! You read my mind! I wet some feed and made mash and chopped up some boiled egg in it and she was a piggy! She wolfed it down! So Maybe I should wet the mash for a week or so then start cutting down on the moisture? Sound like a plan?

Jen, how's the move going?

 

[chickenzoo]

Glad she's eating. Yep, just cut it back slowly and she how she does......


Moving is a nightmare, but is going ok. Trying to get everything ready to put house up for sale and looking for my 20 acres with no mean neighbors... hehe