How to feed my flock?

[csaylorchickens]

I have for laying hens and all I feed them is laying crumble and occasional treats such as mealworms and grapes and once in awhile I'll give them cheese they really like cheese. But that's it. Right now one of my hens has coccidosis. I treated the whole flock with corrid in the water for six days. But the hen that has coccidosis is still having diarrhea. I separated her from the rest of the flock for right now and called the vet and they gave me an oral tablet to give her individually I wasn't sure if they were lacking protein? I also have one baby pullet and one baby rooster that are around 12 weeks old right now so I have non medicated chick starter crumble that is high in protein. I gave a little bowel of the high protein crumble with the layer crumble for all the other hens and I put the chicken that's with coccidosis back on chick crumble due to the highee nutritional content. She's lost a lot of weight. I also added probiotics to the water that I did not do before to try to help them with their gut. Does anybody else have any other nutritional suggestions? I already have oyster shell available for the laying hens.

 

[csaylorchickens]

I also mixed up some tuna for the Chi Ken with coccidosis

 

[Chicken girl 15]

Look up fermented feed. I have a flock of 20 and my 8×16 coop does not have that funky chicken poo smell. There are multiple ways to make fermented feed so it's up to you to decide which suits your needs. Its basically the same effect though as adding yogurt to your daily diet. It helps regulate the bacteria in the gut. The healthier the gut the healthier the critter. Make sure that no more than 10% of what you give them is extras though. At least 90% of the diet needs to be chicken feed plus whatever bugs, seeds, and other neat stuff they find outside. Always make sure they have clean fresh water as well.

 

[csaylorchickens]

Yes I Mary looking into fermenting feed....what I read is just put feed in bucket, fill up to top with water and a teaspoon apple cider vinegar,and a dash of probiotics and let it stew for the days at most then scoop it out, add more feed top with water and keep old water to keep.process bewing?

 

[csaylorchickens]

I'll give it a try this weekend. I'll mix the non medicated chick crumble and some layer crumble

 

[TalkALittle]

How was the diagnosis of coccidiosis made? Are you confident it is correct?

Change in feed can cause wet poop. FWIW, I have a bird that gets very wet poops when I feed any high protein treats or food for an extended period. It will sometimes happen to more of my birds, but I can count on it happening to that one particular bird. Maybe your one hen is eating a lot of the chick feed?

 

[csaylorchickens]

How was the diagnosis of coccidiosis made? Are you confident it is correct?

Change in feed can cause wet poop. FWIW, I have a bird that gets very wet poops when I feed any high protein treats or food for an extended period. It will sometimes happen to more of my birds, but I can count on it happening to that one particular bird. Maybe your one hen is eating a lot of the chick feed?

I went to the vet and had a stool sample sent out and it came back positive for coccidiosis. I just change the feed to chick crumble high in protein for her since she's lost a lot of weight she's not really laying any eggs so there's no real reason for her to be on the layer