Icelandic Chickens

[Happy Chooks]

Quote:

Still nuthin from one pullet at 32 weeks. I've totally given up on her. My main hen is molting big time. One pullet quit laying for some odd reason and the other pullet is still cranking them out! And another little pullet in the grow out area. Gonna have LOTS of eggs available next year!

Mary's hatching my barnevelder eggs. (or rather Lukka is) One has been laying a little over a week and the other just started a couple days ago.

 

[Chickielady]

Jake we have many apple trees, and I have been canning a few cases of apple butter, made a few pies...and all the peels & odd apples go out at the end of our drive for our deer.
We have 2 does, both have twins fawns..that eat there, along with a salt/mineral block & water bucket.
DH is hunting a property over, for a buck.
Yes a display of Icelandic would be great.
Last show I went to in Stevenson WA, someone had on display about 8 capons of various breeds, with cage cards to educate, how capons do not crow, etc.
Maybe the same type educational set up would be great.

I am still trying to figure out what happened to Rachel's birds?
Anyone know?

 

[Jake Levi]

Did something happen to her birds??

I missed it then if it was on here.

 

[ReiMiraa]

Quote:
like i said i been reading the vet disease manual on mineral deficiencies.... and for just the moment Rickets disease (from calcium and phosphorus imbalances) seems to fit... but still need to read all the lists and compare symptoms. cos thinking about it when i did find chicks near death they did have a 'caved in' appearance... from soft bones. and 14 days does seem to fit. but like i said... got a lot of material to read... i may not be good on genetics with chickens... but i will be one of the best about diseases on here.
http://www.merckvetmanual.com/mvm/index.jsp?cfile=htm/bc/206913.htm

 

[ReiMiraa]

Quote:
like i said i been reading the vet disease manual on mineral deficiencies.... and for just the moment Rickets disease (from calcium and phosphorus imbalances) seems to fit... but still need to read all the lists and compare symptoms. cos thinking about it when i did find chicks near death they did have a 'caved in' appearance... from soft bones. and 14 days does seem to fit. but like i said... got a lot of material to read... i may not be good on genetics with chickens... but i will be one of the best about diseases on here.
http://www.merckvetmanual.com/mvm/index.jsp?cfile=htm/bc/206913.htm

well chicken poo... there are a lot of deficiencies that seem to fit.... but the chicks bones weren't brittle, weak yes... but because they were bendable.... yes a gumby chick.....

 

[Chickielady]

Quote:
like i said i been reading the vet disease manual on mineral deficiencies.... and for just the moment Rickets disease (from calcium and phosphorus imbalances) seems to fit... but still need to read all the lists and compare symptoms. cos thinking about it when i did find chicks near death they did have a 'caved in' appearance... from soft bones. and 14 days does seem to fit. but like i said... got a lot of material to read... i may not be good on genetics with chickens... but i will be one of the best about diseases on here.
http://www.merckvetmanual.com/mvm/index.jsp?cfile=htm/bc/206913.htm

well chicken poo... there are a lot of deficiencies that seem to fit.... but the chicks bones weren't brittle, weak yes... but because they were bendable.... yes a gumby chick.....

Your chicks were "gumby" ??????????
I asked you several times before, what were you feeding, and for how long? (to what age) ?

 

[ReiMiraa]

CL I PM'd you back but just for others to know as well..... btw its wordy.....
This happened with my Icelandic hatch in June.


-sigh- i have read almost everything i could figure would fit on the vet site...
From the symptoms i know (the highly successful hatch rate was 19/24)

The chicks hatched on time
temperatures were perfect
humidity was good
all chicks that hatched were vigorous, cheeping and came to the window when i put my face in front.

I put them in my rubbermaid horse trough brooder that i have with the lamp, water, pine shavings. When i clean the brooder its hit with the bleach spray cleaners and rinsed many many times and air dried.

the next day i placed another small batch of chicks in the brooder with the icelandics....

The feed was Purina medicated 25 pounds.

after the first 2 weeks of good health i figured i was in the clear about worrying (from my experience)

then around week 3-5 i started finding a dead chick in the morning, then one in the afternoon would become... obviously wrong. by week 4 i had lost over 7 and was going crazy. I also noticed the chicks that were a few days older were growing, while the Ice were looking stunted (even bantms grow fast)

I never gave medication because there isn't really anything available here but antibiotics (Tricycline?) and the electrolites.

I reasoned that because the other chicks (non ice) in the pen were not showing any symptoms of illness and that none of the adult birds at the large coop (brooder is 1/4 mile away from coop) I figured it wasn't a virus, or bacteria. Or that the feed was 'bad'...

I noticed the chicks wings became 'thin' in the last hours before they expired. It got to the point that if the chicks showed this softness in the wing bones i would have my bf cull them to prevent them from suffering.

Finally i decided to risk it and try a feed that was non medicated. The mature birds eat Layeena with some scratch laced in it.
At first i let the chicks have just straight scratch and water to clean their system. Then after a few days i gave them the mixed layeena.
(because i knew there were no nutrients in pure scratch for growing chicks)

by around day 5 i started to see improvement in the Icelandics not affected (to the point of bendy bones but were still stunted in growth)
I have the boyfriend cull the remaining two struggling/lagging to recover chicks and kept the 3 to last worst because the bones were not too soft and the chick was active.

After that point i never fed the icelandics medicated feed till a month later when i mixed them in the pen with some other younger chicks (that were not switched over yet) i was anxious but they seemed ok and they had other sources of feed from the grass and weeds.

So my conclusion was that somehow the breed was sensitive to the high feed, the medicated part, or it was a deficiency.

From what i have read that fits my issue best it sounded like a deficiency or imbalance of Calcium/ Phosporus or D3.... seeing as the layeena had an increased calcium content (best guess) I am leaning towards that. or maybe this isolated breed isn't able to absorb the different form of calcium in chick feed.

But Rickets disease sounded like it fit the best. Which is non infectious or genetic.

 

[Chickielady]

Quote:
I have to say congradulations again............if there is a contest at the end of the year, of all the pics of the week..this one has to be my favorite!@!!
Awesome Mahonri!!

 

[Chickielady]

Quote:
But the other breed chicks did not get "IT"

 

[Chickielady]

Wow, Rachel..from what I can see in your post, you had 2 breeds in the brooder, and the Icees did not thrive, what happened to the other chicks?