When I purchased my first peafowl I started out with chicks and yearlings so I had a good year to dream about breeding, hatching, and raising these glorious birds. Finally a year past and I found myself on the crest of my first breeding season.. I had five cocks and eight hens that had turned two years old and I was ready to start raising peafowl! Visions of fat healthy chicks more beautiful than their parents danced in my mind. That first year I hatched fifty two chicks and at the ages of two and a half to four months had successfully raised forty eight of them. I couldn’t have been more proud if I had laid the eggs myself. About that time disaster stuck. It started out with a beautiful loud pied chick about three months old. I noticed him limping and upon closer examination realized his leg was actually twisted at the joint in his hock. My first thought was that he had injured himself and dislocated his leg. I started talking to breeders with more experience than I had and was told he had a slipped tendon that could not be fixed. Further examination proved them right. I could actually find the tendon and the groove in the hock that it had slipped out of. Taking my thumbs I could manipulate the tendon back into place, but by his second or third step it would pop right back out. Not one to give up easily I tried taping it in place, I even put him in a sling for a few days to take the weight off his leg. As time progressed his leg actually rotated around almost backwards and he appeared to be in great pain .After more consultations with people who knew more than I did, including my vet, the decision was made to euthenise him. Meanwhile several more of the chicks were displaying the same symptoms. Fearful of finding another crippled bird, made going out to the pens a dreaded chore instead of the delight it used to be. I was told by several breeders their feed had to much protein for their age and to go from a game bird starter to a game bird grower at about two months of age. I immediately switched to a grower but by that fall I had lost twelve of my forty eight chicks to slipped tendons. A quarter of them!
[FONT=Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif]My first year was almost my last year of raising peafowl. I didn’t want to deal with the pain and suffering, mine and theirs. I became determined to learn everything possible about slipped tendons. I called two universities and talked to professors in their poultry science departments. Both men told me too much protein in a diet could cause multiple problems in the health of any animal. It could cause deformities and could also affect the health of internal organs, particularly the kidneys. They also said they knew of no controlled studies in peafowl specifically to determine the proper amount of protein.
They both also mentioned the problem could be a nutritional lack of certain vitamins and minerals. As I continued on my search for answers I came across a publication that has been a life saver on numerous occasions; The Poultry Health Handbook by Penn State College of Agricultural Sciences. In a chapter on nutritional and metabolic diseases Dr. Owen Keene discusses perosis or slipped tendon. He describes it as a deforming leg weakness with clinical signs of flattening and enlargement of the hocks which is followed by slippage and lateral rotation of the Achilles tendon out of the condyles of the hock. Dr. Owen goes on to say this disease is caused by a deficiency of the mineral manganese and that choline,niacin and biotin are also involved. He acknowledges that there is no treatment for chicks already affected but correcting the diet prevents new cases. He states that the rule of thumb on perosis morbidity is that when five or more of a thousand birds are affected the manganese level in the feed should be checked. Poultry require between 35 to50 ppm in their feed to prevent perosis. When dealing with perosis the level should be increased to 75 ppm. Manganese contents higher than 100 ppm will be wasteful. Armed with this information I made a few changes the next hatching season. I had been using a game bird feed manufactured at a local feed mill. When I compared the ingredient list to a more expensive name brand I noticed the name brand had a higher percentage of some vitamins and minerals including manganese. I decided to pay the extra dollar a bag and switched to the name brand. I then started looking for a vitamin mineral supplement that contained the needed ingredients. I did not want one of the products made for convalescing birds that contains electrolytes because these are usually high in glucose or some form of sugar, and I wanted a supplement that would be good for their health long term. I finally found a multiple vitamin with antioxidants and trace minerals called Polt Pak Vitamin Concentrate. It contains all of the supplements mentioned in Dr. Keene’s article to prevent perosis. The product is a water soluble powder that I purchase from Cutler’s Pheasant and Poultry Supply in Applegate MI. I start the chicks on it at birth and leave them on it until they are six to eight months old. The directions say a four oz. package does 128 gallons of drinking water. I use about ½ tsp. per gallon of water, or until the water turns the color of pale lemonade. Has this helped? I have gone from 25% of my chicks afflicted with perosis to less than 1%. Last year I raised 128 birds and lost only 1 chick to perosis. It was a four month old white hen that developed the problem on the day we caught her and moved her from a wire floored pen to the ground, and I think her problem was an injury that happened while moving her.
I am not a veterinarian, nor do I have a degree in nutrition or animal sciences. I am merely a fellow peafowl aficionado who loves the birds and loves raising them. I am sharing this information in the hopes that it may prevent someone from having to go through the heartache of destroying their birds due to a disease caused by a nutritional problem. Once again I am anxiously looking forward to a new breeding season with visions of fat healthy chicks more beautiful than their parents dancing in my mind.[/FONT]
[FONT=Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif]CAROL COOK
COOK'S PEACOCK EMPORIUM[/FONT]
[FONT=Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif]My first year was almost my last year of raising peafowl. I didn’t want to deal with the pain and suffering, mine and theirs. I became determined to learn everything possible about slipped tendons. I called two universities and talked to professors in their poultry science departments. Both men told me too much protein in a diet could cause multiple problems in the health of any animal. It could cause deformities and could also affect the health of internal organs, particularly the kidneys. They also said they knew of no controlled studies in peafowl specifically to determine the proper amount of protein.
They both also mentioned the problem could be a nutritional lack of certain vitamins and minerals. As I continued on my search for answers I came across a publication that has been a life saver on numerous occasions; The Poultry Health Handbook by Penn State College of Agricultural Sciences. In a chapter on nutritional and metabolic diseases Dr. Owen Keene discusses perosis or slipped tendon. He describes it as a deforming leg weakness with clinical signs of flattening and enlargement of the hocks which is followed by slippage and lateral rotation of the Achilles tendon out of the condyles of the hock. Dr. Owen goes on to say this disease is caused by a deficiency of the mineral manganese and that choline,niacin and biotin are also involved. He acknowledges that there is no treatment for chicks already affected but correcting the diet prevents new cases. He states that the rule of thumb on perosis morbidity is that when five or more of a thousand birds are affected the manganese level in the feed should be checked. Poultry require between 35 to50 ppm in their feed to prevent perosis. When dealing with perosis the level should be increased to 75 ppm. Manganese contents higher than 100 ppm will be wasteful. Armed with this information I made a few changes the next hatching season. I had been using a game bird feed manufactured at a local feed mill. When I compared the ingredient list to a more expensive name brand I noticed the name brand had a higher percentage of some vitamins and minerals including manganese. I decided to pay the extra dollar a bag and switched to the name brand. I then started looking for a vitamin mineral supplement that contained the needed ingredients. I did not want one of the products made for convalescing birds that contains electrolytes because these are usually high in glucose or some form of sugar, and I wanted a supplement that would be good for their health long term. I finally found a multiple vitamin with antioxidants and trace minerals called Polt Pak Vitamin Concentrate. It contains all of the supplements mentioned in Dr. Keene’s article to prevent perosis. The product is a water soluble powder that I purchase from Cutler’s Pheasant and Poultry Supply in Applegate MI. I start the chicks on it at birth and leave them on it until they are six to eight months old. The directions say a four oz. package does 128 gallons of drinking water. I use about ½ tsp. per gallon of water, or until the water turns the color of pale lemonade. Has this helped? I have gone from 25% of my chicks afflicted with perosis to less than 1%. Last year I raised 128 birds and lost only 1 chick to perosis. It was a four month old white hen that developed the problem on the day we caught her and moved her from a wire floored pen to the ground, and I think her problem was an injury that happened while moving her.
I am not a veterinarian, nor do I have a degree in nutrition or animal sciences. I am merely a fellow peafowl aficionado who loves the birds and loves raising them. I am sharing this information in the hopes that it may prevent someone from having to go through the heartache of destroying their birds due to a disease caused by a nutritional problem. Once again I am anxiously looking forward to a new breeding season with visions of fat healthy chicks more beautiful than their parents dancing in my mind.[/FONT]
[FONT=Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif]CAROL COOK
COOK'S PEACOCK EMPORIUM[/FONT]
