Mystery disease help

[Wyorp Rock]

Thank you for the update.
I hope the treatment works for you. Please do keep us updated - this will be very helpful.

I saved this a while back...there has always been a debate as to whether too much calcium in a rooster's diet can cause damage since they don't use calcium like an actively laying hen does. You may find some information relevant (mention of treatment?) in the links that @ChickenCanoe referenced in their post.

Medicated feed should not be fed long term. It can cause thiamine deficiencies if fed long term. Unmedicated starter, grower, all flock, or flock raiser feeds are all good, safe choices for all ages, stages, and genders.

X2
It is hard to find some feeds in organic.
It's hard to find organic pellets because of the binding agent needed to make pelleted feed.

Roosters can be fed layer feed....Old wives tale....It will not hurt the Rooster one bit.....

Cheers!

It will hurt lots of bits and not an old wives' tale. There is much scientific research to support the fact that any bird not actively laying and building egg shells will be negatively affected by consuming a diet over 3% calcium. Layer feed is 4%. All other feeds are about 1%. This not only includes roosters and growing birds but also older hens molting and taking extended periods off from egg laying.

The thing is that when a bird dies, people don't have a necropsy done by a poultry lab so they'll never know that urolithiasis and gout were the culprit.

On farms where roosters are fed a layer diet with the hens, the males die at 4 times the rate of females in broiler breeders.
http://www.thepoultrysite.com/articles/2337/urolithiasis-in-male-broiler-breeders/

Roosters Affected by Epididymal Lithiasis from the accumulation of luminal stones rich in calcium.
http://www.reproduction-online.org/content/early/2011/06/13/REP-11-0131.full.pdf

https://www.researchgate.net/public...he_formation_of_epididymal_stones_in_roosters

The accumulation of calcium causes damage to multiple organs in addition to testicular damage.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12530920

This report from Dr. Bernie Beckman of Hy-Line Poultry International lists excessive calcium as the primary cause of visceral gout.
http://poultryinfo.co.za/articles/Old/avian-urolithiasis-eng.pdf

The role of dietary calcium causing urolithiasis in pullets and laying hens.
http://ps.oxfordjournals.org/content/64/12/2300.abstract

Kidney damage is emerging in laying hens.
http://www.worldpoultry.net/Breeder...-damage-is-emerging-in-laying-hens-WP008719W/

Chickens have 2 kidneys and each kidney has 3 segments. A hen will continue to lay eggs and appear healthy even as kidney segments are rendered non-functional as long as there are 2 functional segments. When they're down to one segment, they just die within 24 hours with few or no symptoms. Do the owners immediately send them off to the poultry lab for necropsy? No.
http://nhjy.hzau.edu.cn/kech/synkx/dong/2bao/UrolithiasisChina.pdf

The last paragraph in the following article refers to excess calcium and excess protein causing gout - articular gout from excess protein and visceral gout from excess calcium. Hence the reason I mentioned 12-15% protein being ideal for adult roosters.
http://www.thepoultrysite.com/publications/6/diseases-of-poultry/232/gout/

I guess that puts the Old Wives' tale argument to rest.

It does hurt them, it just takes awhile. If you only plan on having a rooster around for a short time, there is no problem with feeding layer. But if you plan on keeping him for years, all that calcium will build up in the kidney and eventual cause it to fail. It is not a wives tale. It is fact. Layer feed will shorten a rooster's life span by several years.

Agreed and it will affect sperm motility as well.
It is true that some breeds and lines of poultry are somewhat less susceptible but why provide such a large percentage of the diet in the form of a single mineral for birds that aren't using 6 grams of calcium a day building egg shells?

I second junebuggena's response.

I will say that I DO feed my rooster layer pellets. I keep him with my hens, so it's hard to keep him out of the pellets. He gets a lot of other food though because he's free range and I feed him scrap food too, so I hope it's offset by that.

He's 2 years old and still healthy and keeping my hens fertile.

You can provide a feeder for hens that is difficult for him to get his head in and a hanging feeder with a lower protein feed that the hens can't reach.

 

[lovechickens23]

Do layer feed is bad for roosters? If its fluids he would breath wried he not. I all ways fed scratch feed and layer feeds never had problem before

 

[Wyorp Rock]

Do layer feed is bad for roosters? If its fluids he would breath wried he not. I all ways fed scratch feed and layer feeds never had problem before

I'm not sure I understand your question? A lot of people feed their roosters layer feed and have no problems.

The links I provided the OP (@BabyBoss ) is for information related to excess calcium in the diet of young chickens. Too much calcium at an early age can cause damage to the kidneys and visceral gout.

 

[junebuggena]

I'm not sure I understand your question? A lot of people feed their roosters layer feed and have no problems.

The links I provided the OP (@BabyBoss ) is for information related to excess calcium in the diet of young chickens. Too much calcium at an early age can cause damage to the kidneys and visceral gout.

Excess calcium at any age can cause visceral gout.

 

[micstrachan]

How early did you put them on layer? Mine have all been on layer since about 20-22 weeks, but not all have quite come into lay yet at about 25 weeks. I hope it'snot a problem for my girls.
Please do keep us posted. I hope the treatment works!

 

[lovechickens23]

Cant remember when. And all my chickens are all different ages

 

[Wyorp Rock]

Excess calcium at any age can cause visceral gout.

You're right - thanks for pointing that out

 

[lovechickens23]

No iam not over run with chicken I only got 28 I know someone who has 10,000 chickens thats allot

 

[KentuckyRooster]

Update on my sex link. I think she might just pull through, meaning that the treatment works.

She has continued to loose weight as the body has been unable to absorb nutrients throughout this past week. Her appetite has remained good and we have supplemented All flock feed with dubia cockroaches, canned meats, and other tid-bits to try and help her keep her caloric intake up.

When she started the medicine she was not defecating at all. The entire ride to the vet, 4+ hours of monitoring, nothing. No poop. She could not pass waste. The medicine did cause her to start passing material on the second or third day but NOT normal waste. Bright green with chalky, thick, HARD chunks of urate. In theory, this is the dissolving deposits. All her output smells really, really bad. Her crop emptied very slowly or not at all, and she may have been vomiting to empty it when it got too full as there kept being puddles of wet looking chicken food in the cage. I kept thinking it was from spilled water but now I think maybe vomit.

Today, on day seven of the medicine, she pooped her first real poop since she got sick. She continues to have a great appetite. Her stools now are still soft and unformed and have some greenish stuff sometimes. She continues to pass large pieces of hard calcium deposits. But, they are predominantly brown, and she appears to be digesting food again, which means maybe she can gain weight, and pull through this.

 

[Wyorp Rock]

Thank you so much for the update!
This sounds promising - I hope she continues to improve. You are doing well in taking extra steps to save her.

I can see where the crop would empty slowly with her being "blocked". Chickens don't have a gag reflex and can't really vomit, but if things are backing up, liquids can be pushed back up which can look like vomit or spitting up. I'm glad the poop is finally looking a bit better. Hopefully she won't develop a sour crop in the process. I'm sure your vet has advised you on her care, but I would think that plenty of water would be in order (this helps with crops too) and see that she has a source of grit free choice (crushed granite) if you are keeping her housed indoors to administer care.