Just a question question about Nutritional Yeast- I see some flakes and some seasoning. Is one better than the other? I've been giving my ducklings Everland Brewer's Yeast since birth and all are showing signs of niacin deficiency. Thanks to this post, I looked at the label and Niacin isn't even an ingredient! I emailed the company to inquire but now I'm panicing.
in my experience raising hundreds maybe thousands by now, ducklings, brewers yeast is not reliable, I suspect it might have variable levels of niacin in it for whatever reason.
I stopped using it after the first year when I had ducklings who were given plenty of the stuff on every single meal develop niacin leg issues.
I now only use multi b or niacin supplements which have the exact amount of niacin specified on the packaging.
I have also fond that for any ducklings I raise on canned cat food (jellymeat) have not ever had a single one of them have any issues with ‘niacin legs’ (as I call them) or with angel wing.
Canned cat food, where I live anyway, has meat as it’s number one ingredient (to know the number one ingredient in any feed, you should be able to just read the ingredients as they are listed from the ingredient which the feed has in the highest proportion in descending order to the lowest.
I will attach a couple of the labels from canned cat food I buy for my ducklings. Normally I just get the cheapest budget brand, it seems to work just as well as the more expensive stuff and both have met as their number one ingredient.
Niacin is better absorbed by ducklings via meat than via vegetable sources (apparently chicks are far better at getting their niacin from grains etc which is why niacin deficiency related leg problems are seen in ducklings raised in captivity and not chicks (wild ducklings eat loads of insects and get their niacin this way).
As well as having heaps of meat, canned cat food has a low overall protein (usually around 9%) which prevents angel wing, which I have had ducklings raised on other feeds, (ie crumble and pellets feed with appropriate amounts of b vitamins added) that are 13 -15% protein max get. Again with the jellymeat never had any ducklings develop angel wing. It’s expensive if you have a lot of ducklings (ie 100 or more) and for them I give pellets/crumble and at least one full meal each day of jellymeat and that seems to work well. But for smaller numbers of ducklings or if you can afford, I recommend you feed them nothing but canned cat food as a base till fully feathered and wings developed, with just some greens and vegetables etc as treats.
I’ll attach the labels of a couple of cans I have in my recycling bin with the meat content highlighted
View attachment 2683962View attachment 2683963
