Please help with diagnosing these poorly chickens. **pics and story included**

[Bogtown Chick]

Just did a little leg-work on the Nu Stock and it appears this nice company out of Wisconsin sells it for the best price. (about 1/2 of everybody else) But as a result they are back ordered and a new shipment for them comes in 2/4/14 .... well, today as a matter of fact. LOL.

http://www.drsfostersmith.com/product/related_items.cfm?dsbid=s69775175 Hope this helpful and hope they ship international. Along with the diet additions of Apple Cider Vinegar and this particular product, Vent gleet would be well treated. This product will also eliminate pests like mites and lice.

If you cannot order it internationally, it can be compounded pretty easily as it has 3 ingredients: Sulfur powder 73%, mineral oil 25%, pine oil 2%.

 

[Bens-Hens]

Ben: Thank good ness for you jumping in to lend a hand with this skinny chooks. Sounds like you are doing well helping them out with getting the birds back on formulated feed pellets. I would go with a higher protein feed like flock raiser or gamebird feed. I like the idea of an occasional sardine feast. My birds prefer their whole grain scratch too over their pellets but I know that it's not a complete food for them. One trick on this BYC forum is fermenting the feed. This not only helps save the pricey food from spillage and being pecked out of the feeder onto the ground but it seems to make the nutrients of the feed more bio-available if you will. The birds seem to gain weight on it and produce eggs with yolks jumbo size while providing good intestinal health. And although we are trying to get them to eat more of this food...you will see that a little goes a long way. There is literally tons of information on fermenting feed on BYC, but I'll let yo how I do it. Real easy and simple. I use a clean plastic ice cream bucket. Put a scoop of formulated feed, (just a little scratch and sunflower seeds to peak their interest--no more than 5-10% of the total food) add capful of Apple cider vinegar with the Mother and water until it's an oatmeal consistency. Cover in a warm area with dish towel-stirring once to twice daily. You might have to add a bit more water as it absorbs up. After day 2 you should smell a nice home-made bread dough yeasty smell. It's ready to be served up and the chooks go crazy for it once they have a taste. They maybe put off at first until they are used to it, but then they really clean it up after their first taste. You might note intestinal sloughings as their gut acclimates to the feed. I usually have 2-3 buckets going in a cycle. When one is empty the next one in line is waiting for the next day's feeding. So on and so forth. As the birds put meat back on -- they'll notice that they'll eat less and less of the fermented feed. It's a sign their nutritional needs are being met.

Also...if you are not sure if it is Vent Gleet or mites you could just try ordering up some Nu Stock. I believe it treats both. It can be tough to get here in the states and probably even worse for Australians. But if you find a good reliable on line source maybe you'd have it there in a week or more. Providing the girls with some diversions like hanging cabbages or apples or home-made flock blocks to pick on will maybe help with the feather picking. Dust baths with wood ashes and maybe mixed with some Poultry dust might help. I'm glad you wormed them as well.

Oh. I might also add. Look around to see if they have access to pebbles or smallish gravel for grit. Their crops wont process the food properly and get nutritional value out of it without some grit in their gizzard.

You've already got some solid advice on here for those chooks and sounds like you are well on your way!

Thanks Bogtown Chick.

I have sprouted feed before to use up some old stuff I had laying about and our girls loved it, made both sprouts and grass. I was glad to see the end of it though as it took up wash house space and my lovely wife was not so keen on the smell. Once the bin was empty we stopped that process.

Honestly though, we spoil our flock where this other family is a bit less 'interactive' I don't see them going the extra mile to ferment feed or buy up on extra stuff. It was a stretch getting the Super Poultry Mix as a once off. They would buy the mite/lice treatment but unless they can actually see some bugs I would be hard pressed convincing them.

Just did a little leg-work on the Nu Stock and it appears this nice company out of Wisconsin sells it for the best price. (about 1/2 of everybody else) But as a result they are back ordered and a new shipment for them comes in 2/4/14 .... well, today as a matter of fact. LOL.

http://www.drsfostersmith.com/product/related_items.cfm?dsbid=s69775175 Hope this helpful and hope they ship international. Along with the diet additions of Apple Cider Vinegar and this particular product, Vent gleet would be well treated. This product will also eliminate pests like mites and lice.

If you cannot order it internationally, it can be compounded pretty easily as it has 3 ingredients: Sulfur powder 73%, mineral oil 25%, pine oil 2%.

Thanks for doing that homework, could be very helpful to myself or others if we ever get it in our flock. Unfortunately, as I said above I would probably have a hard time getting them to buy it.

Another week or two and I will go back and do another thorough check up on them, but I don't want to push my luck too much, our friends might ban me from coming over hahahaha. It's been hard enough to tell them their flock is in a bad way, let alone that it's their fault. Tried to firm enough to get the point across yet not over step the meddling/insulting boundary.

Thanks again all, I will report back with some updated pics after my next visit.

Ben

 

[Bogtown Chick]

Oh yes. I do understand the need to be neighborly and remembering boundaries. That's a good thing. And ultimately, your friends/neighbors still wanting your help is good for the Chickens too. One must remember that.

Yeah the fermented feed deal in the laundry tub and room is something to dance around. When I'm on a house cleaning mission it doesn't always look the best. But the love of my chooks makes me look past certain messes I guess. LOL. Old Crazy Chicken Lady already in my middle years.

But the fermented feed could be sold as a suggestion to save money. And everybody is keen on that.

No matter their priorities...

 

[Fancychooklady]

Oh yes.   I do understand the need to be neighborly and remembering boundaries.  That's a good thing.  And ultimately, your friends/neighbors still wanting your help is good for the Chickens too. One must remember that.    Yeah the fermented feed deal in the laundry tub and room is something to dance around.  When I'm on a house cleaning mission it doesn't always look the best.  But the love of my chooks makes me look past certain messes I guess. LOL.  Old Crazy Chicken Lady already in my middle years. 

But the fermented feed could be sold as a suggestion to save money.  And everybody is keen on that.  No matter their priorities...

Yes I can agree with that. Having chickens tends to make you ' turn a blind eye ' to messes that you previously wouldn't have tolerated. I have a group of youngsters hanging around my office window, I've clipped their wings and taken them back to the pen several times, but alas I'm condemned to hosing down the window sill every morning. I'm hoping that as they fill in they'll get too big for lift off.

 

[kouros]

I had the same problem this winter......Same feather pecking pattern. It was a combination of boardom but mostly DIET. I did a lot of reading and found a common thread in all of them was a lack of protein. I fed them scrambled eggs, left over chicken,steak scraps etc. The problem went away. I feed them an organic layer mix but I think in general that the layer food needs to have a higher protein ration in the blend! Hope this helps! Sunny in Ct.

 

[Bens-Hens]

Thanks Kuros, I presume it came down to mostly feed.

I was back there not too long ago and asked to see the birds, see how they were going and she had given away all of the Isa's, keeping only Latte that we gave her as she was the only one laying.

her vent gleet looked a tiny bit better, but there was still a lot of ACV in the bottle, and the feed in the feeder was the same stuff in the first lot of pics.

I have tried to show them the resolution, but I can't force them to pay the extra $2 a bag of feed for the better stuff. We have already said we won't be giving them any more birds.