Rescued chickens not faring so well! help!

[Bud59]

Well, here goes...I purchased a dozen Cinnamon Queen hens 18 months old from someone who had not taken care of them. They had lost a lot of feathers, which appeared to be molting to me. They had not been fed or watered properly and were highly stressed. We brought them home and immediately deloused and wormed them. After a few weeks we added them to the nine chickens we already had. Of course they are pecking each other and now two of the newbies have died in the last four days. They are getting plenty of laying mash, scratch feed, oyster shells, and fresh water. I am getting between 9 and 12 eggs a day...big, beautiful brown eggs. But I can stand the thought that I might be doing something wrong or haven't done enough to help the Queens get proper nourishment. Maybe the stress of adding them to the older hens was too much. Maybe the coop isn't big enough. How do you know? Can anyone help me?

Thanks for any advice or assistance you can share.

 

[chicklover 1998]

add some feather fixer, meat birds starter grower, or game bird feed it has more protein pick one and add it to their feed, treats should not exceed 10% of their diet, add some black oil sunflower seeds. What is the size of your coop, and run if you have one.

 

[Bud59]

My cooper is 10 ft wide and 22 ft long. No run. There are six nesting boxes. I also have a laying mash feeder, oyster shell container, two scratch feed tubs, and a sand pan for dusting. There is also 3 roosting poles up top and it is netted...we live in predator country.

 

[chicklover 1998]

They have enough room an absolute min. for a coop is 4 sq. ft you have ten room is not an issue, is your scratch feed free choice or are the tubs just what you give them their scratch out of, they just try for about 20-22% protein it will help the old gals boost egg production and have shiny feathers, the queens will get back to health and give them more protein for their eggs so they aren't so worn out you are doing everything good, if another bird dies you can send them to a lab and they can find out what was wrong weather it was just stress or a disease, but since you seem to be giving them a great life I'm leaning toward maybe they had something or were too far gone when you got them, I don't know if you are non soy but if you aren't then you can go to your local grain elevator and get soybean meal, do the math as to how much you need to add so that it boosts your protein because soybean meal is something like 38%

 

[Bud59]

Thank you so much. I was afraid I was doing something wrong. Thanks again. I'll try the soybean meal this week.

 

[chicklover 1998]

yeah just make sure that you get the right percent, too much protein can be bad too try to go for that 20-22% range.