Roosters need less protein, how to feed them?

[Gray Farms]

I feed game bird grower/finisher mixed with crimped corn now. I'll stop mixing in corn when the weather warms up.

 

[Shadrach]

I've heard liver and kidney damage.

The last rooster here that died has a necropsy done by my lovely vet. I have to be honest and state I didn't have the heart to do it myself and despite some information and pictures on the Internet, I wouldn't be certain about what I saw.
With this rooster it was liver damage but it makes sense to assume that kidney damage would also be a factor.
I'm in the process of writing an article about the problems of excess calcium in feed for roosters. While there is considerable data in hypocalcimia, hypercalcimia isn't so well researched. There is comparatively little research in either for roosters.

 

[Gray Farms]

The last rooster here that died has a necropsy done by my lovely vet. I have to be honest and state I didn't have the heart to do it myself and despite some information and pictures on the Internet, I wouldn't be certain about what I saw.
With this rooster it was liver damage but it makes sense to assume that kidney damage would also be a factor.
I'm in the process of writing an article about the problems of excess calcium in feed for roosters. While there is considerable data in hypocalcimia, hypercalcimia isn't so well researched. There is comparatively little research in either for roosters.

Send me the article when your finished if you think about it. Thanks

 

[Shadrach]

Send me the article when your finished if you think about it. Thanks

I'll be posting it in my articles section along with the others on my profile page.
I'll try to remember to tag you when it's done though.

 

[Gray Farms]

I'll be posting it in my articles section along with the others on my profile page.
I'll try to remember to tag you when it's done though.

Thank you

 

[RenoHuskerDu]

I understand now why our chicken supplier does a brisk business in roosters.

 

[centrarchid]

A nutritionally complete feed with about 20% crude protein (like with flock raiser) that is supplemented only with enough calcium for growth and maintenance. Then have free-choice access to rich calcium source like oyster shells / egg shells mentioned by @Dr.GarryTTucker. Birds not in lay (includes roosters) will pass on the rich calcium source unless shorted on something like grit.

Might be getting too rapped up in calcium issues to solve initial problem.

 

[Shadrach]

Might be getting too rapped up in calcium issues to solve initial problem.

Maybe, but it's such a simple problem to fix.
There have been a few discussions on the subject. One of the responses given by an educator here for example was, I've fed layer pellets to my chickens all their lives and they've been fine. That's a bit like saying I've smoked cigarettes all my life and I'm okay so they can't be harmful.

 

[centrarchid]

Then you folks need to be inserting science into your discussion where dissections include birds with what you consider to be healthy diets. Your vets are likely operating outside the realm of established science once cracking open birds more than a couple years old. Proper controls on what innards should look like may also need to consider natural forages rather than formulated feeds and even forages can vary by location, season and year. No one has here even considered the impacts of feeding grain-based feeds for long periods of time in this thread.

 

[Saaniya]

No ,
Who says they don't need protein
They need protein for their good glossy feather growth
Protein helps their feathers come out early without much itching

Roosters can't eat calcium
Because calcium makes their kidneys works.hard

But in very lil quantity like 0.3mg is fine occasionally very rarely