Ruby is unwell :(

[featherhead007]

Cool chart!

 

[Kiki]

I haven't read this one yet but I skimmed it and it looks interested.
Am posting the link here to remind me to go back and read it.
https://www.poultryworld.net/Nutrition/Articles/2016/11/Understanding-protein-requirements-2914798W/

eta another one:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5337920/

https://scialert.net/fulltextmobile/?doi=ajas.2016.165.174

If you get a change to read through these (I am working my way through them now) I want you to pay close attention to the protein percentages needed at the various stages of life.
I am really beginning to think that 22% is just too high.

 

[micstrachan]

I just had a thought on nutrition (starting reading @KikisGirls links, thank you!)
Since October, I have been throwing LOTS of seed to grow pasture, which I mow like a lawn. By lots, I mean pounds. Pounds and pounds and pounds. Lots of grass seed (various rye grass, Kentucky blue grass, various fescues, etc.) along with a chicken forage blend (ryegrass, clover, alfalfa, flax, field peas, groats) and additional clover, flax and alfalfa. The girls LOVE the fresh, delicate sprouts I have all over the yard all the time.
HOWEVER, they also eat a bunch of the unsprouted seed. I see now this could pose a nutritional problem. Thoughts?
In case it helps in analyzing, they go through about 50 pounds of organic soy-corn free (22% protein) feed about every two weeks or so (flock of nine hens).

 

[featherhead007]

Hang in there Ruby!

 

[micstrachan]

To be clear... they only have access to these seeds on weekends and weekday evenings when I get home from work. They are confined to a coop and run most of the time and only have their feed in there (along with fresh water, oyster shell and granite grit, of course).

 

[micstrachan]

Hang in there Ruby!View attachment 1408595

Awww... THANKS! Who is that cutie in the photo and who is in the background? I don't recognize those dark specks on the neck. Is that a Brown Leghorn in the background? Looks like one, based on her coloring and leanness.

 

[featherhead007]

Awww... THANKS! Who is that cutie in the photo and who is in the background? I don't recognize those dark specks on the neck. Is that a Brown Leghorn in the background? Looks like one, based on her coloring and leanness.

She's my Brown Leghorn, " beetov-Hen" in the background. The Hampshire is " BeeBees"

 

[micstrachan]

I thought she looked like a New Hampshire Red except I did not recognize the black specks on her neck feathers. Mine did not have that.

 

[featherhead007]

Beetov-Hen:

 

[featherhead007]

One more picture: