Shadrach's Ex Battery and Rescued chickens thread.

[BDutch]

The 3 chicks my broody hatched a few months ago all appear to be pullets! What are the chances?

½ * ½ * ½ = ⅛ = 12.5%

 

[Sally PB]

I bet I owe tax. Sunny has "sprouts" coming up on her head.

 

[Shadrach]

Glad you are unscathed. I choose to live where there are neither hurricanes nor tornadoes!


All my girls have been raised and live the same. The coop is an old 10'x12' horse stall with 1/2" hardware cloth over all openings. The auto door opens and closes with daylight into the barn alley 8'x50'. There is a door around the corner on the north end that is always open enough for the alpacas so push it open or the chickens to pass through. They have access to a fenced acre (which includes a pond about 50'x25'). For whatever reason, most of them wait for me to open the barn doors on the south side in the morning.

Feed: starter then grower then layer. Though now that I have Zeus (4ish (?) month old EE cockerel) I have switched back to grower. The girls have always had oyster shell available. In the morning the 20 of them share a 5 oz can of BOSS along with their commercial feed. They also get kitchen scraps. In the afternoon they get 5 oz of scratch with their commercial feed. They forage as much as they like all day long.

When dusk arrives they head back to the coop on their own for the night, I close it up and close the south barn door later.

The girls that I found dead without obvious cause were different breeds and different hatch years. All came from hatcheries as day olds.

I've often wondered if fatty liver syndrome is a genetic failing rather than diet related.

 

[RoyalChick]

I've often wondered if fatty liver syndrome is a genetic failing rather than diet related.

There is actually quite a good body of scientific work on fatty liver syndrome.
I can't remember why I looked into this and I won't have all the papers I read easily to hand but am linking a few. The reason it is well studied is partly that it is an economically significant disease for the large scale chicken operations, but also because it is a good model of human non-alcoholic fatty liver disease.

All the findings below have been confirmed in multiple studies so are really not that controversial in the scientific community at this stage. Of course it all runs a bit counter to the BYC general viewpoint!

From memory (I didn't re-read them all just now) the main conclusions are:
- It is a disorder of carbohydrate metabolism
- Like all metabolic diseases it is complicated with multiple factors involved - so likely both genetics and diet as well as exercise (see below)
- Mortality of chickens who have Fatty Liver (abbreviated to FLKS for Fatty Liver Kidney Syndrome) was significantly reduced in the short term (broiler study) by providing animal fat in their diet!
- Hens that exercise (free ranging or even jumping up on perches) are much less likely to suffer FLKS than those confined and without exercise.
- Biotin (one of the B vitamins) is thought to play an important role - deficiency of Biotin is believed to be a factor in the disease and supplementing Biotin may help prevention.
[Parenthetical from me rather than from the studies directly: You have to love those B vitamins! Like all B vitamins it decays rapidly and therefore could well be somewhat lacking in commercial feeds particularly those that are stored badly or a bit elderly. Good dietary sources of Biotin are things like fish, liver, eggs, nuts and some seeds].

This is not from the papers I have linked but was a good summary from a university website (Texas I think):
Fatty liver syndrome is a result of excessive consumption of high-energy diets, regardless of the source, in birds whose exercise is restricted.

My personal takeaway from all the reading is:
- Let the birds range as much as possible
- Don't trust a commercial-only feed to provide enough B vitamins, so supplement with meat, fish, eggs, nuts - which is something Shad has been teaching us all for ages.

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/22039773/
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/201268/
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0032579119323351
https://www.mdpi.com/2076-2615/10/10/1911

Hope that is helpful for this community - I realize that the common wisdom is to trust the commercial feed to provide everything - but I think the whole B vitamin complex is sufficiently unstable that it is quite plausible that it decays during storage. And I think the whole connection to exercise and the coop/run keeping model is obvious.

 

[Shadrach]

Five hours today with a break for tea at my eldests. It stayed dry and apparently we are due for a mini heatwave (UK standard so a bit warm for many in other parts of the world) for the next few days.
No drama to report. Chicks look very scruffy with the baby fur falling out and feathers growing in. I spent most of the day relaxing with a bit of weeding and plot management. The tomatoes I was sure would never ripen are going red and now I have lots.

I did this with a batch for tonights supper, heavy on the garlic and basil and added chopped pine nuts served on a few slices of scottish smoked salmon.

https://www.theendlessmeal.com/roasted-cherry-tomatoes/

Need to do a bit of dusting from the look of it.

 

[RoyalChick]

There is actually quite a good body of scientific work on fatty liver syndrome.
I can't remember why I looked into this and I won't have all the papers I read easily to hand but am linking a few. The reason it is well studied is partly that it is an economically significant disease for the large scale chicken operations, but also because it is a good model of human non-alcoholic fatty liver disease.

All the findings below have been confirmed in multiple studies so are really not that controversial in the scientific community at this stage. Of course it all runs a bit counter to the BYC general viewpoint!

From memory (I didn't re-read them all just now) the main conclusions are:
- It is a disorder of carbohydrate metabolism
- Like all metabolic diseases it is complicated with multiple factors involved - so likely both genetics and diet as well as exercise (see below)
- Mortality of chickens who have Fatty Liver (abbreviated to FLKS for Fatty Liver Kidney Syndrome) was significantly reduced in the short term (broiler study) by providing animal fat in their diet!
- Hens that exercise (free ranging or even jumping up on perches) are much less likely to suffer FLKS than those confined and without exercise.
- Biotin (one of the B vitamins) is thought to play an important role - deficiency of Biotin is believed to be a factor in the disease and supplementing Biotin may help prevention.
[Parenthetical from me rather than from the studies directly: You have to love those B vitamins! Like all B vitamins it decays rapidly and therefore could well be somewhat lacking in commercial feeds particularly those that are stored badly or a bit elderly. Good dietary sources of Biotin are things like fish, liver, eggs, nuts and some seeds].

This is not from the papers I have linked but was a good summary from a university website (Texas I think):
Fatty liver syndrome is a result of excessive consumption of high-energy diets, regardless of the source, in birds whose exercise is restricted.

My personal takeaway from all the reading is:
- Let the birds range as much as possible
- Don't trust a commercial-only feed to provide enough B vitamins, so supplement with meat, fish, eggs, nuts - which is something Shad has been teaching us all for ages.

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/22039773/
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/201268/
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0032579119323351
https://www.mdpi.com/2076-2615/10/10/1911

Hope that is helpful for this community - I realize that the common wisdom is to trust the commercial feed to provide everything - but I think the whole B vitamin complex is sufficiently unstable that it is quite plausible that it decays during storage. And I think the whole connection to exercise and the coop/run keeping model is obvious.

Sorry for those who already read this - I just made a couple of edits to make crystal clear what was my interpretation vs strictly from the scientific studies. Doesn't alter the story!

 

[Little Tala Bug]

Five hours today with a break for tea at my eldests. It stayed dry and apparently we are due for a mini heatwave (UK standard so a bit warm for many in other parts of the world) for the next few days.
No drama to report. Chicks look very scruffy with the baby fur falling out and feathers growing in. I spent most of the day relaxing with a bit of weeding and plot management. The tomatoes I was sure would never ripen are going red and now I have lots.

I did this with a batch for tonights supper, heavy on the garlic and basil and added chopped pine nuts served on a few slices of scottish smoked salmon.

https://www.theendlessmeal.com/roasted-cherry-tomatoes/

View attachment 3625793View attachment 3625794View attachment 3625795View attachment 3625792
Need to do a bit of dusting from the look of it.

That recipe looks delicious!

 

[Shadrach]

There is actually quite a good body of scientific work on fatty liver syndrome.
I can't remember why I looked into this and I won't have all the papers I read easily to hand but am linking a few. The reason it is well studied is partly that it is an economically significant disease for the large scale chicken operations, but also because it is a good model of human non-alcoholic fatty liver disease.

All the findings below have been confirmed in multiple studies so are really not that controversial in the scientific community at this stage. Of course it all runs a bit counter to the BYC general viewpoint!

From memory (I didn't re-read them all just now) the main conclusions are:
- It is a disorder of carbohydrate metabolism
- Like all metabolic diseases it is complicated with multiple factors involved - so likely both genetics and diet as well as exercise (see below)
- Biotin (one of the B vitamins) is thought to play an important role - deficiency of Biotin is believed to be a factor in the disease and supplementing Biotin may help prevention. You have to love those B vitamins! Like all B vitamins it decays rapidly and therefore could well be somewhat lacking in commercial feeds particularly those that are stored badly or a bit elderly. Good dietary sources of Biotin are things like fish, liver, eggs, nuts and some seeds.
- Mortality of chickens who have Fatty Liver (abbreviated to FLKS for Fatty Liver Kidney Syndrome) was significantly reduced in the short term (broiler study) by providing animal fat in their diet!
- Hens that exercise (free ranging or even jumping up on perches) are much less likely to suffer FLKS than those confined and without exercise.

This is not from the papers I have linked but was a good summary from a university website (Texas I think):
Fatty liver syndrome is a result of excessive consumption of high-energy diets, regardless of the source, in birds whose exercise is restricted.

My personal takeaway from all the reading is:
- Let the birds range as much as possible
- Don't trust a commercial-only feed to provide enough B vitamins, so supplement with meat, fish, eggs, nuts - which is something Shad has been teaching us all for ages.

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/22039773/
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/201268/
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0032579119323351
https://www.mdpi.com/2076-2615/10/10/1911

Hope that is helpful for this community - I realize that the common wisdom is to trust the commercial feed to provide everything - but I think the whole B vitamin complex is sufficiently unstable that the chance of its decay during storage of commercial feed is high.

I've read a little on the topic. It's shame the studies are so often broiler based but understandable. You know what I'm like about excercise and fish and meat.

 

[RoyalChick]

I've read a little on the topic. It's shame the studies are so often broiler based but understandable. You know what I'm like about excercise and fish and meat.

Well now you can quote the scientific papers and just say you are supplementing Biotin!

 

[TheFatBlueCat]

There is actually quite a good body of scientific work on fatty liver syndrome.
I can't remember why I looked into this and I won't have all the papers I read easily to hand but am linking a few. The reason it is well studied is partly that it is an economically significant disease for the large scale chicken operations, but also because it is a good model of human non-alcoholic fatty liver disease.

All the findings below have been confirmed in multiple studies so are really not that controversial in the scientific community at this stage. Of course it all runs a bit counter to the BYC general viewpoint!

From memory (I didn't re-read them all just now) the main conclusions are:
- It is a disorder of carbohydrate metabolism
- Like all metabolic diseases it is complicated with multiple factors involved - so likely both genetics and diet as well as exercise (see below)
- Mortality of chickens who have Fatty Liver (abbreviated to FLKS for Fatty Liver Kidney Syndrome) was significantly reduced in the short term (broiler study) by providing animal fat in their diet!
- Hens that exercise (free ranging or even jumping up on perches) are much less likely to suffer FLKS than those confined and without exercise.
- Biotin (one of the B vitamins) is thought to play an important role - deficiency of Biotin is believed to be a factor in the disease and supplementing Biotin may help prevention.
[Parenthetical from me rather than from the studies directly: You have to love those B vitamins! Like all B vitamins it decays rapidly and therefore could well be somewhat lacking in commercial feeds particularly those that are stored badly or a bit elderly. Good dietary sources of Biotin are things like fish, liver, eggs, nuts and some seeds].

This is not from the papers I have linked but was a good summary from a university website (Texas I think):
Fatty liver syndrome is a result of excessive consumption of high-energy diets, regardless of the source, in birds whose exercise is restricted.

My personal takeaway from all the reading is:
- Let the birds range as much as possible
- Don't trust a commercial-only feed to provide enough B vitamins, so supplement with meat, fish, eggs, nuts - which is something Shad has been teaching us all for ages.

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/22039773/
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/201268/
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0032579119323351
https://www.mdpi.com/2076-2615/10/10/1911

Hope that is helpful for this community - I realize that the common wisdom is to trust the commercial feed to provide everything - but I think the whole B vitamin complex is sufficiently unstable that it is quite plausible that it decays during storage. And I think the whole connection to exercise and the coop/run keeping model is obvious.

Very interesting.
From that summary none of that really applied to my hen who died, except possible genetic susceptibility. They all eat the same feed which I wouldn't say is excessive from an energy standpoint, it is high in carbs I guess being grain based but it's wholegrain based so those carbs are balanced with a lot of fibre. They get meat meal daily plus meat scraps and dairy along with kitchen scraps. They have full access to a range of leafy green plants and pasture to forage on, plus bugs etc. They get lots of exercise and this hen in question was a tree sleeper, sleeping about 4 metres up. The corn portion of their diet is pretty minimal, they're lucky if they get 4 or 5 kernels each per day.
In saying all that I have a friend who got fatty liver syndrome and she was healthy weight, healthy diet at the time, just a genetic susceptibility in her case. She has to watch her carbohydrate intake.