Sick … :( maybe wry??????

[Wyorp Rock]

Great to know, thank you. But then what would I taper off to as good regular background amount. I think it's long been clear she just doesn't get enough calcium for whatever reason. How much would you give an older chicken for health-maintenance?

Does she seem to regularly not feel well, then improve with Calcium?

You can try a different type of Oyster Shell like Oyster Shell flakes to see if she will eat those better. They are more expensive and have to order them online (Amazon) or (?) but I've found my hens seem to gobble them up. I have a Sapphire Gem whose eggs are huge and her shells have always been slightly more fragile than other hens, they do hold up o.k., just break a little easier. And I notice as she's aging (She's 4), while the shells are still adequate, they are getting thinner. I've been giving Flakes for a while now and her shell quality has improved a little, I do know she's eating the flakes, I watch her. I can't say they are a cure, but for her it's helped.

For long term, I'm not sure how much calcium citrate to give in tablet form or if that's a viable option, generally the "extra" is given during a crisis like she just had. Let me see if @azygous has that information. It may be that you can give it once a week? But I can't find that.

Also, what do you feed?

 

[aliris]

Hi Wyorp. What I feed - what's working well is ScratchNPeck mash in a treadle feeder at will. Then they pick through that for the goodies. Which I presume, like toddlers, is where the nutrition is? So I reserve the leftover fines when I change that and the twice daily give them a soaked/fermented mash of those fines plus a scratch mixture of {barley+oat+wheat} which I mix up myself and supplement with a bit of cracker peas and a bit of millet and a spoonful of poultry vitamins; forget its name. So there are 6 and they get a quart of that morning and afternoon. Plus a huge pile of carrot tops every day.

So that's a normal amount of eating. Also free for them to pick at is pelletized food from ScratchNPeck which they liked at first but now don't much. It gets very fine grained too and I reserve that and sometimes put some of that in with the fermenting mash.

For calcium I actually have three different kinds plus ground up eggshells. They don't really see to like any of it. I have so many kinds, including those good oyster flakes, because I've tried over the years to tempt them more and they aren't seemingly particularly interested. So it just sits there.

I presume they eat more of it than I know because the two youngest's egg shells are super-hard. Then there are two older that are medium hard. And this one's who as I said, has not been laying much for a long while and before that her shells were paper-thin. And she's had this sort of issue, cleared up by calcium pills, for a couple years now - you've prescribed them before, lol! There have been times she hasn't laid at all and I've given her high dose calcium and out popped an egg the next day when again, I thought she was just done.

I've tried adding calcium to the ferment but they don't seem to like that and leave the ferment.

I do give treats sometimes, black sesame seeds (their favorite), or just the dry scratch. They love dairy, oddly enough - I don't give much. Odd corn cob, melon, etc. Oh yes, and dried mealworms for bedtime snack.

Thanks!

 

[azygous]

Calcium in the form of oyster shell or limestone is best since the hen can self regulate the consumption. Mixing calcium into the feed other than what the commercial feed company put in it isn't advisable. In a crisis, we use human calcium supplements to drench the hen's system to give her a calcium "reset".

Since concentrated forms of calcium can be hard on the kidneys if given too long, I like to set a limit of two weeks on it. Probably @Wyorp Rock suggestion of a tablet once a week would be a pretty safe plan. The kidneys shouldn't be overwhelmed by that amount.

 

[aliris]

Thank you @azygous. How to get calcium regularly into a chicken who seems either not to absorb it routinely or just to avoid it. I keep eggshells and - literally - three forms of Ca out there for them! I've never seen her snooping around and taking the "wild type" but I'm sure she could and I don't notice. But the evidence suggests really only that horse pill is wha'ts "sticking" for whatever reason.

She's had a lot of these pills in her lifetime by now. Seems she's at more danger from stopping them altogether than their use but I'm wondering what might be a reasonable maintenance dose? I've never kept to a strict schedule, just in the past when I noticed her not laying at all I'd give her a pill. Then I got to worrying I was forcing something that was just done and that perhaps the body's needs change after some threshold like that akin to menopause? But that seems not to be the case so...IIRC those are 500mg tablets (from Costco, but the giant bottle is long gone). Maybe.... once/week? For everyone or just the susceptible one?

Thanks for your thoughts on this.

 

[azygous]

We often forget that calcium absorption can be enhanced with exposure to direct sunlight or a vitamin D supplement. Therefore, rather than increasing the calcium we give our hens, we could try increasing the vitamin D. This is especially applicable in winter.

If you are feeding a commercial feed, that and oyster shell will be all your hens will usually require to maintain proper calcium levels. Feeding them additional calcium would risk straining their kidneys.

I suggest just sticking to the calcium supplement for crisis situations such as poor egg shell quality and egg binding.