Texas

[bnjrob]

What are/were the problems caused by the deficiencies in the feed? Signs and Symptoms?

I have a poult that isn't doing too well right now, originally thought it was an injury from another bird landing on him. Not certain now since I put him into sickbay, he initially appeared to rally but has since started getting worse. I don't think it is an illness or deficiency since he is the only one with any symptoms. Although I am sure each individual bird could be more prone to dietary deficiencies just as humans are.

I planned on doing blood draws and sending to a lab with a random sampling of the flock, considering being more thorough now and having full panels done on the whole flock. Just need to get all the correct supplies.

Failure to thrive, pale, just not quite as energetic as usual - nothing real specific and most people may not have noticed it but because we do things a certain way with our flock, and my hubby is a veterinarian and I'm a nurse, it was something that we picked up on as being *not quite right*. It was a slow decline and started after a few weeks of being on that other feed. Nothing else had changed and none of the other birds had any problems, just the two hatch groups that were on that brand of feed. Compared to previous hatch groups, they just weren't doing as well as we thought they should be. A couple of weeks after getting back to regular feed and getting supplements, they started improving, they started getting their yellow leg/skin/beak color back like they were supposed to have and looking like they were thriving and putting on size like they should be. We could have gotten a bad batch of feed, but for the price, and for as long as it takes nutritional issues to show up, we don't think it's worth it to risk it again since that feed is more expensive than what we normally feed and we currently are happy with the results that we get from our normal feed routine.

You can test your flock for all kinds of things but honestly I think it's a waste of money. Do you even know what you are going to do with the information that you get from the testing? Are you planning on depopulating your flock if you find something? There are tons of things you could test for and many poultry diseases have similar symptoms, so how would you decide which ones to even bother to test for? There's also tons of things that your birds could come into contact with. You want your birds to build resistance to things, and testing would only show that they had been exposed to something and built up antibodies to fight it. The way to build a healthy flock is to avoid breeding birds that have shown signs of illness. Chances are, if one bird has been exposed to something, all of the others have been exposed to it too. So the ones that don't get sick are the ones that have built up antibodies to fight whatever it is. And those are the birds that you want to perpetuate your flock with because they are the strong ones. Many breeders will immediately kill any bird showing any sign of illness or weakness. Personally I don't see any value in randomly testing the flocks for things unless you know what you're looking for, you have a plan for what you're going to do if something actually comes up in the testing, or if you're getting your paperwork to be able t sell at public places or ship. As long as your birds are healthy and you aren't having tons of them getting sick or dying on you all the time, I don't know that doing testing is going to do much for you.

 

[bnjrob]

You don't have a problem feeding them a feed with no animal protein in it? Why do you switch them to the Flock Raiser instead of leaving them on the Dumore? Is it because the Dumore is not medicated?

I plan on doing both, dual purpose and semi serious breeding. I have English Orps for the dual purpose, and have Crested Legbars coming in a month. I may end up switching to just one breed, but for now I'm going with these two and see how it goes.

The closest H&H feed store is over 122 miles away. I really don't want to go with Coyote Creek, they don't have what I really want and the price is more than the TN.

I've also noticed that my chicks seem to be on the skinny side, at least to me. They look fine, but with all those feathers, it's easy to hide. When you pick them up, you can really feel their breast bone. I don't remember feeling that with my mixed layers.

Another reason I'm switching feeds is availability. I get my feed at a local feed store. They don't order much of the TN, and if your not there when it ships in, your out of luck till next week.

It seems like most of the chicken feed is all vegetarian, no animal protein at all. I picked up a sack of Purina Flock Raiser. I would have got the starter, but all they had was medicated, and I'll be feeding this to both the babies and layers. It seems my TSC doesn't carry the non medicated Purina starter, so I will have to decide if I want to feed the medicated, or get the Dumore non medicated from my legbars.

Who knew feeding chickens was so complicated?

We have not had a problem with coccidiosis so we don't used the medicated feeds. They do get ACV in their water from day one, both for changing pH a little bit in their crop/gut as well as keeping the slime down in their watering dishes. But if they ever need the medicated, it's easy enough to add some amprolium to their water.

I would like to be able to feed them some animal protein feed, but I can't find one that has a high enough protein level even in the animal protein based feeds. Most of the feed is vegetarian because that is the fad thing right now and so many people think that if they are vegetarian/vegan, their chickens should be too. Ugh.

When I do find an adult feed with animal protein in it, it's still usually a low protein, usually around 15-16%, occasionally 18%. Those low protein levels just don't cut it with trying to raise such large birds that need to have some meat on them. But the 24% is a little high for them to be on all the time, especially the breeder birds that don't get to free range every day like our non-breeders do. We use to keep them on the 24% starter for a longer period, but we've started it sooner since we are trying to get the balance between production of meat and eggs. Smaller, lighter birds are better layers, and if your hens get too much fat, particularly intra-abdominal fat, that can affect laying as well as fertility. So far, we've been getting good results and we've been on the current regimen for almost two years and have grown out multiple hatches and been able to see the results.

Where we are, we are close enough to Dallas that the pseudo-country people who commute to Dallas, live out here and they want the faddish feeds for their chickens, which are expensive, and as we found out, don't do well with meeting our goals. But then on the other hand, there are a lot of people here that want the cheapest feed available, without any regard for nutritional content. Trying to find something that works for us and doesn't totally kill us in price, has been a huge challenge. Flock Raiser has been easier to find than a good starter. But once we found the 24% Dumor, we used it and it has done well even though it is proprietary to TSC. From now on, if our TSC keeps not getting their shipments, I'll just drive all over creation to another TSC to get what we need unless someone starts carrying a starter feed that works as well or better.

I think feeding chickens would be easier if all we had were the grains and such and not worried about all the manufactured feeds. The chickens would be doing their foraging and they'd get sour milk and whey and kitchen scraps (which mine love when they get it), and they would be eating food that the larger livestock dropped on the ground.

I know some folks that I've talked with supplement their birds with Calf Manna. Our birds hate pellets so I don't bother trying to get them to eat it anymore. It was too much of a pain to try to crush the pellets and sneak it to them. Some other people use catfish food and I know one person who throws out cat food to the birds, particularly when her birds are molting.

 

[Eliza1313]

henless - if I remember correctly from their website H & H will ship direct, don't know how much that costs. I have a local feed store within 10 miles of me that carries both H & H and TX Nat. However I do not get my TX Nat from them, too often their shipments were coming in with bugs in the feed (only TX Nat - believed to be shipper related). We pick up feed from the local feed store in the town my fiance works, they have not had a problem with getting bugs in the TX Nat. They don't even get weekly shipments of it, they have to order a minimum of $600 to get a shipment. They do allow you to request the amount you want and place it with the next order and will hold it for you.

The poult was off balance and falling over on Friday, with some difficulty getting up. Noticed when I let them out into the big run, once he was up he ran over to the rest of the poults, just a little wobbly. Decided to pull him into sickbay, though it was an injury. The right leg seemed to be the one causing the problem, but no obvious deformity, no swelling and no bruising. He appeared to be doing better that afternoon, and was even regaining his balance and able to get up easier Sat. Sun he was doing the same, then yesterday he started having the balance issues and problems getting up again. Noticed when he is down he is sitting on the hocks with feet up off the ground now. Took a closer look at the legs today, it looks like they are atrophying and their may be some swelling at the hock joint. Suspecting mycoplasma synoviae, since turkeys are more resistant to Mareks.

I plan on testing for the mycoplasma diseases and the others that they can be carriers of after recovering. I would like to breed and possibly show, so I can't have it in my flock. If he is the only one that tests positive he will be culled. The original reason for wanting the testing was the new birds I have in quarantine, plus do a random sampling of the rest of the flock before introducing them. Then the poult started going lame. It could even be a reaction to chiggar bites from what I have read, just being cautious. If they all test positive, I guess I have to find out it the meat and eggs are still safe to eat. So long as they are then all the males will be taken to weight and processed, then I will keep the females until their production drops. Then tear down and start over in a couple of years.

 

[Eliza1313]

I choose to use the soy-free and non-gmo food for my birds for personal reasons. If I could find and afford a soy-free organic feed that was good for the birds too I would buy it. I don't think that gmo is all bad, I just don't believe the big companies are using it in the proper way. If all they were doing was more quickly selecting the good genes needed to boost productivity and nutrition then great, but they aren't. I don't want to eat frankenfruit. I would love it if products for human consumption were required to be labelled as gmo, I wouldn't touch the stuff then. As for the soy, it is a cheap source of protien, however it also produces stuff similar to female hormones. My mom had hormone reactive breast cancer, thankfully she is in remission, but ever since I have been more mindful of soy being in stuff I eat. Pick up any manufactured food product and it will most likely contain some sort of soy. Then to top it of I have hormone reactive migraines. Research has proven that soy proteins pass into the egg, so no thank you I am not feeding my birds anything with soy in it.

Eventual goal is to be able to grow most of what the poultry will eat. Studying up on poultry nutrition. However the books I have are older and focus a lot on corn (worst crop for gmo). Too many corn growers around me, so I couldn't keep it out of my crops.

 

[bnjrob]

henless - if I remember correctly from their website H & H will ship direct, don't know how much that costs. I have a local feed store within 10 miles of me that carries both H & H and TX Nat. However I do not get my TX Nat from them, too often their shipments were coming in with bugs in the feed (only TX Nat - believed to be shipper related). We pick up feed from the local feed store in the town my fiance works, they have not had a problem with getting bugs in the TX Nat. They don't even get weekly shipments of it, they have to order a minimum of $600 to get a shipment. They do allow you to request the amount you want and place it with the next order and will hold it for you.

The poult was off balance and falling over on Friday, with some difficulty getting up. Noticed when I let them out into the big run, once he was up he ran over to the rest of the poults, just a little wobbly. Decided to pull him into sickbay, though it was an injury. The right leg seemed to be the one causing the problem, but no obvious deformity, no swelling and no bruising. He appeared to be doing better that afternoon, and was even regaining his balance and able to get up easier Sat. Sun he was doing the same, then yesterday he started having the balance issues and problems getting up again. Noticed when he is down he is sitting on the hocks with feet up off the ground now. Took a closer look at the legs today, it looks like they are atrophying and their may be some swelling at the hock joint. Suspecting mycoplasma synoviae, since turkeys are more resistant to Mareks.

I plan on testing for the mycoplasma diseases and the others that they can be carriers of after recovering. I would like to breed and possibly show, so I can't have it in my flock. If he is the only one that tests positive he will be culled. The original reason for wanting the testing was the new birds I have in quarantine, plus do a random sampling of the rest of the flock before introducing them. Then the poult started going lame. It could even be a reaction to chiggar bites from what I have read, just being cautious. If they all test positive, I guess I have to find out it the meat and eggs are still safe to eat. So long as they are then all the males will be taken to weight and processed, then I will keep the females until their production drops. Then tear down and start over in a couple of years.

Sounds like you have been using BYC as your main source of poultry info and have made up your mind about things. Too much work to further discuss and it's no skin off my nose if you waste your own money on testing your flock. Good luck with your plans and I hope it works out well for you.

 

[henless]

We have not had a problem with coccidiosis so we don't used the medicated feeds. They do get ACV in their water from day one, both for changing pH a little bit in their crop/gut as well as keeping the slime down in their watering dishes. But if they ever need the medicated, it's easy enough to add some amprolium to their water.

I would like to be able to feed them some animal protein feed, but I can't find one that has a high enough protein level even in the animal protein based feeds. Most of the feed is vegetarian because that is the fad thing right now and so many people think that if they are vegetarian/vegan, their chickens should be too. Ugh.

I think feeding chickens would be easier if all we had were the grains and such and not worried about all the manufactured feeds. The chickens would be doing their foraging and they'd get sour milk and whey and kitchen scraps (which mine love when they get it), and they would be eating food that the larger livestock dropped on the ground.

So far, we haven't had any problems with cocci either. We've only raised 2 batches of chicks, but I haven't used medicated feed on either batch. I wasn't thrilled about having to get the medicated Purina for the new chicks. I'll look into the Dumore for them.

I give mine all kinds of things, leftovers, cut grass, fruit, extra eggs, veggies, alfalfa & scratch. I like to feed them a higher protein so that the "extras" don't cut their protein down too much.

I'll see how they do on the Flock Raiser. So far, they seem to like it. I gave both coops a scoop to see, and they ate every bit of it up.

Thanks so much for all the information you posted. It really helps us new chicken nuts with our feeding/breeding programs.

henless - if I remember correctly from their website H & H will ship direct, don't know how much that costs. I have a local feed store within 10 miles of me that carries both H & H and TX Nat. However I do not get my TX Nat from them, too often their shipments were coming in with bugs in the feed (only TX Nat - believed to be shipper related). We pick up feed from the local feed store in the town my fiance works, they have not had a problem with getting bugs in the TX Nat. They don't even get weekly shipments of it, they have to order a minimum of $600 to get a shipment. They do allow you to request the amount you want and place it with the next order and will hold it for you.

The poult was off balance and falling over on Friday, with some difficulty getting up. Noticed when I let them out into the big run, once he was up he ran over to the rest of the poults, just a little wobbly. Decided to pull him into sickbay, though it was an injury. The right leg seemed to be the one causing the problem, but no obvious deformity, no swelling and no bruising. He appeared to be doing better that afternoon, and was even regaining his balance and able to get up easier Sat. Sun he was doing the same, then yesterday he started having the balance issues and problems getting up again. Noticed when he is down he is sitting on the hocks with feet up off the ground now. Took a closer look at the legs today, it looks like they are atrophying and their may be some swelling at the hock joint. Suspecting mycoplasma synoviae, since turkeys are more resistant to Mareks.

I may check and see what the shipping is, but honestly, I'd rather not have to deal with shipping. I don't want to have to buy a lot of feed, and I'd hate to buy a little bit and then they not be able to ship me some when I needed it.

Maybe your chick has something genetic wrong with it? Either way, please keep us updated on what/how he/she does. I would like to know.

 

[Eliza1313]

Quote:
If you have any other ideas of what could be wrong with the poult, please do tell. I am open to other opinions. I asked about the problems you had with the feed, hoping that it could possibly be a vitamin or mineral deficiency. Yes I have looked up stuff on BYC, is it my only source of information - no. I have several books on poultry keeping and production, including one specifically on nutrition. They are a few decades old, so some of the info could be out of date. Please share your thoughts, I am not trying to shut you down. FYI the mycoplasma test through the lab in Gonzales is less than $1 per sample.

 

[henless]

I choose to use the soy-free and non-gmo food for my birds for personal reasons. If I could find and afford a soy-free organic feed that was good for the birds too I would buy it. I don't think that gmo is all bad, I just don't believe the big companies are using it in the proper way. If all they were doing was more quickly selecting the good genes needed to boost productivity and nutrition then great, but they aren't. I don't want to eat frankenfruit. I would love it if products for human consumption were required to be labelled as gmo, I wouldn't touch the stuff then. As for the soy, it is a cheap source of protien, however it also produces stuff similar to female hormones. My mom had hormone reactive breast cancer, thankfully she is in remission, but ever since I have been more mindful of soy being in stuff I eat. Pick up any manufactured food product and it will most likely contain some sort of soy. Then to top it of I have hormone reactive migraines. Research has proven that soy proteins pass into the egg, so no thank you I am not feeding my birds anything with soy in it.

Eventual goal is to be able to grow most of what the poultry will eat. Studying up on poultry nutrition. However the books I have are older and focus a lot on corn (worst crop for gmo). Too many corn growers around me, so I couldn't keep it out of my crops.

I went soy free/gmo free feed due to the fact that I have Rheumatoid Disease. I know I feel better when I eat right, but there comes a time when you have to weigh all the pros/cons and then go with it. I don't like eating fishy tasting eggs, and I know it has come from the feed except for the very first time. That time, I gave the hens some mackerel to up their Omega 3's. Never did it again. Since you mentioned it, I've gotten TN feed with weevils in it a lot! Weevils may not hurt the chicks, but weevily feed has been ingrained in me that it is bad. Probably from having horses all my life, lol, and it's hard to get around that.

 

[Eliza1313]

henless - sorry if I confused you with the shipping thing. It is TX Nat that requires the feed store to order a minimum amount in order to ship. If I remember correctly that H & H ships direct I have no clue of cost or if they require a minimum order.

I will keep you updated on the poult. Pretty sure male, since I ordered the hatchery special of heritage toms from the hatch run they were using to refresh their breeding stock.

 

[Eliza1313]

Quote:
I was wondering if the fish flavor could have been from an Omega supplement, guess that answers that question. Everyone has different taste buds. We don't taste it in the eggs, that doesn't mean it isn't there at all. Maybe it is just how one particular hen of yours processes it even. Who knows. I can taste the difference between butter and margarine in a lot of dishes that I know other people can't, same with artificial sweeteners. I won't even chew gum anymore (unless it is Double Bubble) because I can't stand the taste of the xylitol. I let the feed store know about the weevils, they offered to give me another type of feed but were out of the H &H. Knew it wouldn't hurt the chicks, just extra protein, they would have eaten the bugs had they found them. Went to get the next bag of feed and they said they sent the whole shipment of TX Nat back because of the bugs. The 2 feed stores are within 20 miles of each other, but the one keeps getting bugs in the shipment but the other has not had a problem.