Farmfresh
City Biddy
Well my birds was showing weakness in the legs, staggering sometimes, kind of depressed but otherwise looking healthy. You wouldn't think about the legs being effected but according to the kidney association they are.
Kidney Disease
I remembered reading once that the character Tiny Tim in a Christmas Carol was supposed to have been suffering from kidney failure. Then I recalled how older horses sometimes experience kidney failure when they eat too much calcium rich alfalfa and there old bodies can't eliminate all of the extra calcium. So then I started to research that option. I am sure a chicken does not display all of the symptoms like a person would but still there are enough.
Plus - It does make sense. We load our hens up with the minerals because they produce eggs and shells at such a large rate they NEED all of that extra mineral. Poor roo eats it and it has no place to go. I penned my poor boy separate from the hens and started feeding him a low protein scratch mix and he DID improve. I eventually sent him to freezer camp however because I believe he had already suffered too much damage. I considered it lesson learned.
I have still very seldom seen any info about this kind of thing, which makes sense. Most studies are aimed at commercial laying flocks where there ARE no roosters or commercial broiler flocks where the chickens only live 40 days.
If I get roosters again I will NOT be feeding laying pellets to my hens while they are with the rooster. I will supplement with oyster shell and other free choice minerals.
Kidney Disease
I remembered reading once that the character Tiny Tim in a Christmas Carol was supposed to have been suffering from kidney failure. Then I recalled how older horses sometimes experience kidney failure when they eat too much calcium rich alfalfa and there old bodies can't eliminate all of the extra calcium. So then I started to research that option. I am sure a chicken does not display all of the symptoms like a person would but still there are enough.
Plus - It does make sense. We load our hens up with the minerals because they produce eggs and shells at such a large rate they NEED all of that extra mineral. Poor roo eats it and it has no place to go. I penned my poor boy separate from the hens and started feeding him a low protein scratch mix and he DID improve. I eventually sent him to freezer camp however because I believe he had already suffered too much damage. I considered it lesson learned.
I have still very seldom seen any info about this kind of thing, which makes sense. Most studies are aimed at commercial laying flocks where there ARE no roosters or commercial broiler flocks where the chickens only live 40 days.
If I get roosters again I will NOT be feeding laying pellets to my hens while they are with the rooster. I will supplement with oyster shell and other free choice minerals.
