Poultry questions answered - May 2010
Written by Sue Clarke. Provided by New Zealand Lifestyle Block, incorporating Growing Today, magazine.
Is it ok to feed barley? Why do hens lay soft-shelled eggs? Poultry expert Sue Clarke answers these questions from readers' of New Zealand Lifestyle Block magazine.
Question:
We have a good supply of barley from a neighbour and were wondering if it is ok to feed it to our hens rather than wheat? We have tried feeding them barley and they seem to like it! Also, can oats be fed successfully?
- Adrian Busby, Christchurch
Answer:
Layer hens need at least 16-18% protein in their diet, so full grain diets are not good as they do not have a high enough protein content on their own. You would need to feed whole grains in conjunction with either a commercial feed or with additional high protein feeds like meat, peas, milk etc.
Here is a breakdown of the common grains in terms of nutrition for poultry:
- Maize is the highest in energy of all the grains, has 3% fat, but is lower in protein at 8%. Good for yolk colour, and excellent if crushed first.
- Wheat is about 13% protein, lower in energy than maize, and much lower in fat at just 1.5%.
- Oats is about 10% protein and very high in fibre at 12%, making it useful as a 'filler' feed.
- Barley is around 9% protein, 2% fat and 8% fibre.
If you feed a whole grain like barley you really should supply insoluble grit (like small pea-sized road grit) so that the birds' gizzards can grind up the grain to extract the nutrients.
There are disadvantages to feeding some of these grains. Their quality will vary due to harvest conditions, storage time and possible contamination by yeasts and moulds, and the mycotoxins produced by these.
Barley is a 'filler' type of grain. It produces firmer, whiter fat in meat chickens. The barley kernel has little spikelets which can make some birds reluctant to eat it as whole grain. It also has a high beta glucan content; this is poorly digested by birds, and because it absorbs water in the gut it leads to sticky, wet droppings if fed in excess.
The recommendation for oat feed is 500g/100 birds scattered around as a scratch feed as its nutritive value is low. Too much oats can lead to excessive thirst and wet droppings.
Grains on their own should probably form about 60% of a bird's diet, preferably a mixture of what grains are available and preferably the grains should be lightly crushed. The balance of the diet should be protein-rich, consisting of a high protein pellet, plus meat and bone meal and scraps from the house and whatever veges and free-range fodder is available.
Hens are omnivores and will eat a varied diet. A balance of fibre, protein, carbohydrate and fat is needed to grow and produce eggs. If allowed to choose a chicken will do pretty well, but faced with only one grain and nothing else you may run into problems.
Question:
We have a few free-range hens. One is laying soft-shelled eggs; the egg yolk and egg white are in the nesting box, separate from the shell. How can we cure this problem?
- Clark, Northland
Answer:
Soft-shelled eggs can be as a result of faulty calcium deposition through lack in the diet, or because of an imbalance of calcium and phosphorous in the diet. A more likely cause when it suddenly starts happening is an infection, either a viral disease like Infectious Bronchitis or Egg Drop Syndrome or a more localised infection in the shell gland itself.
I hope by now that the problem has righted itself. Egg Drop Syndrome has no outward symptoms in the bird but can affect egg quality for several weeks.
Question:
I am hoping you can help me with a problem because I can't find any answers and Iam wondering what city vets go to university for six years for! I have a chicken behaving very strangely. She has started dropping eggs in unusual places, like right out in the open grass, and looked rather strange as she was doing it, very puffed up with her eyes tightly closed.
Then when I cleaned out the hen house (done about once a month) there were three eggs amongst the hen pooh, one quite old, two quite new, obviously dropped in the night as this is the only time they perch in this area.
She has a very poohy behind which I have tried to clean up by cutting back the feathers but it just keeps getting dirty.
She is not laying now from what I can tell, is not eating any pellets, and only seems to want to eat green leaves but even then is hardly eating at all.
One minute I think she is on her last legs, then she seems ok.
My next question is how do I cull a chook? I come from a farm where my dad just chopped their heads off with an axe, which I don't think I'm quite up to, and my townie husband certainly isn't.
- Paula Gosney, Auckland
Answer:
New Zealand-trained vets only get about six weeks of poultry tuition in their six years, and I think it is fairly rushed and mainly relates to a bit of anatomy and management systems. I suppose it is rather like a lot of the specialist segments: unless you practise it all the time it gets shoved to the back of the brain cells.
It doesn't sound too hopeful for your sick hen. You don't say how old she is but I'm picking she either has a tumour or an abdominal infection. It would be doubtful that she would recover, especially if it is a tumour. Ovarian tumours are pretty common in older hens, and as they only have one ovary, once that gets affected that is the end of eggs. The fact that she was dropping eggs at random indicates maybe an obstruction other than the egg.
Her symptoms of stained vent feathers indicate she has some sort of infection going on, either in her intestine, kidneys or oviduct.
Sometimes egg material can slip into the body cavity instead of going down the oviduct to have a shell put around it, and in time this can set up an abdominal infection which gradually spreads to the organs and blood system. Infection will cause the loss of interest in food and the fluffed-up, eyes-closed stance.
I have to say that in all kindness she would be best culled.
There is also a chance it could be an infectious disease like Necrotic Enteritis, Egg Drop Syndrome, Salmonella etc, so disposing of her would prevent a spread to the other birds in your flock.
Sue's advice
How to cull a dying bird
The easiest and quickest way to cull a bird is to dislocate its neck. Chopping it off with an axe does this, but it can be quite messy when they start to flap which is always a consequence of killing anything.
Method 1 - if you're strong
Grip the bird immediately behind the skull and hold both legs in the other hand, then pull downwards steadily until you feel the neck part from the head. Keep the head out at right angles to the line of the neck.
Method 2 - if you have weak wrists
If you are like me and inclined to have weaker wrists then a much easier method - and this works for tough old roosters, ducks and old hens too - is what has become known as the broomstick method:
- Take a broom handle or similar long, strong pole or bar.
- Place it on the ground right up behind the head, with the bird's neck underneath.
- Take both legs and place a foot either side of the pole to keep it firm on the ground and pull upwards on the legs, firmly and steadily until the neck bones part from the head, but stop before you pull the head off so the skin will contain the blood.
- As you pull the bird will tense and then flutter, but keep pulling until you feel the bones 'give'. If you stop too soonyou only strangle it.
It's actually easier done than said!
This article was provided by NZ Lifestyle Block, incorporating Growing Today magazine.
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