FunClucks
Crowing
Has anyone had Angel Wing show up in their meat birds? Any idea what causes this in chickens or what to do about it? Should I remove these birds from my breeding population? I have 2 month old Freedom Ranger New Hampshires (dual purpose but optimized for meat) and White Rangers (CX derived 3month broiler) and I have 1-2 birds of each variety displaying Angel Wing symptoms that just onset in the last week or two. I fed them 20% chick starter for 2 weeks, then 23-24% meat bird feed for at least a month, then changed back to 20% feed about two weeks ago when I saw a varus/valgus deformity in one of the New Hampshires. (Varus/valgus for mine was when the leg bone beneath the hock joint decided to grow at a 30 degrees angle towards to the outside of the chicken.). The feeding has been a bit more back and forth than that based on what type of feed I had available and what my kids happened to grab that day, but that's the general gist of it.
I'm trying to keep a few hens and a rooster or two (best ones) of both the NH and the WR as a breeding meat flock so I don't have to buy eggs/chicks anymore, but my assessment of the genetic health of this population/these breeds is trending downwards as we go on.
Any ideas if Angel Wing is solely due to protein level in the food (is it the same as with ducks? How much protein can chickens have before this is an issue?) or is there a genetic component I should be culling out?
I just got to the third generation of Murray McMurray Ginger Broilers, and there are genetic issues with small eggs and thin shells in all the hens I have remaining (3), one's laying soft shelled eggs often, and very low % of the fertile eggs develop to hatching (fertility has decreased drastically with each generation), so I was planning to start over with these NH and WR to see if I could get a meat bird breeding population going, but now I'm not sure if using the NHs and/or White Rangers are a good path.
I'm trying to keep a few hens and a rooster or two (best ones) of both the NH and the WR as a breeding meat flock so I don't have to buy eggs/chicks anymore, but my assessment of the genetic health of this population/these breeds is trending downwards as we go on.
Any ideas if Angel Wing is solely due to protein level in the food (is it the same as with ducks? How much protein can chickens have before this is an issue?) or is there a genetic component I should be culling out?
I just got to the third generation of Murray McMurray Ginger Broilers, and there are genetic issues with small eggs and thin shells in all the hens I have remaining (3), one's laying soft shelled eggs often, and very low % of the fertile eggs develop to hatching (fertility has decreased drastically with each generation), so I was planning to start over with these NH and WR to see if I could get a meat bird breeding population going, but now I'm not sure if using the NHs and/or White Rangers are a good path.