Shadrach's Ex Battery and Rescued chickens thread.

[BDutch]

I just finished catching up on Rusty's thread. I'm glad to see she's improving. Slash is adorable.

Thank you for the kindness. And yes, Slash the little chirapa is pretty darn cute. Definitely has a special bond with momma Dusty, I can see it.

I hope Rusty will recover soon and you can have a good night sleep again. I didn’t have the time to catch up reading so far but wishing you and your flock all the best.

 

[MrsNorthie]

Carbons guts were bad overnight again. It seems to come and go. It's not good.
Not sure what more I can do for her.

Could she be getting into something at the allotments that the others aren't? Also, when the dogs get gut issues, I give them some plain, unsweetened greek yogurt, and it helps a lot, would that possibly have the same benefit for chickens?

 

[ManueB]

Maybe it's because we mainly only have one type of oatmeal here, the one that falls into mush, but my chickens dont like it that much.
We do eat some legumes raw - fava beans, green peas, snow peas. Mostly in small quantities though. I found once cooked my chickens eat all type of peas, but just fermented I had trouble to get them to eat them, even split peas.

We had our first beans from the garden yesterday. During the eight years we had a veggie garden each year has been good for this and terrible for that, but the two things we never ever lack of are potatoes and beans . We could survive on them the whole year (except in may the potatoes that have germinated three or four times really don't look appealing anymore!)
I don't add baking soda to the beans, unless I want them to cook fast, because I find it makes the beans mushy and I was also always told it lessened their nutritional value. I will give a try at a dash of lemon next time.

 

[Perris]

@Perris Just been working out a few numbers regarding the feremented feed and I noticed that buckwheat, which you mentioned you were going to try, is high in Lysine. Provided it's of reasonable quality, your looking at between 4% and 6% Lysine which with a decent wheat should give you close to or better than the commercial feeds ratios.
All the allotment lot eat fermented buckwheat without problems.

It's quite interesting to see what was said in the interwar years about feeding stuffs then in use. On buckwheat Robinson says "very often fowls do not consume it readily. Its feeding value is comparatively low, on account of high fibre content (approximately 14%)". Have you noticed that as an issue with it?

 

[Perris]

I make a porridge for breakfast most mornings. 200ml of whole milk, 30 grams of porridge oats, 12 grams of organic plain whey powder and 5 chopped dates.
I think I should try this out on the chickens. Protein problems solved.

I'm a fan of porridge, for me and the chickens, though I just do the trad milk+water to boil then cream and brown sugar when served for me to eat, though the salty version is nice for a change. Not that I don't love dates, and they are little powerhouses of nutrition. Bit expensive for chicken feed though. On oats, incidentally, since I have the book open on that page, Robinson said that samples vary enormously in quality, and a good one will weigh not less than 40lb. per bushel. Don't you just love historic measures? Bushel anyone?

 

[Perris]

We do eat some legumes raw

Indeed; peas straight from the plant are one of my favorites!
I looked up feedipedia on beans, it says

"Common beans contain several antinutritional compounds, notably enzyme inhibitors (trypsin, chymotrypsin, α-amylase), phytic acid, flatulence factors, saponins and lectins (Lyimo et al., 1992). The nature and activity of those compounds vary greatly among cultivars: for instance, raw navy beans were shown to contain twice the trypsin inhibitor activity than red kidney beans but half the lectin activity (Dhurandhar et al., 1990). Those antinutritional factors may hamper the performance of monogastric animals or even be toxic: for example lectins are known to have caused food poisining in humans who have eaten undercooked or raw beans. It is then highly recommended to process raw common beans before feeding them to pigs, poultry and other monogastric livestock. Treatments such as heating, autoclaving, cooking or extruding have been shown to remove heat-sensitive antinutritional factors (Bollini et al., 1999; Akande et al., 2010a; Carvalho et al., 1997; Dhurandhar et al., 1990; Kakade et al., 1965). Biological treatments such as germination, ensiling, treatment with pancreatin or with chemicals can also be effective in removing antinutritional factors in common beans (Schulze et al., 1997; Savelkoul et al., 1994). Lectin content may be reduced by cooking above 100°C, but cooking at a lower temperature (80°C) increased lectin content and toxicity (FDA, 2012)."

That last bit is a surprise.

Currently I'm sourcing peas as part of one mix or another designed for pigeons, which I then mix with grains, so singling out peas to cook is not an option for me. And some of the flock select the peas to eat first and really like them, so I don't think toxicity per se is an issue, nor fermenting as a method of reducing the anti-nutritional factors. Maybe it just comes down to individual birds' microbiomes and taste preferences. As long as there's variety and alternatives - the more the merrier - so no-one is forced to eat them against their own better judgement, I don't think it's a problem. The leftovers get flung onto the lawn, and something comes along to eat them sooner or later, so they're feeding the web of life, and the chickens benefit from that.

 

[TropicalChickies]

Carbons guts were bad overnight again. It seems to come and go. It's not good.
Not sure what more I can do for her.

You've probably already done this -- but have you palpated her abdominal area to feel if there are any hard lumps or masses?

When my hen Butchie started to decline, I could feel a hard mass in her abdomen. Dont know if it was a tumor or hernia, but I felt it growing larger over time.

 

[TropicalChickies]

I'm a fan of porridge, for me and the chickens, though I just do the trad milk+water to boil then cream and brown sugar when served for me to eat, though the salty version is nice for a change. Not that I don't love dates, and they are little powerhouses of nutrition. Bit expensive for chicken feed though. On oats, incidentally, since I have the book open on that page, Robinson said that samples vary enormously in quality, and a good one will weigh not less than 40lb. per bushel. Don't you just love historic measures? Bushel anyone?

A lot of wheat farmers in the US and Canada still measure their production in bushels.

In Ecuador and much of Latin America, a common unit of production is the "quintal" -- which is basically a big sack that ideally weighs a hundred pounds with whatever is in it.

1 quintal cacao = 100 lbs

But it's become more of a visual measure over time. A "quintal" sized sack of light material like rice hulls will only weigh about 25lbs. Where the quintal of actual rice will weigh about 100lbs, and a quintal of a mineral agricultural lime weighs about 150lbs. It's kind of ridiculous, but you get used to it.

 

[RoyalChick]

A lot of wheat farmers in the US and Canada still measure their production in bushels.

In Ecuador and much of Latin America, a common unit of production is the "quintal" -- which is basically a big sack that ideally weighs a hundred pounds with whatever is in it.

1 quintal cacao = 100 lbs

But it's become more of a visual measure over time. A "quintal" sized sack of light material like rice hulls will only weigh about 25lbs. Where the quintal of actual rice will weigh about 100lbs, and a quintal of a mineral agricultural lime weighs about 150lbs. It's kind of ridiculous, but you get used to it.

It is just a bigger version of the US system of using 'cups' in recipes. I grew up using a scale so I always find that a bit odd, but it mostly works.

 

[TropicalChickies]

True. There's also a 25lb sack called an "arroba" but the actual weight depends on what it is.

It is just a bigger version of the US system of using 'cups' in recipes. I grew up using a scale so I always find that a bit odd, but it mostly works.