I may have finally found a cure for feather picking

[SourRoses]

I would be worried about the CBD going through to the egg, I don't want to eat eggs with CBD/THC in them and I certainly don't believe my customers would either.

I very much doubt that would occur.
It would only be CBD to think about, as THC amounts are negligible in CBD oil / Plant leaves.

However, this could be fun to test! Let's ask @azygous to send some eggs to a lab!

 

[Sic]

I understand that if a pecking problem occurred, its hard to change this. Even if you add space and clutter. I suppose giving hemp products with low THC is not unhealthy at all.
I do like this idea to address a stress problem, if you make other changes too for the future. Giving birds non stop THC doesn’t sound right.


Hemp seed for birds doesnt contain enough THC to have any effect. The hemp for bird seed and rope, is from the same family as the ones for canabis, but the amount of THC is negligible.

Tryptophan is a sleeping drug and a medicine. It should only be used for max 3 weeks (addiction).

FYI - L-Tryptophan is an essential amino acid that is necessary for making proteins.

 

[SourRoses]

Apart from these ancient inhabitants of the lands north of the Black Sea evidently getting high on the stuff, does it have a cleansing property? is feather-pecking an extreme sort of cleaning, and could the chemicals in cannabis work that way?

I've read about ancient steam baths used in other regions before, but emphasis was placed on the continuous use of cloths to wipe the person as they sweated off their dirt.
In other places they used different plant materials to add fragrance to the steam.

As far as I know, there is no astringent (cleaning) property to cannabis seeds, nor the plants used in other cultures.

The seeds themselves don't contain THC/CBD for the Scythians to be affected by... however the outside of the seed coating can carry crystals off the flower. So if they didn't rinse the seeds off first, there may have been enough present to affect them. I read a recent study that tested commercially available Hemp seed and found some with levels of "contamination" from crystals, and encouraged higher cleaning standards in the industry. lol

 

[azygous]

News flash! I've been waiting for evidence of behavior changes to bolster my excitement over CBD to control aggression and feather picking. What could be better than the most neurotic, nervous, flighty hen in the universe being calm, instead of shooting out of my presence like a Musk rocket the instant I so much as move in her direction?

Meet my EE Violet. She's around four years, has never liked me or even tolerated me near her. She is without a doubt the most skittish of any chickens I've had in two decades. She is also the most persistent feather picker in the current flock. Today, I was able to approach her and pick her up and get this photo without her completely unraveling. Most remarkable was seeing her near the rooster without shaving his feathers. She has literally never been able to resist compulsively working him over. A major development.

 

[BigBlueHen53]

Amazing! How long has she been on tne regimen?

 

[azygous]

She's had access to the CBD leaves as long as the rest of the flock, about two months. I'm going to observe very carefully my flock's behavior over the coming spring months since that's when flocks with feather pickers see a big uptick in this behavior. I spend a lot of time with my chickens, so spotting a pattern won't be difficult.

 

[RoyalChick]

She's had access to the CBD leaves as long as the rest of the flock, about two months. I'm going to observe very carefully my flock's behavior over the coming spring months since that's when flocks with feather pickers see a big uptick in this behavior. I spend a lot of time with my chickens, so spotting a pattern won't be difficult.

 

[Shadrach]

I'm not using the CBD oil. Unless it's in a carrier oil, it's not easy to use. I confess I don't know how strong CBD oil is that they derive from hemp, which is usually where CBD oil comes from that is sold legally. And I wouldn't know the dose which would depend on how diluted the oil is in its carrier oil.

I use the plant leaves for my chickens, a hand full each day for the seventeen hens.

Ah, yes, you did write as much in your first post.
I have little doubt CBD given to chickens may have a calming effect. It would be handy to know the dose strength and a reputable supplier should state the strength on the bottle somewhere. From that one could work out the effective dosages.

I do have some reservations.
Chickens are of a nervous dispositon for a reason, it helps them to survive, panic first think later seems to have served them well for centuries before we locked them up and stole their eggs on an industrial scale. I don't want chickens that I care for wandering around the field quoting parts of a Cheech and Chong movie.

I've understand there is a negligible amount of THC in CBD products but none the less, CBD does have the reputation of being a mood altering drug; we wouldn't be writing about it here otherwise.

Where I live (sheltered housing for the over 55s) I know a few people who take CBT oil as a stress or pain management drug, hoping it a) works, and b) has far fewer side effects than the drugs their doctor advises them to take. Other forms of cannabis are pretty popular for similar reasons.

Suppose it does work for feather picking and it works because the bird has become more docile. I can just see an awful lot of people dosing up their aggressive cockerels and unfiendly hens so they can cuddle them.
This is not something I feel we should be encouraging.
In many cases are already livng in prisons, some more luxurius than others, drugging them up so they are more docile seems just one further piece of abuse by humans with little thought for the welfare of the chicken.

On the plus side, I can see a use for it when treating the sick for example and even perhaps something that might make dying a little easier.

For free ranging chickens and unsupervised ranging the chicken needs to be fully switched on for want of a better phrase and dosing them with CBD may just decrease their survival chances.

 

[azygous]

Chickens do not have the receptors in their brains for THC. No matter the amount they consume, they cannot get high. They do respond to the CBD compounds, though. No one understands why. As long as our US government thinks cannabis will turn you into a hard core addict, we won't find out.

As for knowing the dosage, we don't even know that for humans. While our states are legalizing cannabis to varying degrees, our federal government still considers it a dangerous drug akin to heroin. While we can scoff at the colossal ignorance, keeping it illegal prohibits us from getting studies and trials done that could determine strength and dosage. The decades of amazing success in using CBD oil to control grand mal seizures in children counts for nothing.

Most of our backyard chickens are confined to a run or a small space near their coops, and many spend most of their time safe in covered runs. My chickens are in this latter group. Their lives are rarely threatened.

 

[azygous]

I very much doubt that would occur.
It would only be CBD to think about, as THC amounts are negligible in CBD oil / Plant leaves.

However, this could be fun to test! Let's ask @azygous to send some eggs to a lab!

Lab tests cost money and Azygous isn't awash in it. But there is a study on this topic. https://herb.co/news/chickens-that-...ow-higher-protein-contents-and-fewer-diseases

Thailand legalized cannabis many years ago, and the government even went so far as to give out a million free cannabis plants to their citizens and farmers, encouraging them to experiment. Lots of very interesting findings.

The eggs and meat, when tested, had no trace of canabinoids. However, the eggs and meat were higher in protein, the eggs higher in moisture content and some said the taste was also better. You will not get high from eating eggs from hens that consume cannabis.