What do you do to maintain your chickens.

[BDutch]

20% is not high. I've often fed 24% with no ill effects.

There is a reason the feed for chickens / chicks has a lower amount of protein.

What does protein do for chickens?

Too much proteins are submitted into fat in the chickens body.

Look at their feathers. Those are constructed from protein. During growth from a chick, they have to grow a whole new set 5-6 times. All chickens share the characteristic of protein hungry feathers.

Too much proteins given to 3 months old chicks until they start laying can cause deformation in their feathers.

Now one might say "These aren't show chickens, I don't care"... but it's a metric for health because, if protein is lacking it can affect the internal organs / connective tissue. Not readily apparent, it may show up as sudden death from heart attacks, as intolerance to heat or cold, a lower immune system, and the list goes on. It has many potential damages because the need for protein in the body is so extensive. Feathers are the canary in the coal mine.

Too much fat in a chickens body can cause heart attacks. But I have been thinking why the feed in the US often contains more protein than in my country where the weather is milder. Maybe your chickens do need other feed in your country because you have very cold winters and they need the extra energy.

I could not believe how much better their feathers looked. Pretty soon all our breeds were on 20% as a minimum, and after they molted I was struck with guilt. I truly felt like I had been a miserly keeper, and not done my proper research.
That's my story and why I believe in and tout protein. Like many, I got into the hobby for the welfare of the birds.

If a hen starts to moult , she needs the proteins and energy to grow new feathers. It is better to give chick feed during that period, also because its better not to give so much calcium in a time she does not lay. A hen can start to lay too early if she is given feed with too much proteins in this time. Her metabolism can change bc of the high amount of proteins before she is ready with her moult. This is not healthy bc she should take her time to grow her feathers back.

I understand that in many countries it is hard to access a properly formulated chicken feed. That is not your fault, you can only do the best you can with what you have available.

14-17%/16-18% for laying hens and 18-20% for chicks and moulting hens is just fine according to our avian/chicken experts. Different experts here advise different %.

If the chickens can provide for your needs, then it doesn't matter too much if their eggs are a bit smaller, feathers weaker, and lives a little shorter.

My chickens are bantams, therefore they lay smaller eggs. My chickens are very healthy and seem to live forever. The only hens that got sick and died, were hens of a strange breed (inbreeding?). Getting older increased the period they stop laying in winter. And the number of eggs they lay each week drops too when they are getting old. I have a 9+ yo hen who is laying again since 2 weeks.

They're still living better than any hen on a factory farm. But if/when a better feed becomes available on the market, I'd like to encourage you to try it out and see the difference after molt.

Yes , my chickens have a life for sure. You cant compare this with the lifes of the abused chickens in factory farming.

But no, my chickens don’t need more proteins. My chickens look just fine and renewed after their moult. The only one that looks a little bit shabby after last moult is my 10+ yo.
I don’t intend to mix more proteins in their feed. If they want more proteins they have to search for it themselves during their free ranging time.

The organic feed I buy is good, fresh and poisonous free. The chickens can choose between layer pellets (17%) and chick crumble (19,8%).
The ones that lay eat more pellets. The ones that don't eat more crumble.

 

[Kasper77]

The bird in my profile pic is my late easter egger Sage who sadly passed from wet fowl pox in fall of 23. She was an absolutely stunning bird who always looked grumpy and had a high pitched voice that made her always sound annoyed. While she liked me, she didn't want to be pet or held at all and if I did catch her, she would lecture me until I put her down. Being someone who hates physical contact myself I found her extremely relatable, thus I made that my signature in tribute of her

I was wondering if my flock losses last year were from wet fowl pox as the symptoms seemed to match the most. Can i ask How did you figure out it was wet fowl pox

 

[FrostRanger]

I was wondering if my flock losses last year were from wet fowl pox as the symptoms seemed to match the most. Can i ask How did you figure out it was wet fowl pox

After she died I called my state's poultry extension to arange for a necropsy. I am glad I did, as that knowledge let me know that I should vaccinate any future chicks I get. Whenever you have losses from strange illnesses always arrange for a necropsy if possible, the knowledge you get will be insanely useful

 

[Kasper77]

Id like to know the symptoms if you Wouldnt mind, just an outline might be helpful. Mine were mostly sudden with a couple sick for a bit before passing. Nothing makes sense and I tried to get a vet over but he was out of town and wasn't back till it was all over. No other vet in my area deals with chickens i guess. I've been restricting them from foraging the yard for now because I'm unsure what happened. I have high suspicion it was wet foul pox but

 

[FrostRanger]

Id like to know the symptoms if you Wouldnt mind, just an outline might be helpful. Mine were mostly sudden with a couple sick for a bit before passing. Nothing makes sense and I tried to get a vet over but he was out of town and wasn't back till it was all over. No other vet in my area deals with chickens i guess. I've been restricting them from foraging the yard for now because I'm unsure what happened. I have high suspicion it was wet foul pox but

Dry fowl pox causes scabs to form on the comb and wattles. It mostly just looks ugly but it goes away on its own after a few weeks

Wet fowl pox will cause respiratory symptoms and the bird will usually have white gunk in their throat and mouth. I say usually 'cause in the case of both birds I lost to wet fowl pox the gunk was much further down so I couldn't see it. A bird can have one or the other or both. Unfortunately wet fowl pox has I think a 75% fatality rate

 

[FrostRanger]

Id like to know the symptoms if you Wouldnt mind, just an outline might be helpful. Mine were mostly sudden with a couple sick for a bit before passing. Nothing makes sense and I tried to get a vet over but he was out of town and wasn't back till it was all over. No other vet in my area deals with chickens i guess. I've been restricting them from foraging the yard for now because I'm unsure what happened. I have high suspicion it was wet foul pox but

I would also add that if you lose any more birds to call your state's poultry extension to arrange for a necropsy, that is the best way to get definite answers

That said, there is a vaccine for fowl pox if you're worried, valley vet sells it and it's pretty cheap

 

[Kasper77]

Dry fowl pox causes scabs to form on the comb and wattles. It mostly just looks ugly but it goes away on its own after a few weeks

Wet fowl pox will cause respiratory symptoms and the bird will usually have white gunk in their throat and mouth. I say usually 'cause in the case of both birds I lost to wet fowl pox the gunk was much further down so I couldn't see it. A bird can have one or the other or both. Unfortunately wet fowl pox has I think a 75% fatality rate

Awesome sounds good. Ya I lost 6 out of 7 and the 7th never showed any signs. I didn't know to check their throat at the time that would have helped. There was one girl who lived the longest who did develop a swollen eye that started to bleed but other than that no external lesions. But when one passed she tensed up then went limp and a ton of fluid drained out of her beak.

 

[horselover1999]

Too much proteins are submitted into fat in the chickens body.

Protein cannot be turned into fat, protein and fat are fundamentally different. Protein, no matter what source, is broken down into individual amino acids to be absorbed through the intestinal wall. Once it is in the blood, it can either go through their system without being used and they would be filtered out by the kidneys, be used in creation or maintenance of enzymes, hormones, muscle, feathers, skin, etc., or in the case of starvation be broken down and stored as sugars. Fat is either stored as fat or used as energy. If the units of fat and protein used for energy were the same, fat would produce way more units of ATP than ATP from amino acids.

Too much fat in a chickens body can cause heart attacks.

Too much fat in the diet does not cause heart attacks in chickens. Excess fat in the diet can cause fatty liver, which can be fatal.
We worry about heart attacks in broiler chickens because they grow at such a fast rate that their organs can’t keep up, so their heart can fail, but it’s actually not a large percentage of commercial broilers that die from it, only like 1% of all broilers.

If a hen starts to moult , she needs the proteins and energy to grow new feathers.

True

It is better to give chick feed during that period, also because its better not to give so much calcium in a time she does not lay.

Why not give her calcium so she can build bone density for eggshells later? The vast majority of calcium used for shells is pulled from her bones. Calcium cannot just be pulled from the diet and deposited directly onto the shell membrane, for the most part, it is stored as bone until it is needed. Calcium is also needed for sarcomeres to contract, but that calcium is often recycled and stored in the sarcoplasmic reticulum in muscle cells.

A hen can start to lay too early if she is given feed with too much proteins in this time.

Directly contradicting the statement above from the same paragraph.

Yes , my chickens have a life for sure. You cant compare this with the lifes of the abused chickens in factory farming.

Factory farming isn’t a real thing. Laying hens are not manufactured on a conveyor belt. They are raised in groups in large cages and don’t know any different from what a floor raised or free range bird would know. Removing cages and moving cage raised hens to floor is dangerous for them. They are used to their small flock where they know who the bully is and who their besties are, and moving them to floor raising eliminates that knowledge. In addition, they will pile on top of each other and suffocate the birds at the bottom of the pile. If a bird needs a wound treated, it is harder to catch that bird. She would attract attention from the more dominant hens and would most likely be killed.
When I worked for my university’s poultry labs in college, we raised our breeder birds in floor pens before we moved them to individual cages. We moved them to cages so we could regulate feed intake for broiler breeders, and know who was bred to who and who laid what egg. They transitioned from floor to cage perfectly every time.

B.S. in Poultry Science
M.S. in Animal Science- Poultry Physiology

 

[BDutch]

They are raised in groups in large cages and don’t know any different from what a floor raised or free range bird would know.

IMO its animal abuse to keep chickens that way or in any other way to produce eggs or meat as cheap as possible.

People who buy eggs and meat products in the supermarket without any certified label that the chickens had a life, are contributing to the abuse.

In my country we have labels for eggs and meat that refer to space requirements and other things. We have organic, ‘rondeel’ and Demeter eggs who are the best. These chickens have a much better life in captivity than the ones without a certified label.

Taxes for going of topic:

 

[horselover1999]

IMO its animal abuse to keep chickens that way or in any other way to produce eggs or meat as cheap as possible.

People who buy eggs and meat products in the supermarket without any certified label that the chickens had a life, are contributing to the abuse.

In my country we have labels for eggs and meat that refer to space requirements and other things. We have organic, ‘rondeel’ and Demeter eggs who are the best. These chickens have a much better life in captivity than the ones without a certified label.

Taxes for going of topic:

Having seen commercial poultry operations in person, it’s not abuse.
You have every right to hold your own opinion, though.