Picky/minimal eating

rick

rick

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Hi everyone,

I'm a bit worried about my CLB Betty at the moment because she seems to be starving herself during a moult.
They have all been on Flubenvet since Tuesday. Both Betty and Blaze have had near empty crops every time I have checked although Blaze is the heaviest she has ever been but Betty is now looking very small and feels light. She is moulting for the first time (well off lay also) and I remember thinking that Blaze felt very light when thin on feathers but it seems more than that.
I've been giving Betty a special breakfast and supper on her own (dosed with wormer of course) with a bit of mackerel in it to encourage eating and build her up. She had pale and runny poops until yesterday - seems better now. I may have left it a little long between worming maybe but all have been fine with nothing showing under the microscope for months.
Probably fretting over nothing but has anyone else got an out of lay, moulting hen that doesn’t seem to be eating much at the moment?
 
Rick, you have just described most of my girls at the moment, including my two Legbars, Parker and Lucy.

I do not take the feeders out at night, as the hens are shut in their huts, but for the last two days the feeders have only needed a slight topping up.
I am leaving the worming until moulting is complete. Only my Croads now have complete and glossy coats, the rest look absolutely dreadful apart from on of my Leghorn girls, who did have a very early moult at the end of the Summer.
 
That's reassuring Valerie.
This morning she has spent 10 mins with her head in the bowl. I'm sure they have the internet in there and do it on purpose!
 
We have this problem as well Rick at the beginning of a moult. They lose their appetite at exactly the wrong time and the result is a varying amount of watery white poo. It contains mainly feather sheath from preening and generally this behaviour lasts up to two weeks, during which time they lose a lot of weight. Sometimes they have not regained their appetite for food so we have given them a wet mash made from rearer pellets or layers pellets- always works unless they are ill. We also give them a few sunflower hearts as an additional protein boost.
 
That's really interesting Chris and maybe explains the odd poops earlier this week. She's had new feathers coming through where they've been missing around her preen gland for a while.
I left the camera in today to see what's going on and if she wasn’t eating before she is now! Spent a good portion of the day at it but still had a flat crop when I got home (I give up!!!)

She spent the best part of an hour and a half on this bowl
overhead2.png

Linden only eats the overspill but seems to get plenty of it
overhead3.png

Betty still chuffing! Linden is in the dust bath with Aerial (I didn't think he did that.) About the only time Aerial stopped eating today!
overhead4.png
 
Great pics, Rick! Lovely setup you've got there.
Sorry to say it, but I'm swamped with eggs ATM. my girls are laying better than they have done all summer. The two new pullets are laying daily, as expected, that's what I got them for, but the 3-year-old Chalk Hill Blue hybrid is laying nearly every day and hasn't ever moulted, and the 4-year-old brown leghorn has moulted heavily and now returned to almost daily lay, which was a surprise. The fifth one, little Nutmeg, the CLB who is nearly six, is excused.
I've never actually found they have any digestive or appetite problems when moulting, so long as they're not handled when feathers come through and the shafts are so tender. Yes of course it's likely that the odd bird who wasn't in top health might feel the effects, but as a general rule they seem to manage OK.
 
Your coop must be on built on a 'ley-line' Marigold! :)

The pale, slightly greenish poops were back again this morning and they do have what looks like bits of feather case in them. Not 100% sure they were from Betty though as I didn’t think she was roosting in that position last night.
Still - it seems to be just some funny stuff happening around moulting so not too worried.

IMG_6088.JPG
 
If I didn't know what was on that plate, I would imagine it was quite a tasty selection of snacks deep- fried in batter.
However, I'm waiting for my cataract operation, so maybe others might not see it that way.
 
That's pretty average moulting poo Rick- certainly nothing health wise to worry about I think. We have had a few cases far runnier than that. In fact you had to scrape them up and then change the soaked newspaper- we've stopped using shavings completely on the grounds of cost and visibility of the poo.

On thing I did notice is that there appears to be large pieces of grain undigested, so not ground up. Two things I'd try are grit in with the pellets (rather than a separate container) and a dose of Avipro Avian.
 
Thanks Chris. Good idea and the Avipro will be good after the worming too. I order some.

BTW... Where are we getting Avipro Avian from? I got my last 100g tub from BHWT but there was some confusion as it was listed as Avipro Plus but (and I had reason to think it was at the time) was actually Avian. This time it really does seem to be Plus that they are selling.

I can see it on Amazon but it's a bit overpriced on there.
 
This caused us an awful lot of confusion Rick, so this is as I understand it. There are two components to Avipro- probiotic and prebiotic. As you will know it is the probiotics, or digesting bacteria, that populate the gut and digest the food. Prebiotics are good food for probiotics and promote their continued well-being.

Up until a year or so ago Avipro only marketed the 'Plus'. That Avipro Plus I believe (from their old sales literature) contained both probiotics and prebiotics. However it all changed when they got an official licence for their avian probiotic. It was at this changeover period we were trying to buy some!

They then marketed a new product called Avipro Avian. This was effectively the old 'Plus' as it contained the 'newly licensed' probiotic and the previous prebiotic. They then totally confused maters by continuing to market Avipro Plus, but this time with the probiotic element removed. Now they may say that the Plus always only contained prebiotic, but that's not what the old sales literature said.

Of course we got all the literature confused and ended up buying the Plus, thinking that it had probiotics as well, but when it arrived it was the new Plus without probiotics and we had to re-order and get the new product 'Avian'. To make matters worse the Avian isn't licensed here so we can't get it delivered to France. I had to mail order it to England and collect it when I went over.

Things are going to get more difficult for us soon because I will stop going to England completely by the end of next year. There are two products we are now reliant on for the excellent health of our flock- Avipro Avian and Flubenvet 2.5%, neither of which can be mailed to France. So when we get visitors we'll have to give them a shopping list.
 
What a palaver!
It makes me wonder what the 'biotics' are. I've heard say that the couple of them that are marketed at us for human consumption (active yoghurt etc) are just those that found favour and branding in the 70's amongst the hundreds of strains of gut flora necessary for health and usually picked up from a varied local diet. No doubt these are a cocktail of specific bacteria for birds.
Proof is in the pudding, of course, and it did seem to do them the world of good when I used it last time.
 
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