Identifying Problems in Your Birds

For new chicken owners, identifying when a bird in their backyard flock is sick can be a challenge. And knowing what to do about it can be even more daunting. Learn from Nutrena poultry expert Twain Lockhart what to look for, and what to do when you suspect an issue.

 

Helpful tips:

  • Because chickens are flock animals, they try to mask their symptoms so the other birds don’t know that they are sick
  • Some signs of illness include listlessness, loss of appetite, pale fact
  • Check for parasites under the wings of skinny chickens
  • Poultry dust can help to get rid of mites and lice

 

Biosecurity in the Coop

If you are raising backyard chickens, you need to consider biosecurity. Not just for your chickens, but for your family as well. Check out this video for Nutrena poultry expert Twain Lockhart’s advice on keeping everyone happy and healthy.

Helpful tips:

  • Don’t kiss your chickens!
  • Wash your hands after you handle chickens
  • Have a pair of “coop shoes” that you do not wear anywhere else
  • Do not borrow equipment from friends
  • If you bring in a chicken from someone, quarantine them for a minimum of three weeks

 

Keeping Chickens Healthy

Learning from History: Lessons for Keeping Chickens Healthy

In the immediate aftermath of the First World War a vicious flu epidemic quickly spread around the world. Somewhere between 50 and 100 million people died. Centuries earlier waves of bubonic plague swept through Europe leaving death in its wake. More recently an outbreak of measles spread across the United States.

When WWI ended, millions of refugees roamed around seeking a home. Soldiers from dozens of countries boarded ships and trains as they bid the war and military goodbye and looked forward to peaceful civilian lives. Many carried the deadly flu virus in their bodies, spreading it around the globe and infecting people nearly everywhere. It even reached the Arctic and Pacific islands. 

Bubonic plague was also deadly but quite different. Carried by rodents, mostly rats, and spread to humans by biting fleas, upwards of 100 million people died. The disease was deadly because people lived crammed together in filthy buildings and towns, allowing rats and their fleas to thrive.

Lack of sanitation and the movement of microbes enabled diseases to thrive and spread. Lessons learned from human disease can help keep chickens healthy.     

Chickens are amazingly healthy animals. Given good care they rarely get sick. Many people keep a flock for years without ever losing a bird to illness. However, chickens are vulnerable to many diseases. Some are aggressively infectious and can quickly devastate a flock. Wise people heed the lessons learned from human flu, measles, and plagues and work to prevent deadly chicken diseases from sickening or killing their birds. 

Key Factors for Chicken Health: Clean Living Spaces and Nutrition

The keys to keeping chickens healthy are to provide them a clean place to live, quality nutritious food, clean water and isolation from pathogens.

Space Matters: Avoiding Crowding and Promoting Chicken Well-Being

Crowding in filthy cities gave The Plague an opportunity to kill millions of people. Chickens crowded together in moist, dirty housing are ripe for disease. Backyard flock owners typically have tiny coops. They are often tempted to crowd too many birds together. Crowding encourages cannibalism, egg eating, fighting, odor and disease. Good flock managers give chickens room to roam.  Larger breeds need a minimum of four-square feet of coop space each. Light breeds only slightly less. However, the more space they have the better. Access to a clean outdoor run offers healthy sunshine, fresh air, and lets the hens fluff up and clean feathers as they bathe in the dust. 

Dry Coops for Happy Hens: Managing Moisture and Odor

Once litter gets wet, smell follows from enthusiastic bacteria multiplying in dampness. Keep the coop dry. If litter gets wet from a tipped over waterer or a leaky roof, immediately scoop out and compost the wet stuff, replace it with dry wood chips, and fix the roof or secure the waterer so it can’t tip. 

Nutritious Feed for Robust Chickens: Proper Nutrition is Key

Always provide chickens with fresh nutritious feed. Commercial rations, such as Nutrena NatureWise Layer Feed, are a healthy complete diet that birds can supplement with occasional tasty bugs and worms they discover in the run.

Protecting Your Flock: Safety Measures Against Predators and Drafts 

Make sure the flock is safe from furry predators, biting insects, and winter drafts.

Biosecurity Basics: Keeping Diseases Away

bottom of shoes representing how to keep chickens healthy

Keeping diseases away from a chicken flock helps prevent outbreaks. Fortunately, most backyard flocks are protected by isolation. A common scenario in an American suburb is that only a few families keep chickens. One flock is typically a long way from the next closest one. Microbes have a hard time getting to a flock – unless humans inadvertently bring germs to their chickens either on their clothes or shoes or in the bodies of other infected birds.

Detailed information on biosecurity can be found on many websites and is often printed in chick catalogs, magazines, and books.

Disease Prevention Tactics: From Quarantine to Vaccination

  • Buy chicks from a hatchery that participates in the National Poultry Improvement Plan (NPIP), has appropriate permits, and ensures that their breeding flock and chicks are free of infectious diseases. Many hatcheries print biosecurity information in their catalog.
  • Be wary about adding new chickens to a flock. An easy way for a microbe or parasite to infect a healthy flock is to hitch a ride on a chicken. Backyard flock owners are often tempted to add a new bird or two to their flock. Make sure the bird comes from a flock that has not experienced any recent diseases and has been kept in a clean coop. Putting the newcomers in quarantine for a month removed from the rest of the flock gives time to allow a potential disease to show up in the newcomer.
  • Keep clothing and shoes clean. After visiting a poultry show or another flock change clothing and clean shoes. Even tiny scraps of manure or dirt hitchhiking on shoes or pants can bring disease to a flock. Make sure visitors who have been in contact with other chickens also practice sanitation.
  • Clean feeders and waterers regularly.
  • Limit flock exposure to wild birds and mice that may carry pathogens.
  • Vaccinate if appropriate. It’s not practical or possible to vaccinate chickens to prevent all diseases, but most hatcheries will vaccinate chicks for a few common diseases. Medicated chick feed may help reduce coccidiosis; a common disease caused by a protozoan.

When small, healthy chicken flocks are kept in a clean coop, fed nutritious food, and isolated from disease they’ll likely never get sick. The hens will enjoy a long, healthy, and productive life.

Ready to Enhance Your Chicken Keeping Experience? Discover Nutrena’s Premium Poultry Products Today! From specialized feeds that promote optimal egg production to innovative solutions for coop cleanliness and bird well-being, Nutrena has your flock’s needs covered. Take your chicken keeping to the next level and ensure happy, healthy hens. Learn more about Nutrena’s poultry products now and give your feathered friends the best care they deserve.

Find Your Poultry Feed

Chickens and Ticks: Tick-Tock, Tick Time is Here!

The warmer than average winter temps we enjoyed the past few years are taking revenge on our backyards.

Lyme Disease Alert: Navigating the Growing Threat of Tick-Borne Infections

High tick populations are the result. Besides being pesky, the risk of Lyme disease contraction is reason for concern.

One study recently conducted in Connecticut showed that nearly 40 percent of ticks tested this year have Lyme disease bacteria, according to an article recently published in The Day. In addition, ticks are simply out for blood- and are host neutral. Meaning, your chickens may get ticks, and be exposed to Lyme bacteria, too.

But birds eat bugs, right? When Lyme disease was realized as serious concern for humans in 1992, Vassar College in New York conducted a study to review the case for Guinea Fowl and reducing Lyme disease risk.

After all, the loud, shrieking bird consumes a diet that’s 90% insects!

They assessed the impact guinea fowl would have on tick densities in backyards over the course of a year.

It was determined that guinea fowl do reduce the amount of adult ticks found in backyards, but, unfortunately, didn’t reduce the amount of nymphal (young) ticks- the main connection to Lyme disease.

If you raise chickens, they’ll eat the ticks, too – just not as much as their rock-star cousin, the Guinea.

So what’s a chicken lady to do?

Guarding Your Flock: Strategies for Chicken Keepers in Tick-Prone Areas

Well, because chickens are a host to ticks, too, we recommend a multi-angle approach to take care of ticks to protect your flock and your family, here are some quick tips to get you started:

infographic about chickens and ticks

Ready to Enhance Your Chicken Keeping Experience? Discover Nutrena’s Premium Poultry Products Today! From specialized feeds that promote optimal egg production to innovative solutions for coop cleanliness and bird well-being, Nutrena has your flock’s needs covered. Take your chicken keeping to the next level and ensure happy, healthy hens. Learn more about Nutrena’s poultry products now and give your feathered friends the best care they deserve.

Find Your Poultry Feed

Information gathered from:
https://www.caryinstitute.org/sites/default/files/public/reprints/Price_2004_REU.pdf
https://www.ct.gov/caes/lib/caes/documents/special_features/tickhandbook.pdf

Backyard Poultry Biosecurity In 6 Steps

Backyard Poultry Biosecurity? What exactly is it? As a poultry owner, you know how important it is to keep your birds healthy.

By practicing biosecurity, you can help reduce the chances of your birds being exposed to animal diseases such as avian influenza (AI) or exotic Newcastle disease (END).

“Biosecurity” may not be a common household word. But, for poultry and bird owners it can spell the difference between health and disease.

Practicing biosecurity can help keep disease away from your farm, and keep your birds healthy.

Backyard Poultry Biosecurity

If you are looking for more information on measures you can take to make sure your flock stays healthy the Defend the Flock program is a wonderful resource.  It  includes checklists, videos, and other resources that reflect the knowledge, insights, and experience of USDA, veterinarians, poultry owners, growers, scientists, and other experts. All Defend the Flock materials are available at no charge 24/7 at the Defend the Flock Resource Center. For more information on the program, visit www.aphis.usda.gov/.

Care and Feeding of Meatbirds

Chick Care
The basic care of meatbird chicks is similar to other types of chicks. You’ll need to provide a heat source along with free choice fresh water and appropriate feed. An important part of raising meatbirds is allowing for enough space for them to grow.

With a growth rate that is second to none, these birds will become too big for a brooder that seems the right size in just a week or two. Make sure to plan for expansion of your brooder to allow the space to get bigger along with the chicks. A dry and clean brooder is always essential; this will keep the birds comfortable, discourage the development of flies, and help prevent disease.

Dual purpose breeds are traditional breeds like Orpingtons, Barred Rocks, Rhode Island Reds, etc. They can be raised for eggs or meat. These birds are the slowest to finish and are typically harvested around 22 weeks of age. They have less developmental problems than hybrid meat breeds, and they will usually yield less meat.

Red Rangers are a type of meat chicken that provides a ‘happy medium’ between dual purpose breeds and Cornish Cross. They should be harvested around 12 – 14 weeks. They aren’t as delicate as Cornish Cross and have less developmental problems. In addition, they do better foraging than a Cornish. Their meat yield is in between a Cornish and dual purpose.

Cornish Cross is a hybrid and is the most common meat chicken. It makes up the majority of meat purchased in stores or consumed in restaurants. Cornish are very economical with their feed to meat conversion, which means they grow very fast –  they

A typical Cornish Cross bird
A typical Cornish Cross bird

are usually ready to harvest around 8 weeks! A few things to be aware of with this breed: because of their rate of growth they can have problems with organ failure and leg issues. These birds do not do well when comingled with other breeds – it’s best to keep Cornish separate. Additionally, they are ONLY suitable for meat production – do not try to keep them long term.

Feeding meatbirds
For dual purpose chicks, you may choose to feed a meatbird ration from the start. However, if you have straight run chicks and are not sure which are males, you can start the  batch on chick starter and then switch the ones you will harvest to meatbird feed once their gender becomes apparent.

For faster growing hybrid birds, you’ll want to feed a specific meatbird ration from day one. This will ensure that the birds are getting certain amino acid levels and protein amounts to encourage muscle development and growth. Because meatbirds have been developed to put on muscle mass quickly, the ration must be balanced to make sure that nutrients are present for skeletal and internal organ development as well. If the correct ration is not fed, the birds are more apt to fall victim to common maladies like organ failure and leg issues. Follow these simple feeding recommendations to help avoid complications:

  • Feed free choice the first 3 days of life
  • After 3 days, allow 12 hours with feed, 12 hours without
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