New episode of my podcast is live! You can find it here (or on your favourite podcast player).
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Resources:
The Chicken Health Handbook by Gail Damerow
Fresh Eggs Daily by Lisa Steele
Mypetchicken.com
scratchandpeck.com
Causes of Obesity
Inactivity
Energy-rich food
Cold hardy breeds prone to gaining excess fat (New Hampshires, Plymouth Rocks, etc)
Signs to look for:
Poor laying. Fat hens don’t lay well and are more prone to reproductive issues.
Poor shell quality
Laying eggs at night
Frequent, multiple yolks
Prolapse
How to check?
Look at the area below the vent; if it is bulging or dimpled, the hen is too fat.
Necropsy: How much fat is too much?
A healthy chicken will have some fat throughout its tissues, and a fatty pad lining its abdomen
This fat pad is used as an energy reserve during times of poor forage or through the cold months
Young chickens tend to have a small, thin fat pad
Older chickens have a thicker fat pad
Hens tend to have a thicker fat pad than roosters of the same age
Old, inactive chickens can have shockingly large abdominal fat pads that almost completely fill the abdominal cavity
Chicken fat is usually yellow but it can also be white, pinkish,or grey. The colour is influenced by the chicken’s breed, age, diet, and overall health.
Prevention
Well balanced diet
Activity
Not too much grain (especially corn)
Healthy treats such as greens and vegetables
Limit high protein, high fat treats, such as nuts, seeds, animal protein, etc.
Limit corn and other high carb treats
Chicken Feed
When trying to find a good feed for your chickens, there are a few things to consider
broiler/meat birds need higher protein requirements than a layer breed. Meat bird starter feed is usually 20-23% protein.
Layers have lower protein requirements:
Chicks up to around 6 weeks: 20-22% protein (often called a ‘starter’ feed)
7 weeks to point of lay: 14-16% (grower feed)
Once laying: 15-18% (layer feed)
All purpose layer feed: 16%
You can buy your feed online, at farm stores like Tractor Supply and Rural King, or you can make your own
‘The Chicken Health Handbook’ by Gail Damerow has a very easy to read guide on formulating your own feed, complete with ingredient weights in metric and imperial. For example, when making 100lbs of feed, Damerow recommends that coarsely ground grain (corn, millet, oats, wheat, etc) make up 46lbs for Starter, 50lbs for Grower, and 53.5lbs for Layer.
Ingredients Damerow recommends: coarsely ground grain, wheat or rice bran, soybean meal, peanut meal, cottonseed meal, safflower meal, sesame meal; meat, fish, or soybean meal; alfalfa meal (not needed for free roaming/pasture raised birds); bone meal, rock phosphate, vitamin supplement, yeast, milk powder; ground limestone, marble, or oyster shell; trace minerals or iodized salt
What I Feed:
Grubblies ‘fresh pecks’ Layer feed crumbles or pellets:
for chickens 20+weeks old, 16% protein, crude fat 5%, vitamins, minerals, soldier fly grubs/grubblies, marigold. Does not contain soy, corn, fish, or fillers.
This is a very good food from a company that is committed to reducing food waste, and focuses on recycled and recyclable packaging.
Downside: this food is expensive. $44.99 for a 30lb bag ($1.49 per lb), and $82.99 for 60lbs ($1.38/lb). Also, the pellet option is easy for the chickens to scratch through and take out just the good stuff so I find the crumble better to feed (less waste).
With my English Orpingtons (big birds with equally big appetites) this is not economical to feed. I now buy a bag every few months as a kind of treat for the chickens and to round out their diet.
Nutrena Naturewise Layer Feed: pellets and crumbles
16% protein, 2.5% crude fat
vitamins, minerals, pro and prebiotics, marigold meal; thyme, rosemary, and other assorted herbs said to be beneficial
Easy on the wallet at around $19-21 per 50lbs ($0.42/lb)
Sold at Tractor Supply stores (and likely many other feed stores as this is a mainstream brand)
Downside: although overall a good quality food, it does contain a fair amount of cheap filler ingredients such as soybean oil, vegetable and mineral oil, and grain by-products
Both pellets and crumbles have been accepted by my flock
Nutrena Naturewise Feather Fixer
18% protein, 4% crude fat
Vitamins, minerals, pro and prebiotics, marigold meal, mix of herbs like thyme and rosemary
$21 for 40lbs ($0.53 per lb)
My preferred feed for moulting season
Downside: only comes in pellet form so might be tricky for those with fussy hens that only eat crumbles
How much do chickens eat?
A variety of factors will affect how much food each chicken will consume, including weather, temperature, activity level, breed, age, and overall condition.
In hot weather, chickens will eat quite a bit less and might need their diet adjusted to a feed with more protein and more calcium.
Chickens should always have access to a good, balanced feed, as well as fresh water; do not let their food and water feeders become empty
Restrictive feeding is only needed for meat birds if you want to slow their growth/weight gain
Older chickens can become lazy and might need a lower protein and fat feed to compensate for their inactivity
The Chicken Health Handbook by Gail Damerow suggests the following guidelines for feeding chickens:
Brantam: 0.5lb/0.25kg per week
Light Breed: 2lb/1kg per week
Duel purpose breed: 3lb/1.5kg per week
Heavy breed: 4lb/2kg per week
Broiler/meat bird: 10lb/4.5kg per lifespan (short lives due to rapid growth to table weight)
Why is my chicken not eating?
Feeder might have been placed in a location hard to reach
Not enough feeders per chicken: low ranking chickens might be bullied away from the feeding area
Switching food too quickly (fussy chickens!)
Moldy or rancid food
Feed is too high energy; chickens eat less of it, risking becoming low in needed vitamins and minerals, which can in turn lead to decreased appetite
Feed deficient in vitamins and minerals, which can depress appetite. Chicks that are deficient in salt or Vitamin B will stop eating suddenly
Not enough access to water can decrease appetite
Higher temperatures during summer
Disease or illness of some kind
Treat and Snacks!
Treats should make up no more than 10% of a chicken’s diet, with the exception being what Lisa Steele calls ‘green treats’, which can be fed freely
Green treats: grass, weeds, lettuce, greens, parsley, swiss chard, berries, and live bugs; basically anything a free roaming chicken will forage.
Healthy Treats:
Fruit; including seeded, pitted, melons, berries, and dried (no added sugar)
Vegetables: gourds/squash, root vegetables, cruciferous vegetables (broccoli, cauliflower, etc), bell peppers, corn, beans, peas, etc.
grain/seed/nuts (in moderation): bread, cereal, cracker, oats, cooked pasta and rice; flax, millet, safflower, sunflower seeds; almonds, cashews, peanuts, walnuts, and popcorn
All treats should be unsalted, have no added sugar, and nuts should be shelled
Meat/protein (in moderation): insects (live or dried), raw or cooked ground beef, cooked chickens (eep!), turkey, lamb, and pork
Seafood
Eggs, raw or cooked (without oil)
Food to Avoid:
Apple seeds (trace amounts of cyanide so better to be safe than sorry)
Asparagus (can make eggs taste bad)
Avocado (contains a toxin called persin)
Beans (dry and uncooked contain lectins, which are toxic to chickens; soaking, cooking, or sprouting eliminates these toxins)
Caffeine (chocolate, coffee, tea, etc)
Citrus (an excess of vitamin C might reduce calcium absorption)
Dairy/yoghurt (chickens cannot digest milk sugars but small amounts of yoghurt can be offered on occasion to boost calcium intake)
Raw eggplant (must be fully mature and cooked to be safe; best to avoid)
Onions (contain thiosulphate, which destroys red blood cells)
Potatoes (contain the toxin solanine, which destroys red blood cells, and can cause diarrhea and heart failure. Cooking does not eliminate this toxin.)
Rhubarb (part of the nightshade family and toxic)
Tomatoes (unripe contain solanine. Once ripe, solanine levels are minimal but still present so best to feed in moderation)
Personally, I offer greens, vegetables, and/or fruits daily, as well as Grubblies (dried soldier fly larvae) for protein. Every few weeks, I offer as many live roaches as the chickens can eat in 5-10 minutes. In the winter, when they need more carbohydrates, I often an afternoon treat of rolled oats and/or scratch grains. If I ever find broken eggs, I feed them back to the flock. I will also offer scrambled or boiled eggs as an occasional treat.
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Why did I choose this topic? August 2021, I lost my Easter Egger hen, Bobby, to heat stroke, which was likely due to obesity.
Heat stroke/stress:
When core body temperature rises to dangerous levels (115F is fatal to chickens)
Age, size, weight, overall condition, access to cool water, air temp and humidity all effect how quickly heat stress occurs
A chicken in the early stages of heat stress will try to move somewhere cooler/shaded (including inside the coop); will pant with their beak open, and will hold their wings away from their body.
Bobby:
She had previously presented as lethargic. A quick exam found that she had a messy/encrusted eye, which I promptly cleaned. She brightened almost immediately so I assumed this was the cause of her lethargy.
Bobby was laying right up to the day she died, which is unusual for obese hens
How do I know, therefore, that she was obese? I performed a necropsy.
Her dead body was noticeably warm/hot to the touch, and her insides were even hotter; it was actually uncomfortable when I reached into her abdominal cavity (necropsy performed about 1 hr after death)
There was so much fat; a huge abdominal pad was immediately apparent, and there was fat on almost all her internal organs
This level of fat would have made it very difficult for her to effectively cool off on her own
How did this happen?
Bobby ate the same diet as my other chickens. After she died, I went out and examined every single hen for signs of obesity, and all were in good condition.
I’ve never seen this level of fat deposit during any of my other necropsies
Bobby free roamed with the flock so was definitely not inactive
Is it possible Bobby was eating vastly more than the other hens? I didn’t see anything to indicate this but I don’t watch them 24/7
Despite how obese she was, she never stopped laying eggs, and the shell quality was always normal
What Now?
Bobby’s death really shook me up, and made me question my flocks’ entire diet.
I looked more closely at the protein and fat content in my feed
I stopped feeding scratch grain and oats on anything but very cold days/nights.
I had developed a habit of offering greens and protein with a little grain in the morning, and then scratch grain before sundown to help them stay warm at night. I now feed them treats once a day between 3-6pm, and focus on greens and low fat protein like Grubblies; no grain.
I have put out an old box fan on very hot/humid days so there is a constant movement of air through the run.
Looking into purchasing shade cloth to cover some of the run (currently covered in one corner with a tarp)
I’m considering offering a pan of shallow water on very hot days for the chickens to stand in to cool off. They might ignore it as most chickens are naturally cautious of water but it’s worth a shot.
We had some very hot days this past summer and so I kept a close eye on all my hens, especially the heavy bodied and super fluffy Orpingtons. Thankfully, the fan seemed to help, and they spent most of their days in the shade. I was extra diligent about keeping ample water available at all times (doubled up on waterers for each coop/run). On very hot days, I fed cooling treats like frozen veggies or berries.
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So that’s my long overdue episode on obesity in chickens! I hope you found it informative. I’m still not sure how Bobby managed to get so overweight compared to the other hens in the flock but at least it led me to thoroughly investigate their diet and activity levels.