Keel bone deformities

[casportpony]

Interestingly, I have seen the "s" shaped keel in a few of my larger chickens, but never in peafowl, turkeys, guineas, bantams, or ducks, so perhaps it's a combination of things? the study did mention that the deformities can be like what I have seen, and that can also be like what the OP is seeing.

 

[AshlyMommaWard]

Hmm to both of you! I just looked up rickets and I'm not sure about a nutritional deficiency possibility. I do mix my own feed but I add in some chicken scratch to the mix of grains I use. In addition, they get a good sized bowl of kitchen scraps daily. Yesterday they got all the bones, skin, etc from a large batch of bone broth. I cook it until the bones are crush-able and then smash them before giving it to the chickens. Plus, they get lots of egg shells and I've always seen him getting a good share of those shells. If there is an egg in the nest with a crack or hole in it, it goes straight to the food dish.

Up until recently, they'd been free-ranging most of the day. After the predator took two birds in 3 days is when we decided to keep them locked up most of the day until evening when we can watch them while we spend time outside as well.

I appreciate your help too. We've been keeping chickens for just over a year now and until recently, hadn't had any problems.

I'll come straight out with the fact that I have no knowledge base on mixing one's own chicken feed. I know a good deal on fermenting store bought feed, but nothing on mixing your own. With that in mind, how long have you been mixing your own feed? It's very possible that you absolutely know what you're doing and have a perfect ration, and I don't intend on stepping on toes.. but.. while you did mention a great source of protein given recently in the form or chicken/broth/bones, is there any chance that as he is your only "at least part Jersey Giant" cockerel maybe he's just not getting enough of something to help him grow through this major growth age for him? Calcium is important for bone growth, but so are a lot of other things... Jerseys are huge birds, as I'm sure you know, since he's hatched of your stock, I'm guessing you have a hen, since your other thread mentioned a Langshan (if I remember correctly) cock.
Maybe there is something missing in his diet that predisposed him to an injury?
Maybe not. Heck if I know. What I do know, is that if your goal of mixing your own ration is to save money on feed, you should most definitely look into fermenting chicken feed. The organisms in fermented feed partially break down nutrients, making them more bio available for poultry. Causes the birds to eat less (savings), drink less because fermented feed (ff) is wet (less work filling watered). And poop less! There's a wonderful thread on here with massive amounts of scientific information, techniques and testimonies if you're interested.
Your daughter sounds wonderful by the way, what an awesome helper!
I hope this is an isolated event for you and your birds do well, your coop expansion sounds great and will likely help tremendously with most behavioral problems you're dealing with.
I apologize for the rambling nature of my posts, I have three small children and get distracted 1000 times every post.

 

[maryleo9]

Sorry it's a long one!

Haha Ashlymamaward! I have two not-so-small-anymore children and I spend my days home-making, homeschooling and homesteading! My son is almost as tall as me and it makes me a little sad. He's 11 and my daughter is almost 9. They both have a goal of building smaller chicken coops and having their own flocks and selling the eggs. They have to design them, pay for the materials, etc so I don't see it happening for a couple years and I'll count it as some school Thanks for the memory of our sweet Langshan! He, unfortunately passed away suddenly during the first heat wave last summer. He was alive and acting normally when I looked out the window and then less than an hour later we found him dead in front of the coop. No marks from an attack so we're guessing it was a heart attack.

Mr. Cheep very well could be full Jersey because our first batch of chicks included a male and female Jersey Giant as well as a second rooster that is a Partridge Rock. We only had 7-8 birds old enough for the boys to mate with at the time though we had 25 chickens total. The Partridge Rock (Tasty) hogged the girls but Giant was much more reserved and I only saw him mate a couple times with our other Jersey Giant...they were bought as meat birds so they got names like Tasty or we named them after their breed so our Jersey Giants became Jersey and Giant. The boys got shipped off to a couple new farms to breed all they want and my girls got their feathers back.Our remaining Jersey has been doing well. She's one of the top birds in the flock and appears to be fit and healthy and not losing weight.

I did my last post on this thread yesterday then went outside and let everybody out early. It was a nice sunny day so I spent it working on the coop foundation. Right now that's digging into the hillside to create a much larger level spot.Dig, dig, break up clods of dirt and repeat...while the chickens wait next to me patiently to grab the next worm I unearth. I watched the interactions of the chickens, especially in terms of the Mr. Cheep (we named the two chicks Peep and Cheep until we knew if they were roosters because my husband doesn't want too much crowing) and found there is a golden sex-link that he is especially afraid of. The other hens seem to leave him alone but she'll come up to him and grab the feathers on his head and yank as he tries to run away! I pulled her off him twice yesterday. He was just sitting with Blackie minding his own business.

For feed, I've mixed out feed the entire time we've had chickens. I have tried fermenting but with all the other chores I frequently forgot to grab more feed and bring it up to the house for the next batch. There's just not enough counter space for it right now either. We do have mice and rats so I'm not leaving it out in the shed to provide them with more food. If I can figure out a rodent proof system that I can keep in the shed I'll do the fermenting again as I did like it. I soak most of the grains for the family and so I was doing the same for the birds. I gave our chicks the chick crumble to start out with and when we got close to the bottom of the 10 pound bag, that's when I'd begin mixing small amounts of the home-mixed feed with it. Homemade mix is usually 50# each of barley, rye, wheat, oats, and whole corn. Sometimes the feed store doesn't have whole grains for the barley, rye, wheat or oats and I'll get it rolled, or whatever way it's available. To this, I'll add 40# of black oil sunflower seeds and usually a 50# bag of wild bird food (I said scratch earlier but I actually rarely add scratch, mostly the wild bird food), millet or milo. The bantam really likes the smaller stuff that's in the bird food and it adds just a little more variety. Overall, I'm mixing #300+ of feed in one go and that lasts me about 6 weeks in the winter and 8 weeks in the summer. The new coop will allow me to keep the feed in the coop and a shelf where I can put the fermentation buckets. I have plans for a sprouting system as well for once the new coop and runs are built.

After thinking about what you all have said yesterday, I think what's happened is this: When the chickens were free-ranging all day every day, things were fine and I was able to go without the grit and oyster shell additions because they were getting it from their environment. They were largely confined during a good portion of the winter due to them laying their eggs everywhere but the coop and predators (otherwise their favorite time to be out is when it's raining). With this confinement, I neglected to supplement their diet with what they were no longer foraging for. To correct this, I will be going to the feed store and grabbing the grit and oyster shells. I also began doing private feedings of Cheep especially but also Blackie and our Bantam. I'm mixing some ground beef with raw eggs, shell included. He ate a large portion and left a little bit for Blackie. They will, of course, also be getting the grit and oyster.

Thank you so much for your help ladies. I did see some improvement in him last night and I'm beginning to think that maybe there's nothing wrong with his keel and it's just more prominent because he's lost weight. I put him onto our lowest perch (about 10 inches high) last night and he hopped onto the top of the nesting boxes himself. I put Blackie next to him and hopefully they stayed there all night. I'll be working with my birds and hopefully helping them improve their condition. Fortunately, most of them seem nice and heavy for their sizes and are active and acting normally. We've got a very mixed flock since I wanted to try out many breeds in order to see which ones we liked best..and so it's easier to tell them apart!

 

[AshlyMommaWard]

I'm not surprised that your main aggressor is a sex link. My first birds (as an adult) a couple years ago contained a st run batch of 30+ chicks and over 12 different breeds and mixes. Same reasoning, wanted to see what I liked. I separated the cockerels to a bachelor pad and listed them for sale, with the intent to process any left over. I ended up giving away, no, begging they take her, a black sex link pullet with a pair of cockerels. She was absolutely viscous, I saw peace in my young flock for the first time that day. The buyer was looking for cockerels to put with a flock of adult barred rock hens, he bought two Dominique X Easter Egger cockerels and took the pullet. Hope a flock of grown girls put her in her place, but I doubt it, she was retched.
Is the gold sex link the main aggressor with the other two also? I cull for nasty temperaments in my flock, it makes everyone so much happier when you eliminate a bully!
Homesteading and homeschooling, sounds as if you're living my dream. My husband and I have a strategic plan that should have us back on a larger plat of our own land in about a year, this living in town thing is smothering us both. Granted, a town of 650, but inside city limits none the less, on a measly 1/3 acre. "Allowed" 6 female chickens, with another 20+ rules to follow so I don't ruin my neighbors lives with chickens.

still better than when we bought this house last year, chickens weren't allowed. I had to get my mom started and live vicariously through her since then.
I'm so glad you're seeing improvement in Cheep and hope the improvement continues!
Best wishes.

 

[maryleo9]

This morning I took "The Three" out for some relaxation in the morning sun while I worked on the new coop space. Two hours later (I only meant to work a few minutes!) I put them all back in. I ATTEMPTED to put Cheep by the water to get a drink but he was immediately attacked by a black sex-link this time. Back story on the sex links is that when they were the youngest birds (we buy in groups of 4-6) they stayed in the goat shed for a couple months. We bought one goat to start with and were trying to wait on the other to get bred before bringing her home. Goat one just really needed company so we stuck the sex-links in with her. Needless to say, we ended up bringing home goat two early and unbred . The sex links have always mostly hung out with each other and I guess now they're starting to bully the boy. Then again, maybe they're getting him more now because he's getting special treatment. Blackie will fight back if anybody tries to move her. Salt is just too small for anybody to notice her...unless she scoots up to the wrong chicken on the roost at night. I usually hold her until everybody else is situated then put her next to one of the nicer ones.

I'll keep hoping that your family is able to get back onto some land you can do what you want with right on schedule...or sooner!

It's changed a LOT since this picture was taken but this is the hillside we're working with. If you can see the two small stakes sticking up on the left-hand side of the screen, that's about the level that we're putting the new coop and run on...after leveling off the 16 x 50 foot section.

 

[Grace11]

Just because a bird has spurs does not make it an automatic rooster! i have at least 3 hens that have bigger spurs than my rooster. And Spurs generally take quite a while to get to any size...

 

[maryleo9]

Grace11 It would be really great if we found that he was really a she! At least he's improving already and moving around more. He's able to jump up onto the lower roost then onto the top of the nesting boxes by himself. Unless we see or hear proof one way or another before we get our new coop built, he's going into the brooder section for a few days to see if we get an egg or not.

 

[mymilliefleur]

Grace11 It would be really great if we found that he was really a she! At least he's improving already and moving around more. He's able to jump up onto the lower roost then onto the top of the nesting boxes by himself. Unless we see or hear proof one way or another before we get our new coop built, he's going into the brooder section for a few days to see if we get an egg or not.

Why don't you post a picture of cheep? At five months we should be able to sex him for you.

 

[maryleo9]

This (now 100% confirmed) rooster is very camera shy and while I tried to get a picture of him to post, most of them came out blurred because he kept running away! Obviously that also means his health has improved. He's doing all of his roosterly duties (except the crowing) but still gets chased off by several of the ladies. He sent up the alarm while I was outside working on the coop area yesterday and all the hens stopped and looked around. A couple minutes later 4 very young tom turkeys came to join us in front of the coop. We don't encourage the turkeys but we don't try and stop them from coming around either. I really don't mind his lack of crowing because when roo begins crowing before the alarm clock in the mornings then they've got to go.

As for the inbreeding issue, I think I've got that one figured out. The new coop will have a brooder pen that can double as a breeding pen for selective breeding. We'll pair him up with hens we KNOW couldn't have been his mama and incubate those eggs. All other eggs from the main coop will go to the fridge for eating. At the time he was made, we only had 7 hens of mating age. 2 of those are now gone. One hen is his sister so we won't breed them because they may share a father. That leaves 11 of our current hens that he can breed with. It's a good thing we've only got a couple duplicates as far as breeds so we can tell them all apart! We may add in a bantam rooster eventually but for now, Cheap is it.

Thank you ladies!