It happens that chickens refuse food for no apparent reason. However, there are reasons.
After all, it will not be, in fact, a chicken, an omnivorous creature, just to ignore food.
Some owners, more often - housewives, even practice starvation of chickens, attributing to it curative properties - rejuvenation of livestock and improving egg production.
True, this theory has not received official confirmation and is unlikely to receive it. And the fact that fasting poultry is a disease has already been confirmed by veterinarians.
What is fasting chickens?
At the initial stage of the disease, the chicken gradually loses its appetite, begins to eat worse and less, and then ceases to be interested in food in general. The bird darkens the comb, it loses weight and visual appeal, stops moving and dies as a result.
All this takes place over a very short period. To go to the "other world" because of starvation chicken enough week.
Degree of danger
About where, how and under what circumstances this disease arose, information was not preserved.
However, the degree of danger of starvation of chickens can be determined by the fact how unexpectedly and imperceptibly it penetrates into the house and can destroy the whole flock if the necessary measures are not taken.
The disease is dangerous because birds lack minerals and nutrients. Fasting may cause other diseases that are already infectious.
It is in the power to make everyone who cares about their birds for the owner in the first stage of the disease, strengthening the diet of chickens with vitamins. Otherwise, you can lose, if not all, then most of the livestock. And it will be quite a shame, given that fasting does not apply to infectious diseases and is treated only by attention.
What is the reason?
No matter how paradoxical it may sound, the reason for the refusal of food in the feed itself is hidden. If you fed chickens with state-of-the-art mixtures that contain too much protein, uric acid accumulated in the body of the birds and gout of the internal organs developed.
Symptomatology
The birds, which are once active in the absorption of food, stop approaching the feeder, the growth of young animals slows down, the plumage falls, the chickens fade for a very long time, the color of feathers does not change for the better.
Treatment - in feeding
The method of dealing with such an unpleasant disease as starvation of chickens is to rich and nutritious meals. Some owners of poultry farms are bewildered by such advice: it is necessary to treat chickens, but what if they do not want to eat?
Specialist veterinarians still insist on balancing the diet, add vitamins to the maximum, diversify food (that is, not to offer the same grain to chickens every day) and then they will begin to show an interest in food voluntarily and return to their normal diet after some time.
Moreover, every feeding will be their joy again.
Prevention
To avoid this non-contagious, but extremely unpleasant chicken disease, it’s just that you need to adhere to simple rules that allow chickens to live in comfortable conditions for them.
- First of all, no crowding in the hen house. Chickens should be positioned so that there is a certain amount of space, so that the air does not stagnate, but circulates freely.
- Secondly, chickens must have walking and access to green grass rich in vitamin B.
Fasting Warns and Vitamin A. Therefore, do not spare carrots for chickens, hay flour and beets. Grandmothers in the villages successfully fed their chickens with beet tops and none of the chickens, believe as a verified fact, did not refuse food.
If there is such an opportunity add milk or fish oil to chickens - Excellent means of manifestation of fasting.
Some owners, fearing starvation of chickens, especially in the autumn-winter period, make feed mixtures for birds with the addition of bone meal and fish meal, minced meat and even broth.
Among these are the originals, stocking up for the winter live worms, which the chicken could not get from under the snow, but the prudent owner took care of and provided the hens with such an important delicacy for the birds.
What should be avoided when making the right chicken diet is salt and minimize the consumption of homemade chickens for wheat and corn.
Concomitant diseases
The topic will be incomplete, if you do not remember the so-called starvation satellites. Some of them become the cause of starvation, others - the consequence.
But the fact that they go in the same "harness" is obvious. Therefore, to successfully combat the ailments, it is important to know their symptoms and course.
Gout. Due to excess protein in feed, it is diagnosed as uric acid poisoning. Poisoning occurs suddenly, the main symptom is a rapid change in the color of the comb from red to brownish red.
If such metamorphoses are noticed, immediately take measures for treatment. And then no antibiotics will help - only full fortification.
Avitaminosis
The disease occurs on the same soil as starvation - from a lack of vitamins in the diet. Especially susceptible to avitaminosis chickens.
The requirements of a growing organism are huge, but if the feed does not meet these requirements, the body instead of active growth begins to languish: its general activity, energy exchange, is disturbed, and the chicken simply begins to degrade.
But not only youngsters are susceptible to avitaminosis, they suffer from a lack of vitamins and adults. A deficiency of vitamins A, B, and D turns chickens from adornment of the yard into depressed, lost coordination of movement, unnaturally arched, faded individuals.
Avitaminosis is treated and prevented by the same method - walking, access to natural vitamins, sufficient amount of fresh air and sunlight.
The Pygmy Leghorn is a miniature of the famous Leghorn breed. You can learn about the differences on our website.Violation of feather formation in chickens is also called apteriosis. Read here how to deal with it.
Stress factors
Stress for poultry - this is the strain of the body, which arose in connection with certain circumstances to which the chicken can not adapt.
Among the most dangerous stress factors are malnutrition or lack thereof. Fasting plus a state of anxiety in birds leads to a weakening of the immune system and the appearance of various diseases.
Good chicken - well fed
No self-respecting poultry farmer will not allow starvation of chickens, weakening of poultry immunity and penetration of pathogenic viruses into a weak chicken organism. And for this he has two reasons:
- He always feels his responsibility for those whom he tamed.
- As a practical person, he understands that a full chicken is excellent egg production and high-quality meat to the table.
