Broilers fall on their feet, what to do, how to treat them? This question, full of panic, is often found on forums dedicated to livestock farming. After reading the user responses, we can conclude that most of them do not have the slightest idea about solving this problem. In most cases, broiler chickens fall on their feet due to the fault of the farmer himself. Only in isolated cases is this behavior of chickens associated with a serious illness.
Basically, broilers sit down or fall because the basic rules of their maintenance are not followed. Here's what the common reasons look like:
As you can see from the list, serious diseases are in last place. The remaining points indicate the negligence of the farmer himself. Having understood the main reasons, let's talk about how to treat broilers.
If broiler chickens fall on their feet, call a veterinarian immediately. Perhaps this behavior of birds signals the onset of a dangerous disease.
Only an experienced specialist can determine the disease and prescribe a course of treatment. Never try to diagnose yourself. This can lead to dire consequences.
The fact is that the initial symptoms of some diseases are similar. If you don’t know how to treat birds and simply use medications at random, there is a risk that broilers that fall on their feet will never get up.
If the invited veterinarian did not find any symptoms of dangerous diseases, then you can cope with the problem on your own. And what is typical, without the use of medications.
Try adding crushed chalk or eggshells to your birds' diet. These substances are calcium in its pure form. Most likely, it is due to a lack of calcium that broilers fall on their feet.
Pour more green food into the feeders . Perhaps the birds are deficient in vitamins. It is recommended to include chopped nettle leaves in your diet. This plant contains many nutrients and microelements that are beneficial specifically for chickens.
Try keeping the birds on feed for a while . This is a balanced diet that contains all the necessary substances.
When including vitamin supplements in the diet of broilers, do not overdo it. Excess vitamins in the body of birds cause hypervitaminosis. Treatment with vitamins is best combined with a strict diet.
Some farmers drink vodka to chickens that have fallen on their feet. It is inserted into the throat of young animals using a pipette. They say that after drinking vodka, chickens stand up on their own and have a good appetite. This method of treatment is quite controversial, so decide for yourself whether to use it or not.
You can add tricalcium phosphate to your diet. It contains a large amount of minerals and phosphorus. Its content should not exceed two percent of the daily weight of feed.
“Prevention is better than treatment,” as the popular saying goes. Therefore, it is necessary to take preventive actions from the first day of life of chickens. Firstly, more attention needs to be paid to feeding the young.
For day-old chicks, you can add a little fish oil to the mash. It contains vitamin D2. This will help prevent the development of rickets in chickens.
From about the fifth day of life, include cabbage, beets and carrots in your diet. These are the main sources of vitamins A and E. These vitamins contribute to the development and strengthening of the immune system.
Bone meal, sprouted grains and chalk must be included in the daily diet of broilers.
Secondly, follow the rules for keeping broilers. If birds are not intended for meat, there is no point in keeping them in cages. This especially applies to chickens. They need to move a lot.
It is best if there are no more than three chickens per square meter. Birds destined for meat can be kept in more cramped conditions, but they should not be overcrowded either.
Birds must be outdoors. Ultraviolet rays contain the amount of vitamin D necessary for their health. If you do not have the opportunity to take your birds for a walk and they are kept in a dark room, then the lack of nutrients can be compensated with the help of vitamin complexes.
Don’t forget about ventilation in the room where birds are kept. Lack of ventilation leads to increased humidity and dampness in the chicken coop. And this, in turn, serves as an ideal environment for the development of pathogenic bacteria.
Broilers are very demanding about cleanliness, but by cleaning the chicken coop daily, you can harm the birds. The fact is that birds receive a large amount of microelements and useful substances from the floor, pecking food from the litter.
We hope that this article was as informative as possible and you were able to get an answer to the question of what to do if broilers fall on their feet. Follow the basic rules for keeping broilers and you will never encounter this problem.
Breeding meat breeds of chickens is considered quite profitable and low-cost business , which is resorted to by both farmers on small farms and owners of large poultry factories. Most meat crosses, the most popular for breeding, gain weight suitable for slaughter in the first two to four months of age, which is why feed costs are not very long. In addition, broilers are more hardy, the level of resistance to disease is higher than that of other varieties of chicken. However, it often happens that broilers begin to fall on their feet . Why does this happen and what to do in such situations?
Most often, chickens fall on their feet solely due to the fault of the owner , and only in rare cases can the cause be a disease. The most common factors for this phenomenon are associated with violations committed during the keeping of poultry. Keeping chickens is not only a profitable business, but also requires a responsible approach from the very beginning, from the moment the chicks are purchased. The main mistakes that breeders make when breeding young animals:
Broilers fall to their feet
If, from a medical point of view, no causes of this condition are found, you can help the bird yourself.
In order to find a way out, you should analyze the situation. For example, if it is clear that the planting density is greater than acceptable, then most likely this is the reason. If, in order to save money, chicks were given cheap food without vitamin supplements , the bird’s behavior can be attributed to a lack of nutrients in the body. Finally, if the livestock is kept in a dark room without access to the sun , rickets may be to blame. Measures that can be taken in such cases:
The condition when young broilers cannot stand on their own paws is easier to prevent than to look for causes and urgently take action. A number of factors are important for the normal development of chicks:
It is very important that the chicken coop is not only reasonably clean, but also has the required amount of light, there is no mold, and the room is well ventilated. In this case, drafts should be avoided . Newly hatched babies at first need additional heating in the region of 27-32 degrees. Due to the low temperature, the chickens sit on their feet and die.
It is advisable to feed young animals with compound feed from the first days. This will avoid problems associated with vitamin deficiency and, as a result, the bird falling on its feet. If it is impossible to fatten broilers with ready-made combined feeds, it is necessary to independently enrich the diet with vitamins and minerals. To do this, for day-old chicks , chopped greens are mixed in on the third day, on the fifth day of life , then the food is enriched with calcium using chalk, bone meal and small shells.
Experienced farmers say that vodka is an excellent way to get babies under a month old on their feet. The method has been widespread for a long time and has been widely used among people since time immemorial. If the chick falls on its paws and does not want to get up, they simply put a few drops of vodka in its beak , after which the baby soon gets up and his appetite awakens. The method is controversial, raising a number of questions, but, according to those who have used this technique, it is very effective.
Chickens have vodka dripped into their beaks
At one month of age, the condition of broiler chickens, when they cannot stand on their feet, is most often caused by rickets, unless there is a severe infectious disease behind it. Young animals are treated with the addition of tricalcium phosphate to their food , as well as fish oil or synthetic vitamin D3. In the absence of serious reasons that have caused the inability of birds to stand on their own paws, tricalcium phosphate, due to the content of phosphorus and calcium, has a beneficial effect on the body of birds in a short time. Tricalcium phosphate is added at a dosage of 2% of the total weight of the daily feed.
In older birds, a common reason for chickens being unable to stand on their feet may be arthritis of the joints. Ampicillin is used for treatment at a rate of 15-20 mg/1 kg of body weight . The drug can be added to food or water for 5 days. Treatment is carried out only if it is reliably known that the condition of broilers is due to arthritis. Only a veterinarian can make an accurate diagnosis, establish the causes and recommend treatment.
Arthritis of the joints in broilers
The main factor to avoid chickens settling on their feet is a competent approach to raising broilers, taking into account all the details. Proper care, good nutrition, compliance with maintenance standards and timely preventive measures can prevent mortality, ensuring high profitability of poultry breeding.
Many poultry farmers tell us that birds, mainly chickens, “sit” on their feet in winter. The chickens walk with difficulty, sit more ruffled, eat poorly, become weaker, in a word, get sick - no one knows why. And the point here is improper feeding. Some owners will mix whatever edible food they can get their hands on for the chickens, or throw in a handful of grain and consider their duty completed. But chicken, just like other poultry, requires balanced feeding. And, of course, you should never forget about vitamins and mineral supplements.
Chickens, turkeys, ducks, and geese on home farms in winter often suffer from non-contagious diseases, which are accompanied by enlarged leg joints, swollen sole skin, and sagging wings. With a mild illness, the bird may seem quite normal: eating food, drinking water, laying eggs. In growing young animals, the disease is often more severe: the legs become bent as a result of inflammation of the joints, and then the bird moves with difficulty, tries to sit more, and limps. In addition, bone formation is disrupted, and the keel bone is often bent. In chickens and ducklings, the beak sometimes softens. In most cases, a sick bird has to be culled, since it turns out to be underdeveloped and unsuitable for further maintenance.
The main cause of poultry disease is poor-quality and unbalanced feeding, when the need for vitamins and minerals is not met. To prevent the occurrence of all these disorders, it is necessary to include feed containing vitamins and minerals in the poultry diet.
In the summer, a good source is freshly cut grass, and in the winter - grass meal, green hay made from clover and alfalfa. It is advisable that the dried herb is stored in a barn or attic so that the vitamins it contains are not destroyed by light. Good results are obtained by storing the dried mass in plastic bags, barrels and other containers. There is a lot of vitamin K, provitamin A and other vital substances for the growth, development and productivity of poultry in greens, but in winter pumpkin, beets, carrots, cabbage and other vegetables, which they readily peck, can become a source of vitamins and microelements. Good food and potatoes (boiled only). Drain the water after cooking, as it may contain poison - solanine.
As a rule, it is not necessary to give artificially produced vitamins to birds, because this can increase the cost of keeping them. To prevent impaired bone formation and inflammation of the joints, mineral supplements are needed: slaked lime, chalk, shells, eggshells, wood ash, bone meal. Shells are especially rich in calcium and therefore most useful for bone formation. To prepare bone meal, large animal bones are burned in an oven and added in ground form to feed.
To enrich feed with B vitamins, yeast mixtures of flour and sprouting whole grains are used. For 1 kg of dry mixture you need to take 10-30 g of yeast. They are diluted in heated water and mixed with food. For 1 kg of mixture, 1.5 liters of water are consumed. Within 6 hours at room temperature, the yeast actively grows and enriches the mass with B vitamins. You can add a little boiled potatoes, beets, and grated carrots to it. Good results are obtained by feeding grain sprouted for 1-2 days in barrels or vats. This food (5-10% of the diet) is especially useful during the breeding season, when poultry farmers collect eggs for hatching young animals.
In some cases, inflammation of the joints in birds occurs due to infectious diseases (mycoplasmosis, paratyphoid fever, pasteurellosis). In these cases, it is necessary to use antibiotics: tetramycin, enteroseptol, streptomycin, which are added to the food or administered through the beak in bread crumb for 7-10 days until recovery. Potassium permanganate is added to drinking water (until it turns slightly pink). Once a month, it is advisable to disinfect the poultry house, feeders, drinkers, and perches with a clarified solution of bleach or chloramine.
Study your chickens, and do not ignore what you learn . For example, we noticed pugnacious, pugnacious birds in a flock. They are the strongest in the herd. However, experiments by scientists have shown that cocky chickens lay eggs worse. The point here is this: they are constantly consumed by concern about how not to lose their privileged position. And there are many privileges: the best place is at the feeder, on the perch, and in general, do whatever you want.
And the chicken is worried that a more agile and powerful rival would not be found and would not seize power. If you separate the dominant hen from the flock and put it in a cage, she will lay eggs better. There are several contenders for her vacant seat. All the same, some bird will become the leader and, due to the hassle, the flight will also become worse. Subordination in a chicken flock is inevitable.
It's easier with quiet people. They won’t be able to seize power anyway, so there’s nothing to be nervous about, they just rush on and on.
Poultry farmers sometimes complain that their chickens' legs hurt. They fly off their perch and sit for a long time, as if their legs were broken. This is most likely due to uncomfortable perches. The chickens sit on overly thin perches, tightly grasping them with their fingers so as not to fall. When they fly off, they splash on the floor and for a long time cannot recover from the bruise, especially if the floor is hard, without bedding.
Birds have trouble sleeping on uncomfortable perches.
It is better to make a perch from a quadrangular or rectangular (rather than round) cross-section, equal to half the length of the open toes from the beginning of the big toe to the end of the middle one. Some poultry farmers believe that it is more comfortable for chickens to sit on a perch not with a smooth surface, but with a lumpy surface. They may be right, check it out in your coop.
One chicken should have 15-20 centimeters of perch length . One perch is placed at a distance of 35 centimeters from the other, but not one above the other, otherwise everyone will try to occupy the top one. The height from the floor should be 60-80 centimeters.
In blizzards and severe cold, chickens are not allowed to walk in the snow. If you make a small shed at the chicken coop, then the chickens could exercise any day. Watch the chickens when they fly from the roost, and you will notice that the first thing they do is dive headfirst into the feeder to see if there is anything edible left, and then they certainly head to the waterer and drink. Therefore, in an insulated chicken coop, water is placed in the evening, and in an uninsulated chicken coop, warm water is taken out early.
Do not think that the bird will peck during the day of snow. Snow still won't replace water. Experienced poultry farmers know that chickens that quench their thirst with water rather than snow begin laying eggs earlier. If you just put a jar of water for drinking, the chickens, digging in the litter, will quickly clog it. It is better to arrange the drinking bowl on an elevated platform - a wooden stand 60 centimeters high. The legs for the stand are made from 5x5 centimeter bars. Around the drinking bowl there is a platform on which the bird jumps.
You can protect a filled drinking bowl from freezing like this: wrap it with some insulating material and add warm water. It is even safer to immerse a wooden circle of slightly smaller diameter than the drinking bowl. While swimming, it prevents the water from freezing. 3-4 round holes are made in the mug through which the bird drinks.
Take a closer look at whether the feeders in your chicken coop are comfortable and whether all the laying hens and roosters have enough space during feeding. To prevent birds from scattering food, the troughs are loaded to no more than a third of the depth. For young animals, the feeder can have lower side walls than for chickens, so that the chickens do not have to dodge when getting food. Chickens will not climb into the feeders if rotating bars are attached above the troughs. For 20 chickens, a feeder with a length of 110, a width of 24, and a height of 13 centimeters is sufficient. A feeder for 30 chickens is made of approximately the same size.
For mineral feed, a trough with several compartments is adapted: for gravel, lime (you can use old plaster), shells, for greens - a mesh bucket.
In winter, the bird needs to be in the fresh air, especially on sunny days . After all, the sun is the best healer. Under its rays, chickens produce vitamin D, which is called growth vitamin. Therefore, it is better to place chicken coops with the facade on the sunny side.
In winter, they carefully monitor the cleanliness of the chicken coop. A dirty, untidy room usually has bad air. It has a bad effect on the health of the bird. To maintain clean air, install an exhaust pipe in the roof of the barn, covering it with a lid, but so that there is space for the polluted air to escape. The exhaust pipe should be located away from the perches so as not to cool the bird. On particularly cold days it is closed from the inside.
It will make it easier to maintain cleanliness in the barn and install floors under perches. Then the droppings will fall not on the floor, but on the floor. From there it is easy to sweep it away with a broom and take it out of the house away from him. Sweep the droppings into a specially made wide scoop made of sheet iron or simply onto a wide piece of plywood. After removing the droppings, the roosting areas are sprinkled with a thin layer of dry sand. If it is not there, then with sunflower husks, finely chopped straw and, finally, earth. This will make cleaning easier, since the droppings will not stick to the boards, but will quickly roll off, and the floors will remain clean for a long time.
In a word, equip the poultry house yourself, without relying on anyone. A young poultry farmer can do this. Another thing is building a new chicken coop. You can’t do this without the help of adults, and only if they help you in purchasing materials and in the most complex work: laying a foundation, installing a frame, a roof. Finish the rest yourself.
The location for the poultry house is chosen to be dry . If the area is damp, then it would be a good idea to make an artificial embankment.
In a well-made poultry house, your chickens will be warm and comfortable.
The benefits and ease of caring for an ordinary laying hen are increasing the number of livestock kept in numerous households every day. The fact that chickens are not picky about housing conditions and feed has long been a proven and well-known fact. But it is precisely the mass production and unpretentiousness of poultry that allows some farms and private poultry houses to violate all conceivable rules of feeding and maintenance. Causing not only the death of their own livestock, but also wider, massive outbreaks of epidemics. And, of course, the decisive factor that directly affects the quality of keeping hens is a long and cold winter.
Harsh winter time tests the strength of not only humans, but also domestic chickens. With the first frost, the poultry's diet and conditions in the chicken coop begin to deteriorate. It is winter, by weakening the body and reducing immunity, that causes the growth of various diseases in poultry. So what do laying hens get sick with in winter?
Types of diseases characteristic of laying hens:
Poultry keepers keeping laying hens should be well aware of the symptoms of diseases in chickens that occur in winter and methods of treating them. But it is important to know that you should not diagnose diseases yourself and determine symptoms from photographs. It is better to consult a veterinarian for an accurate diagnosis. In any case, it is necessary to carefully monitor the livestock and, at the first suspicion, not delay treatment.
Video: diseases of laying hens in winter.
There are several most common diseases that laying hens are exposed to in winter. Let's talk in more detail about each of the diseases.
It is a fairly common infectious disease that can quickly infect the entire population of laying hens. Typically, disease outbreaks in laying hens occur with the arrival of the cold season. High humidity and low temperature in the chicken coop create comfortable conditions for the virus.
Transmitted by airborne droplets, the virus multiplies in the mucous membrane of the respiratory system and cloaca of the chicken, causing irritation, swelling and inflammation.
Infectious laryngotracheitis is treatable. Tromexine copes with it quite successfully. On the first day, use 2 g, and on subsequent days, 1 g per liter of water. The drug should be given until the sick bird has fully recovered, subsequently vaccinating the entire flock.
Bronchopneumonia in laying hens can begin as an independent disease or be a consequence of a cold and is an inflammation of the bronchi of the bird.
Signs of bronchopneumonia in laying hens are:
Often, a bird suffering from bronchopneumonia spends the entire day lying down, not paying attention to what is happening around it. Such chickens must be completely isolated from the rest of the population. Inflammation of the bronchi is unpleasant, but not the most serious disease. Most poultry houses overcome the disease quite effectively and without loss of livestock.
Treatment of bronchopneumonia in laying hens:
The main prevention against the disease is maintaining optimal air humidity and comfortable temperature conditions in the chicken coop.
Leaving hens in the cold for a long time can lead to frostbite. The first things to suffer are the toes, comb and earrings. Mild frostbite causes the affected areas to turn pale and subsequently turn blue. More severe cases cause the blood supply to be disrupted, the affected tissues turn black and die.
Please note: Rubbing and treating the affected areas with Vaseline or goose fat helps reduce the effects of frostbite in birds.
Important! You can let laying hens out for a walk in winter on a sunny, not frosty day. The bird should not be outside for more than two hours.
Chicken typhus or white diarrhea is a common infectious disease that affects the intestines of laying hens during the winter. The incubation period of the disease lasts from 1 to 5 days.
Symptoms of the disease pullorosis:
Infection with pullorosis occurs through airborne droplets through food. In the droppings of sick birds, the causative agent of fowl typhus, Salmonella pullorum, remains active for several months.
Treatment of pullorosis in laying hens:
Tetracycline, biomycin, and furazolidone also help in the fight against the disease. If antibiotics do not help, all infected birds are destroyed by completely disinfecting the chicken coop.
Note! A chicken hatched from an egg laid by an infected chicken is also a carrier of pullorosis and in most cases becomes ill immediately after birth.
The disease, which affects all poultry, can also be dangerous for humans. In chicks and young birds it occurs in a very acute stage. In adult laying hens it takes a chronic form.
The pathological process caused by E. coli mainly affects the lungs of the bird. When the sick person moves, loud, hoarse breathing is clearly audible.
Symptoms of colibacillosis in laying hens:
Important! In the chronic stage in adults, the symptoms of the disease become blurred and only an experienced veterinarian can diagnose colibacillosis.