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Greenleaf Farms

Ameraucanas and Araucanas on the range
(Forest City, Pennsylvania)

Using liquid milk instead of water to supplement your chickens

Skim milk may be used in place of water as a drink for poultry, it is always cheaper than whole milk unless one lives on a farm with milch cows; goat milk is always an expensive product unless again you are literally swimming in it.

Milk that sours during the day and turns to a semisolid form (clabber) is still satisfactory for supplying the moisture needs of poultry. 

Giving chickens nothing but milk as a drink is equivalent to the use of about thirteen pounds of dried milk in each hundred pounds of feed. This practice will reduce the other feed consumption by about 13 per cent. It also will supply all of the protein feedstuff needed for the laying, breeding, or fattening ration. 

Liquid skim milk and buttermilk are generally cheaper than the condensed and dried forms when compared on the basis of the same solid content, because the evaporation of water from milk is an expensive process. 

Condensed milk, also known as semisolid, is milk in which part of the water has been removed. It exists in a semisolid or paste form. Condensed milk varies greatly in moisture content. The products on the market generally contain 26 to 30 per cent solids, the remaining 70 to 74 per cent being water. The solids in condensed milk have about the same nutritive value as those in liquid or dried milk.

A gallon of liquid skim or buttermilk is equal to 3 pounds of condensed milk, which is very cost prohibitive to feed because the cost of removing all the water and the can.  Plus Carnation, has historically marketed as a substitute for heavy cream, see this ad from the classic Burns & Allen tv show.

Instead if you desire to feed your chooks milk, look for dried skim milk or dried buttermilk that is marketed for farm feeding purposes.  Typically more buttermilk than skim is used as most of the skim milk produced is marketed for human consumption.  The Vitamin G (B12) content of both kinds of milk will vary as well.  Remember Vitamin G is an essential vitamin for them.


Suki
06:00 PM EDT

How chickens digest their feed

How chickens digest their food.... Glucose is burned in the cells for heat and energy production, the end products being heat or energy, carbon dioxide, and water (Fig. 118). The process may be represented by means of a chemical equation, thus: chemically C6H1206 + 602 = A + 6C02 + 6H20 aka Glucose Oxygen Heat Carbon Water or dioxide energy

An excess of digested carbohydrates, over and above that stored as glycogen, is transformed into body and egg fat.

Fats are gradually removed from the blood stream and stored as adipose tissue mainly, under the skin in the abdominal region, along the intestines, and in the egg. They serve as a reserve supply of heat and energy. In case of inadequate food supply, as soon as the glycogen is used up, the fats are burned with the same end products as formed by the burning of carbohydrates.

As long as fats are present, the proteins are protected from consumption. Amino acids, absorbed into the blood stream, are used to build new body tissues, rebuild worn-out tissue, and to form the white and much of the yolk of eggs. Excess amino acids may be used for heat and energy purposes or transformed into fats as well.

Undigestible food (i.e. fiber), intestinal bacteria, digestive juices, bile, worn-out intestinal lining tissue, and mineral material resulting from body metabolism end up as fecal matter. Some of the unabsorbed and undigested contents of the small intestine back up into the ceca. A little absorption may take place there as well .

The ceca contracts and forces the material out into the large intestine about once a day.

As the undigested food passes along through the large intestine, some of the water is reabsorbed into the body circulation.

The undigested material is voided from the large intestine into the cloaca and from it to the outside of the body as feces. The mixture of feces and urine voided by birds is known as manure and it contains about 1.44 per cent nitrogen, .99 per cent phosphoric acid, and .39 per cent potash.

A hen will produce about forty-three pounds of manure a year. It is of considerable importance as a fertilizer and can be aged in a compost pile for use in the garden or as a soil amendment.

The urine, OTOH,  consists mainly of nitrogenous waste products and water resulting from body metabolism processes.

Liquid waste products pass out of the blood stream into the kidney tubules as the blood passes through the capillaries of the kidneys. The material passes from the kidney through the ureters to the cloaca, where it is excreted as urine. As the liquid urine passes along through the ureters, in the region of the large intestine, much of the water in it is reabsorbed into the body circulation. The urine is generally a white pasty material which is mixed with, and coats, the droppings.

Suki
01:58 PM EDT

Water and young chicks

Water plays a highly important part in plant and animal life. It is a chemical constituent of feedstuffs, fowls, and eggs and constitutes from 55 to 78 per cent of the live weight of chickens.

Young birds, like young plants, have higher moisture content than older ones as water softens and hydrolyzes feed in the processes of digestion.  That is important as  they don't have large enough mouths to swallow feed, hence why chick feed is always more pulverized than layer.

Water carries digested food to all parts of the body and waste products to the points of elimination. It  controls the  body temperature by absorbing the heat of cell reactions and by vaporizing moisture for excretion by way of the air sacs and lungs. It also serves as a lubricant for joints, muscles, and other body tissues. Water generally constitutes from 5 to 12 per cent of air-dried grains and other feedstuff fed to poultry.

It is also formed in the body as an end product of the oxidation or burning of digested food, because of this a liberal quantity of water or liquid milk, which is about 90 per cent water, should be kept before poultry at all times. 

Suki
10:23 AM EDT

Hatching Time & Double Yolks

So its hatching time...some tips to remember:

Double-yolked eggs do not hatch. Embryos may develop in such an egg until they are near the hatching day. The reason is that the chicks are too cramped as there is not enough space for respiration and movement in the pipping process, so toss them out!  So how do you know?  Well some go by the size of the egg, though that is not trustworthy.  Instead it is best to candle them.  On tinted eggs, like blue eggs, you need a very strong candler.  I found one on eBay that does the trick that was recommended for Marans.  It will show one or two yolks in the egg so you know which to toss.

Suki
10:16 AM EDT
 

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