Nutrition and stress of indigenous chickens

Why is nutrition important?
If chickens are put in cages or houses, they will not be able to scavenge for the nutrients that they need. Feeding them crushed maize alone will not be enough and they will be unproductive and may even die. Chicks will grow very slowly and will be susceptible to disease. THIS IS WHY IT IS IMPORTANT TO SUPPLEMENT CHICKENS – ESPECIALLY IF THEY ARE CONFINED!
How do you recognise nutritional problems?
Where the chickens have nutrient deficiencies, the farmers will notice that their chickens’ feathers are looking untidy and not smooth. They hang their wings and are listless. They will often start cannibalizing each other. Normally this starts with them pecking feathers of other birds and then pecking at the wounds that form.
Hens with calcium deficiencies will sometimes start eating eggs and may eat old shells that are left in nests after hatching. Feeding boiled eggshells to hens can help prevent egg eating behaviour.
A condition called hard tongue is often experienced by farmers of extensive systems where a hard sheath develops over the tongue from the chicken eating rough grass and plants while it is foraging.This is not life threatening but does seem to reduce the chickens’ ability to eat efficiently. Most farmers pull this sheath off which seems to solve the problem.
STRESS AND IMMUNITY
The immune system keeps the animal healthy. All animals and people have immune systems. The job of the immune system is to fight germs that invade the animal and could cause it to get sick. The immune system is like the animal’s own army, ready at all times to fight invaders that put the animal’s life at risk.
The immune system is found everywhere in the animal’s body. It is made up of millions of little cells that are too small for people to see with their eyes. When germs enter the animal’s body, these immune cells come from all over to attack the germs. If the cells win the battle, the animal stays healthy.
If they lose the battle, the animal may get sick and need treatment. The cells are produced in the bone marrow and then spread around the body in the blood. The immune system can recognise diseases if it has fought these diseases before. With some diseases, this recognition lasts the animal’s whole life. With other diseases, however, the immune system can recognise the disease when it is present often but stops being able to recognise it when the animal hasn’t had it for a long time. ARC Department of Agriculture